Points of conflict

[Kendrick]

Hello, I'm a newbie. I was wondering for those who are married or in a relationship, what are some of your points of conflict and how do you resolve them?

 

For example, if you have conflicts that come up in your marriage/relationship such as money issues, infidelity, porn, kids, etc, how do you handle those conflicts? Do you both yell, or discuss things calmly? Do you both feel you have deal breakers within the relationship? If one crosses the line on a certain issue does that automatically end things for you etc or do you try to work on things? So many people it seems bail very quickly these days without even trying. Or they stay in bad situations because they feel they have no other choice.

 

Thoughts?

[denise_xo]

Hello, I'm a newbie. I was wondering for those who are married or in a relationship, what are some of your points of conflict and how do you resolve them?

 

For example, if you have conflicts that come up in your marriage/relationship such as money issues, infidelity, porn, kids, etc, how do you handle those conflicts? Do you both yell, or discuss things calmly? Do you both feel you have deal breakers within the relationship? If one crosses the line on a certain issue does that automatically end things for you etc or do you try to work on things? So many people it seems bail very quickly these days without even trying. Or they stay in bad situations because they feel they have no other choice.

 

Thoughts?

 

Some of our issues have been

- attitudes to homosexuality (my SO is homophobic, a strong cultural feature of the society he comes from)

- smoking (or rather, my issue with his habit)

- relationship to family (SO is extremely unimpressed by my difficult relationship with my parents)

- what constitutes acceptable/desirable sexual activity (our starting point was one of widely different backgrounds both normatively and practically)

 

Like most couples, we have been through all of your options (discuss calmly, yell, bail, cry, try to work things through, try to accept state of things as no other option has been perceived possible). My main two observations would be

- that change takes a lot of time but might happen in the long term even when you never thought it would be possible. The question then becomes how much work and patience you're willing to put into it.

- sometimes change only occurs after you have officially given up and resigned.

 

If I were to start all over again, the first bullet would be a definite deal breaker for me, and points two and four probably would be, too.

[InternationalPlayboy]

Child rearing is the most common dilemma we face. Another is arguing over home chores - who's doing or not doing what around the house. I tend to handle it like my parents did - passive aggressive comments, martyrdom or just bottling it up and spewing fourth mean invectives months later about something she's long since forgotten.

 

My wife likes to nag nag nag, similar to how her mother handled things when she was younger.

 

Deal breakers - we've not really discussed as it's never been a real issue. But I'm guessing infidelity or domestic abuse are up there.

 

So there you go.

[Kendrick]

Some of our issues have been

- attitudes to homosexuality (my SO is homophobic, a strong cultural feature of the society he comes from)

- smoking (or rather, my issue with his habit)

- relationship to family (SO is extremely unimpressed by my difficult relationship with my parents)

- what constitutes acceptable/desirable sexual activity (our starting point was one of widely different backgrounds both normatively and practically)

 

Like most couples, we have been through all of your options (discuss calmly, yell, bail, cry, try to work things through, try to accept state of things as no other option has been perceived possible). My main two observations would be

- that change takes a lot of time but might happen in the long term even when you never thought it would be possible. The question then becomes how much work and patience you're willing to put into it.

- sometimes change only occurs after you have officially given up and resigned.

 

If I were to start all over again, the first bullet would be a definite deal breaker for me, and points two and four probably would be, too.

 

Thanks for your reply. Those are some good ones. I try to act calm when I can although its hard sometimes. Guess it depends on the subject at hand. I really love what you said about change, and how sometimes it can only occur after you have given up or resigned. There's alot of truth in that.

[Dean M.]

My wife and I resolve conflicts calmly. There's really no other way to do it. We can't think clearly and work through a problem if we're yelling, angry, or overly emotional.

 

There are no deal breakers in our relationship. Divorce has never been an option. It was on "the list" before we got married (which was a really short list). We've been through a lot, but the reason we've been through it instead of splitting is because we worked out the big issues before marriage.

 

Its so much easier to marry someone who agrees with you than it is to try to make your spouse agree with you later.