Conflict and Marriage

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Be angry and yet, do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not give the devil an opportunity. – Ephesians 4:26,27

We all fight.  There is no such thing as a conflict-free marriage. One of the keys to a healthy marriage is, however, to deal with conflict quickly and well, always with the focus of preserving the relationship with your spouse.

Satan hates marriage. He hates the strength that comes from it, especially from healthy Christian marriages that turn into potent little ministry teams. Conversely, God hates divorce (Malachi 4:16), so Satan’s preference would be for all marriages to end in divorce, and he knows that poorly managed conflict is the key to achieving his insidious goal.

If a threat as big as this threatened us in the military, we would focus a lot of intelligence effort on understanding it so we could defeat the threat before it destroyed us. And we should make a similar effort to understand the nature of conflict in our marriage relationship so that we can be victorious before unresolved conflict destroys our marriage, don’t you think?

I asked some military personnel what they thought the stages of conflict were, and we came up with this progression: disagreement causes irritation, irritation leads to offense, offense makes us angry, anger often leads to betrayal, betrayal normally incites revenge, the revenge cycle leads to isolation and hatred, sustained hatred leads to bitterness, which creates the platform for sustained conflict, all fueled by pride or the unwillingness to back down. This progression ultimately leads to a complete breakdown of relations, severed diplomatic ties and then war, or in the case of marriage, divorce, which on an individual scale is just as bad.

If we understand this progression, we can look at our own relationship and decide if we have moved down this spectrum in one or more areas of our marriage. If we know that we are sliding down this destructive path, we can begin repairing the damage, starting with giving up our pride! Better still, if we understand the progression that can lead from a simple disagreement to divorce, we can avoid sliding down that slope at all! The advice in the Bible is to never slide past anger…

This often quoted advice from Ephesians is more than a just nice idea–it is extremely smart–which is what we should expect from the Bible. There are two words used for anger in Ephesians 4:26,27:  orgizo for “Be angry…” and paraorgismos for “don’t let the sun go down on your anger”. Orgizo is anger that is under control, hence we can be angry but control what we do while angry, especially making sure that we do not sin. Paraorgismos literally means to be beside yourself in anger, or out-of-control angry.

So we can have a disagreement . . . we can even be a little irritated, offended and angry, but this should be short-lived and under control. Even if our anger feels out of control, we should make sure we do not sin and make things worse by sliding down the conflict spectrum. The longest we should harbor anger is 24 hours – anything longer also risks a slide down the conflict spectrum. Because disagreements are inevitable due to all of us being different from each other, and because initial irritation, offense and anger are natural responses when we are caught off-guard, we are safe until we move past our initial responses and begin to choose to do things that add to conflict.  What would add to the conflict?  Nurturing irritation, offense, and anger can lead to betrayal and revenge–which feeds bitterness and cements conflict because of a hardened heart.

And isn’t it easier to stay angry when deployed–when communication with your spouse is sporadic and not optimum?  All the more reason to resolve the conflict as quickly as you can in whatever way you can . . . by extending grace, offering forgiveness or asking for forgiveness . . . making sure that you leave plenty of room in your mind and heart for understanding each others’ situation.

We need to work hard to stay at the top end of the conflict spectrum, resolving or forgiving issues quickly. This habit is especially important to have in place before any separation.  As we just said, deployments and tours are hard enough without unresolved conflict being left to eat away at our relationships while we are apart. If we do not stay up the top end of the conflict spectrum and we yield to anger, Satan has an opportunity to feed our pride and push us all the way down the slope until our relationship is broken. That seems like something worth fighting to avoid!

Questions:
1. Do you recognize any of the steps to sustained conflict in your marriage relationship? What are they?
2. How much effort do you think you should make to beat Satan and protect your relationship from destruction?
3. Discuss your answers with your spouse and make a plan to resolve or forgive all issues on a daily basis.