Are The Causes of Conflict in Marriage Destructive?
Hardly can you see a couple who has not experienced conflict in marriages at one time or the other. Marriages are sprinkled with conflict. And, when conflict is properly managed – it’s one of the best sweeteners in a marriage.
It is almost impossible to avoid conflict in a marriage. It is a laughable proposition to accept as true that successful marriages flourish on their own without marital conflict or disparities.
A marriage is a union of two aliens from different planets on an unknown planet. In a marriage, one partner does not readily copy the set of qualities and characters that the other has.
A marriage is like a chemical reaction – it’s either exothermic or endothermic. So, conflict in marriage is inevitable. Marital conflict in a marriage is rampant since it combines partners with their set of peculiarities, value systems, inherent habits, dissimilar backgrounds, priorities, and preferences.
On the other hand, these conflict in marriage must be resolved quickly, as studies suggest that conflict in marriage have a devastating effect on couples’ overall health, and even lead to severe cases of depression and eating disorders.
According to John Mordecai Gottman, a constructive or destructive approach to conflict resolution in marriage makes all the difference.
The advantage is that fighting fair and marriage communication are two important skills that you can cultivate. These skills will help you to problem-solve the marital conflict for a healthy relationship with your spouse.
Also watch: What Is a Relationship Conflict?
What Are The Common Conflict in Marriage?
Usually, conflict in marriage is an opportunity to identify the persistent issues that are disturbing the harmony of your marriage. Once you can bring the problem causing issues into isolation, then manage these differences as a team and work in the direction of growing together as a couple.
It is futile to hope that conflict in marriage will come to a resolution by itself. You have to deal with issues and tackle conflict in marriage headlong. Know that delaying is not advisable and autocorrect is not an option available in marriage.
Assuming you are newlywed and are yet to see the post-honeymoon disappointments, you can avoid the common marital conflict that may arise in the future and the degree of harm caused.
Or rather, if you’ve been married for a while and you’ve been struggling with common conflicts in marriage, you can save your marriage and breathe some happiness and peace into your marriage.
Common Causes of Conflict In Marriage
In this article, we will examine some common causes of conflict in marriage with you. These standard causes of marital conflict are red flags you should never ignore. And, ways to resolve them are highlighted underneath each one.
1. Unmet Expectations – Unreasonable Expectations
Generally speaking, expectations are often top of the cause of conflict in a marriage. In most cases, unreasonable, toxic and unmet expectations are the culprits.
one good example of toxic expectation in relationships is when one partner assumes the other to be a mind reader. He or she expects the partner to know how they feel or what they want without communicating their needs. This allows frustrations to sneakily creeps into the marriage when things and event don’t go as expected by the partners.
Commonly, a tussle on lifestyle can make spouses lash out at their partners. Budgeting vs living up, grousing over lack of appreciation, staycation vs vacation, family expectations, sharing household chores or unsupportive spouses are common tussles on lifestyle affecting most couples.
What To Do:
- Working on reaching a middle ground, and arriving at a common consensus doesn’t come naturally to a couple. Ensuring that the bridges between you and your spouse aren’t burnt takes practice and a mindful effort, especially in a marriage. Doing it however saves you some serious heartburn and a persistent, devastating bitterness in marriage.
2. Conflicting Viewpoints On The Matter Of Children
Almost every married couple wants to have kids at one time or the other. While we all perceive children as an extension of ourselves yet they can be the cause of some severe conflict in marriage.
A spouse may have a strong desire to extend the family, whereas the other spouse may want to have stronger financial stability before having kids.
Parenting is one of the major causes of conflict in marriage, and there could be contradictory opinions over parenting styles, schooling, saving for a kid’s future education, choosing between necessity and luxury, and drawing the line between superfluous childbearing expenditure and what’s non-negotiable.
What To Do:
- Even though it is the aspiration of both parents that their child gets the best in life, it is essential to have consideration for other household responsibilities, the child’s best interests, emergency funds, and a possibility for expansion of family income.
- It is helpful to view your spouse’s intentions to provide the best for your child with a little kindness. This might be a little bit difficult, especially in the heat of the argument but you should give it a try if you want less marital conflict and a conducive environment for your child.
3. Inability To Manage Marriage Finances
Issues centred around marriage finances are one of the most persistent, perverse and prevalent causes of conflict in marriage. If left unresolved, money problems in marriage can bring turmoil and serious disharmony into the healthiest marriage.
Money issues can derail a marriage and have led many marriages straight up to divorce. Straight up after infidelity and incompatibility, marriage finance comes next in line as the leading reason for divorce. According to a study, marriage finance makes up to 22% of divorces. Money problems that can put a strain on your marriage include extravagant wedding day celebrations, failure to fully disclose your financial status to your partner, and alimony or a child support situation from a previous marriage.
Other major causes of conflict in marriage include differences in the spending habit of the couple i.e. one partner is a spender while the other partner is frugal. A major transference in financial priorities and preferences and a bustling sense of resentment of a working or high-earning spouse towards the non-working, non-contributing, financially dependent spouse are other causes of conflict in marriage.
What To Do:
- Though there is a lot of financial advice for couples and newlyweds from financial experts keeping a budgeting journal handy can be very helpful if there are severe discrepancies in your spending habits or you feel that you both have a contrasting set of financial goals.
- Also, avoid keeping secrets and practise mutual accountability, especially with your finances. Being honest and accountable to each other will yield long-term benefits in your marriage and help you resolve conflict in marriage.
4. Time Allocation In Marriage
Usually, couples wake up to the reality of married life shortly after the wedding day extravaganza and honeymoon bliss.
It can be challenging to properly allocate your time after marriage. The same 24 hours which was inadequate while you are single now need to be shared with the latest addition to your lie – your spouse.
So, how do you avoid marital conflict since you now have to allocate time to yourself, your spouse, career, personal hobbies, friends and family? This can be very exhausting when all these are combined with the challenging task of nurturing your marriage in the best possible way with your spouse.
What To Do:
- There are Key Responsibility Areas (KRAs) in marriage which require the couple’s utmost attention. However, don’t translate it into a grind in your head. Take care of your share of household chores, pursue your hobbies and interest and maintain an ideal level of independence.
- Ensure you create a balance in spending quality time with your spouse in the most devoted manner, regardless of the length. Avoid any form of distractions like staying glued to the phone or receiving visitors at the ‘just the two of us’ time.
- Practise active listening by being attentive to your spouse and sharing interesting anecdotes. Maintain intermittent, reasonably timed communication spread over a day.
5. Lack Of Sexual Compatibility
Incompatibility in the sexual drives of a couple is among the common causes of conflict in marriage. Incompatible sexual drives occur when one spouse feels a stronger urge to have sex more often, as contrasting to the other spouse being less inclined to have sex.
The incompatible sexual drive can throw a wedge between you and your partner if not properly addressed.
Usually, stress from work, family and household responsibilities, poor body confidence, intimacy inhibitions, resentment and poor sexual communication are some of the serious causes of conflict in marriage.
When you scratch the surface, you realize that building emotional intimacy with your spouse and adopting other forms of intimacy is vital to enjoying sexual intimacy and affection with your spouse.
What To Do:
- The essence of scheduling sex and going for weekly date nights in marriage cannot be reiterated enough. It really helps to have an open-ended conversation with your spouse regarding your sexual drive.
- Cuddling up with your partner and going over your sexual needs, and fantasies and expressing your genuine attempts at satisfying your spouse’s sexual desires develop the appropriate starter to creating sexual compatibility with your partner.
6. Communication Breakdown
Communication breakdowns usually arise when one spouse is confrontational and the other spouse is amicable. Often, the former say things that they regret later and wish they had best avoided while the latter belief in letting things be.
Either way, you set yourself up for a relationship disaster because one spouse may utter damaging words and the other may develop boiling passive aggression towards the other spouse.
Silent treatment, passive-aggressive behaviour, resistance to your spouse’s standpoint and choices, wrong choice of time and place to hold the conversation, and a sense of threat in your voice – all contribute to conflict in marriage.
What To Do:
- It can be very difficult to resolve conflict in marriage when there are lots of obstructions to free-flowing communication in marriage.
- Handle communication in marriage with a problem-solving approach. Avoid being defensive when trying to drive home your point. Identify and admit your share in the conflict. Seek out clarification only after you have listened attentively to your spouse. Setting healthy expectations is a great way to circumvent misunderstandings.
- Avoid resorting to stonewalling or shutting down. At most, take a short break to gather and process the series of events and your thoughts. Non-verbal communication signs go a long way in strengthening your bond with your spouse. A positive nod and a relaxed body attitude show your readiness for an open-ended, relationship-conducive dialogue.
- Finally, it is essential to bring absolute non-negotiables into the conversation. Define your deal-breakers that are fundamental to marital bliss.
7. Mismatched Dynamics And Excessive Power Play In Personalities
In a marriage, both spouses are equal counterparts. But quite often, this idea is downgraded to being an idealistic theory.
Over and over again couples have profoundly incompatible dynamics, in which one of the partners could be an authoritarian spouse and the other submissive partner in such an equation, always ends up colluding as a caretaker to their spouse.
This consequently leads to backlog resentments and an imbalanced, unwholesome powerplay, forcing a marriage to break up.
Unhealthy power play and mismatched dynamics are leading causes of conflict in marriage.
What To Do:
- The need for marital counselling is crucial in such a lopsided spousal equation. A marriage counsellor can assist both parties involved lay things into perspective.
- In such a lopsided spousal equation, there is an imperative need for marital counselling. A marriage counsellor can help put things into perspective for both parties involved. A marriage therapist can bring the submissive partner to understand the importance of being emphatic and respectful of themselves.
- Moreover, they will shed light on the known or otherwise harm, the manipulative or abusive partner brings to their harassed partner. On the recognition, the counselling can then advance towards the remedial processes to resolve conflict in marriage and revive the relationship.
Other Types Of Marital Conflict
There are a few other causes of conflict in marriage such as incompatibility, ‘living apart but together’ situation, apparent irreconcilable differences and love lost between the couples who grew apart, over a course of time
Still, if the couple has a strong sense of readiness and exhibits a corresponding strong level of determination to be together, then it’s a straightforward journey to navigate, towards conflict resolution in marriage.
Also watch: How To Resolve Conflict in Relationships:
Wrap It Up!
You should continue the pursuit of keeping your marriage happy. Dr Gottman’s research found that 69% of marital conflict can be managed successfully, even as reaching 100% conflict resolution sounds like a haughty goal.
Treating your partner as an equal goes a long way in acceptance of mutual differences, de-escalating damage, salvaging the relationship and helping couples wrap their heads around agreeing to disagree.
Marriage is a beginning, keeping together is progress and continuing working together is a success!
When things are not going so well in your marriage, and you are looking for inspiration and an impetus to save your marriage, read marriage quotes alongside your spouse, to build a happy marriage together.
