Tag Archives: conflict resolution

Strategies for Working through Rough Times

“Self-interest stimulates behavior.” Wayne Pryor paraphrasing a principle of the Egoism theory. As some of you who are regular readers know, not so very long ago I thought I was facing a marriage crisis. At one point I hit such a low I was ready to throw in the towel entirely. Thankfully I didn’t stay at that point very long. It wasn’t anything I did, per se, to move me from that point. It was more something I had: self-interest. Egoism Back in college Wayne took a class where the principle of Egoism was discussed. In a nutshell, Egoism stipulates … Continue reading →

What Have I Done to My Marriage? – Part Three, Salvation Strategies

Yesterday I wrote what turned into Parts One and Two of the “What Have I Done to My Marriage” mini-series. Where I left off in the saga was how Wayne and I weren’t even on speaking terms this past weekend. In our years together we’ve had our moments of silent treatments, but they usually remain just that –moments. Saturday morning we went a few hours giving each other the silent treatment, and then again that night and into Sunday morning. That’s highly unusual. Fear and Doubt Sets In Sunday morning I woke up frantic, unable to push the following thoughts … Continue reading →

What Have I Done to My Marriage? – Part Two, The Meltdown

In a previous article I wrote about some behind-the-scenes drama I’ve been enduring with the big changes in my marriage. Drama that could have threatened it even this early on in our new arrangement–-if I’d let it. I’ll get to the part about the salvation strategies I employed in another article, but first I’ll give you an idea of why I needed to call on them at all. Honeymoon’s Over Today marks a week and a half since my mom and I returned home. (Well, to my existing home and what is becoming her new one.) The first few days … Continue reading →

Letting Kids Learn to Resolve Conflict

Conflict is a fact of life. As much as we hope for peace and tranquility and smooth human relations, the fact is that it takes work. This doesn’t mean that peace and positive relationships shouldn’t be our goal, but children do need to learn and develop good conflict resolution skills. The only way to learn how to resolve and cope with conflict is through experience. While we want to set an example for our children when it comes to conflict resolution, and we will definitely need to intervene as parents from time to time—we really need to allow our child … Continue reading →

Don’t Always Kiss Me Goodnight

Photo by Arjen Klinkenberg Have you seen those plaques that say Always Kiss Me Goodnight? I see them in almost every catalog I get. (Wayne would tell you, “And that’s a lot of catalogs!”) The first time I ever saw one I thought, “Aw, that’s sweet.” Then I toyed with the idea of buying one as a reminder for Wayne, because goodnight kisses are a bone of contention with me. He’s great about kissing me good morning, but he rarely kisses me goodnight. It has to do with our natural rhythms. I am the night owl in our family. Not … Continue reading →

True Love Doesn’t Equal Perfect Love

This is what I thought marriage would be: perfect. Why? Because I bought the “happily ever after” sales pitch and paid full price. Heck, I rushed right to the register and whipped out my money once I found it on the shelves. I was 15 when I met Wayne and we’ve been together ever since. Twenty-one years total this year. If I had the chance to do it all over again, even knowing his flaws, I’d still make the same decision again that I did back then. I regret nothing about our time together, because I believe in true love … Continue reading →

Working Through Stress Together

Stuff happens, and usually when we least expect it or when we are already under pressure and just don’t think we can take any more. The unfortunate thing about becoming overwhelmed is that it is very easy to take it out on the people who are closest to us. It’s not unusual for this to occur, but it’s something we have to work to avoid. Even if you feel better temporarily after blowing off steam, it will be short lived. You’ll feel worse long term for having taken things out on your spouse. It helps to devise a system for … Continue reading →

Reaffirming or Rehashing?

Don’t you hate arguing with your spouse? Most of us do, but realistically we know we aren’t always going to agree on everything. When we do disagree, we have to take care to debate issues fairly. We often justify our arguments by telling ourselves that we are simply reaffirming something that is important to us. There’s nothing wrong with that, but there is the danger of using the old “never let it die” tactic, wherein we continue to rehash things from the past. This is a form of manipulation. While this doesn’t mean we cannot discuss past problems that have … Continue reading →

Instinct: Our Fight or Flight

Human beings need a lot of things to feel alive. They need family, love, sex, but we only need one thing to actually be alive. We need a beating heart. When our heart is threatened, we respond in one of two ways. We either run or we attack. There is a scientific term for this: fight or flight. It’s instinct. We can’t control it. Can we? – Grey’s Anatomy When we’re married, our instinct for fight or flight can really get in the way of solving problems and relating to our spouses. When we are fighting or disagreeing with our … Continue reading →

Do You Want a Boy or a Girl?

With reproductive technology, parents can now in fact choose the sex of their baby. While I’ve heard of some doing this. . .most people just take their statistical chances which are pretty good! You have a 50% chance of getting the exact gender you want! However, the advent of reproductive technology did not start parents on thinking about having a specific gender. There have always been ”scientifically proven” methods of conceiving the gender of your choice. (And by scientifically proven here, I mean that people still had a 50/50 chance of their method working!) If you can afford reproductive technology … Continue reading →