One of the things that I am working on within myself is to avoid attacking my spouse when there is an issue at hand. Instead, I try to focus on attacking the issue with him, instead. This helps keep the personal attacks and nagging each other away.
Attacking the issue instead of each other can come up in many forms. For example, rather than attack my spouse for not getting a certain home repair done, I simply ask “What can I do to get this completed?” When he forgets to shoo our old cat down to the basement and close the door for the night (where the litter box is), I don’t yell or complain. Instead, we work together to get the resulting mess cleaned up.
Larger issues in a marriage can really benefit from attacking the issue instead of each other. Approaching a problem with the attitude of “How can we solve this” is much more productive than approaching it with anger for your spouse. Even if you are justified that an issue is caused 100 percent by your spouse (issues are seldom one person’s sole fault, but it does happen), what will be solved by yelling or criticizing? In fact, it may make the situation worse. Sometimes a calm statement of “This shouldn’t have happened” has a much higher chance of actually being heard by your spouse.
Attacking is natural. When we feel hurt, angry or insecure, it is easy to lash out at someone, and usually that someone is the person there in the room, our spouse. f you have to vent, write your anger away in a journal, tell a best and non-gossiping friend, or exercise it off before you approach your spouse. Then use all of your energy to attack the issue and get it solved together.
How do you solve both small or large issues in your marriage?
Mary Ann Romans writes about everything related to saving money in the Frugal Blog, creating a home in the Home Blog, caring for little ones in the Baby Blog and now relationships in the Marriage Blog. You can read more of her articles by clicking here.
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