More Happiness

Maintaining any form of relationship takes work but marrying another person and making all major decisions with them, requires even more work than any other relationship. Each couple is made up of two unique individuals, who have opinions, desires, passions, weaknesses, and insecurities. How is it possible to create one life together when each person is so different? How can anyone resolve conflict? 

One very helpful tool is Dr. Burn’s Five Secrets of Effective Communication. This is especially helpful when tempers are running high, and you’re worried you might say something to hurt your partner. 

The first step is called the disarming technique. This is when you seek some truth is whatever your partner is saying. This helps show your partner that you’re a team, and that you don’t to be arguing, but you want to find a solution. The second step is empathy. You acknowledge verbally how they feel and then paraphrase what they are saying to you and ask if you understand them correctly. This helps assure your partner that you’re listening and taking seriously what they’re saying to you. It also ensures that both partners are on the same page of how the upset one is feeling. The third step is inquiry. During this step you ask gentle questions to learn more about what your partner is thinking and feeling. 

The fourth and fifth steps are categorized together under self-expression skills. The fourth step to use “I feel” statements to express what you’re feeling. Be sure to avoid expressing how your partner is influencing the way you feel and instead focus simply on how you feel, using the phrase, “I feel.” Finally, the fifth step is called stroking, where you find something to compliment about your partner. This helps to convey your respect for your partner, even if you’re upset with them in this exact moment. 

Using these five steps help to resolve conflict without any major fights or hurting one another. These steps may sound hard, and honestly, they are, but to have a truly great relationship that requires hard. It requires us to rise above our emotions and our natural inclinations. It’s easy to get mad and say hurtful things. It might even feel good in the moment, and it might even be true or justified. But that doesn’t strengthen a marriage, and angry, spiteful, words can damage a relationship for years. It only takes a second to destroy years of trust and devotion for one another. Burn’s five steps help us to rise above the normal. They help us to strengthen relationships, even when we don’t agree with our partner. 

One other topic I wanted to address in this post was also including the power of God into our relationships. It’s so powerful to pray with those you love, including your spouse. It’s powerful to pray for the gift of forgiveness or charity or patience. It’s power for your relationship to receive forgiveness from God, and to become a better person through His power. As I mentioned above, having an exceptional marriage isn’t easy or natural. But we’re trying to be better than the natural man, and we do that through God. 

God can also help us to make decisions as a couple. God is our loving Heavenly Father. He loves you more than you can even comprehend. He loves your spouse in the same way. He wants both of you to be happy and has a plan for your lives. Who better then, to ask for advice. Ask Him what you should be doing, and He will tell you. This is true for big things like moving or getting a new job, or small things like how to love your spouse better. He will tell you what you need to know. It may be scary to give up your plans and to follow His, but I can guarantee that His are better. More happiness awaits you as you follow Him.