Marriage Series: Marital Conflict and Understanding Perspetive
By Kenneth R. Waldron, PhD and Allan R. Koritzinsky, JD[1]
Introduction
Cassie and Mark marry. They are in love. They have dated long enough to believe that they know one another and are looking forward to a life together. They have discussed important topics, such as having children. They are aware that many marriages end up going south but are optimistic. They have already had their “first argument,” which ended with laughter and a feeling that they can have a successful marriage.
Fast forward seven years. They have not been talking to one another for weeks, other than cursory comments about their now four year old and daily schedules. Disagreements about his activities with friends and her “intrusive” parents have had no solutions. She has a crush on a co-worker who seems so much more understanding than her husband. Mark feels like they are heading for a divorce, or he is simply going to have to settle for an unhappy marriage. Sometimes, they look at one another and wonder, “What happened?”
Understanding Perspective
“What happened” is simply that Mark and Cassie came face-to-face with emotionally-charged disagreements that they were unable to resolve successfully. Those unresolved disagreements morphed into marital conflict, for which they blamed one another, and they began to isolate themselves emotionally from one another to try to minimize the frustration and pain. It all began with “normal” marital disagreements.
Had Cassie and Mark resolved those disagreements, they would continue to face more disagreements, but with optimism and positive impressions of one another, and would still be happily married.
A major skill for resolving emotionally charged disagreements in marriage is the ability to understand the perspective of the other spouse. The word “perspective” has a range of meanings, from simply being able to see a situation from another person’s point of view to the complicated ability to understand the world view of the other person. It begins with the understanding that two people literally live in two different worlds. No two people have had the same experiences growing up; pay attention to the same things; have the same values; have the same experiences; have the same temperaments and emotional needs; have the same emotional reactions to their experiences; and so on. As a result, what is “true,” “important,” and even “real” to two different people are never the same.
The fly in the ointment is that, when the two worlds clash, people think that their world is the “true” world and that the “world” of the other person is false. When Mark says to Cassie, “Can’t you see how controlling and manipulative your mother is,” he means it. In his mind, Cassie is under an illusion about her manipulative mother. Cassie gets furious because in her world, her mother is “caring and helpful.” In her mind, Mark is “domineering” and wants to interfere in her relationship with her mother. People tend to have the illusion that the two differing perspectives like this cannot both be true. In fact: both versions not only can be true, but also usually are true.
One can see how a simple difference between the two worlds of Mark and Cassie can lead to an unresolved disagreement (i.e., how to relate to Cassie’s extended family) and morph into marital conflict and negative views of one another.
The obvious implication is that disagreements can only get resolved successfully when the perspectives of both spouses are understood and respected as true by both spouses, and when the solutions work for both spouses in their different worlds.
In Closing
Being able to understand the perspective of the other spouse with regard to every marital disagreement is a skill that can be learned and is a necessary ingredient to marital success. Our book, The Road to Marital Success is Unpaved: Seven Skills for Making Marriage Work, defines and presents this skill, on of seven, in much more detail and provides specific steps for developing this skill.
The obstacles to understanding this skill are substantial. In marriage, assuming that the different worlds of spouses are both true, making the effort to get the perspective of both spouses is essential to resolving disagreements in a manner that reaches the goals of both spouses. In other words, it does not matter who is “right,” in order to get a solution to a disagreement. It only matters that spouses get each other’s perspective and that the solution works well for both spouses.
[1] Your authors have published extensively in the marriage and divorce space. Among other books, they published The Road to Marital Success is Unpaved: Seven Skills for Making Marriage Work, the book on which this article is based, and Planning a Sensible Divorce: Avoid the Toxic Dance of a Messy Divorce. Other resources are available to spouses considering a divorce or living a better life post-divorce, on the authors’ website, https://marriageanddivorce.org.
