Dealing with Marital Conflicts: Build a Trusted Tag Team

Dealing with Marital Conflicts: Build a Trusted Tag Team

As we continue in our journey to deal with conflicts in marriage, we must pass through the route of team building.
The scriptures teach how two are better than one and how they have a better reward for their joint labor. The word of God also admonishes how one will chase a thousand and two will chase ten thousand. But it also teaches how two cannot walk or travel together without prior agreement on the journey.

These rules are basic for every working relationship that has goals to achieve. It's common knowledge how these rules affected the age of industrialization by skyrocketing production efficiency through division of labor but no where is it needed the most as in marriage.

Two should chase ten thousand while one chases one thousand, but that's under certain conditions. Chasing by themselves, they'll chase two thousand as each brings in one thousand each. And if some other things come up like a conflict, they may actually be chasing one each and not a thousand as they chase each other to destroy.

This means building a team has an enormous multiplier effect in what a couple can achieve and has the power to destroy the possibilities of conflicts.

Team building is more than merely gathering highly skilled individuals together to accomplish a feat but it may actually not be more than bringing averagely skilled friends together eager to forget about themselves to achieve a common goal together through which each take-home can be assured.

The scriptures teach us about the goodness in friendship. Friendship is the highest point achievable in a relationship, any relationship. King Solomon tells how a friend close by is better than a brother afar, there is a friend that sticks closer than a brother. He tells how the wounds of a friend is faithful and how the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. He admonished that our friends and fathers' friends we shouldn't forsake. He told us friends are forever.

Jesus Christ got his relationship with His disciples to that point of friendship. He called them his friends and not servants and we saw what feat just a few men and women who are friends can perform in what they made of the cause.

We also have seen many people having issues with their spouses, many changed  and added more and more spouses while maintaining only one close friend throughout their entire lives. That's the power of friendship. True friends don't divorce in spite of troubles. Time and distance notwithstanding.

But friendship is born not just out of likeness or sameness but out of tests, trials and trust. King Solomon said the wounds of a friend are faithful! Faithfulness is a matter of proven trust. You don't need to set up tests for your friends before you find out who they are, life brings daily tests that proves friendships. It is a bad sign, if you'll need to set up hidden tests and exams to prove friendship, such tests are not better than traps. Friendship isn't by force.

Jesus said
[My Offline Bible] John 15
12 This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.

13 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

14 Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.

15 Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.

Friendship is borne out of the commandment of loving each other as Christ loved us laying down His life for us. The depth of commitment that wouldn't make you pull back your life, goodwill or substance when they're needed is the prove of friendship and it must be mutual from the heart. It is borne out of mutual exposure of personal information and dealings.

The degree of information shared determines the degree of friendship. Information sharing is dependent on degree of trust. If there is any fear, trust is eroded to same degree, information is withdrawn and friendship suffers.

When so called friends lie to each other and become secretive and they show signs of fear and insecurity towards each other, such friendship won't build a trusted team. Such hurts marriages. Friendship doesn't work with secrets and insecurities.

Couples must therefore check their levels of friendship with their spouses by determining their levels of trust for each other. If you can't trust your spouse with your dearest information and be at peace then something is wrong. Being physically naked isn't equal to being truly naked and open with information. Many use their intimacy, nudity and sex to rob their spouses and deceive them into death like we saw in the story of Samson and Delilah.

You can't lay down your life for someone you can't share simple truths about yourselves with. You make enemies and not friends with people you can't trust. And it's not always people who are untrustworthy that we don't trust, sometimes our own insecurities take the better part of us. God should be the most trustworthy person in existence but the most untrusted person too.

Couples who are friends trust each other beyond whatever contrary report they receive from third parties because friends know both the strong points and the weaknesses they have, it's not a secret. If you are always ready to believe contrary reports from what you know about your spouse, then something is wrong somewhere, you need to work on that to avoid impending conflict.

The worst thing you can do to a genuinely loving friend is to show doubt and signs of distrust. Nothing kills friendship faster. The most dangerous position you can put yourself is to love someone who doesn't trust you. It takes love to trust and it takes trust to be friends.

When we become friends with our spouses having same goals as it should be in marriage we stabilize without the distractions of distrust and doubt. At that point the fear of unnecessary suspicion is cast out, perfect love cast out doubt and fears. At that point your heart becomes free, you have no suspicion and you don't feel being watched. It's freedom, it's bliss.

But when you are trusted and loved, and your spouse is ready to lay down his or her life for you but you have other hidden agendas, not even suspected by your spouse what kind of person can we call you? A murderer is better.

When both of you entertain such distrust, fear, suspicion, insecurity and division towards each other, you both need to design ways to deal with such emotions if you really want a life in marriage.

Conflicts resulting from such situations may not be outward and so are always difficult to detect and to deal with but they have long lasting and debilitating effects on individuals involved and on other stakeholders.

What's the level of trust you have for your spouse? Identify the reasons in hard facts why you have such feelings beyond mere hearsay, baseless suspicious and general perceptions, what can you do about it to save your marriage, your life or both?

On the other hand, what degree of trust does your spouse have for you? Do you feel distrusted? What have you done to warrant being distrusted? What can you do to redeem your trust? How hard have you tried to prove your faithfulness? Is it working or is the distrust growing?

Again, how open are you with information? How secretive are you to your spouse? What do you do, have or like that you have kept from your spouse? How far can you go making sacrifices for your spouse?

You can do a personal assessment of the state of things with your answers to these questions to afford you make changes necessary and build an unbeatable team of friends with your spouse that can confront every challenge that may come.

One basic way of dealing with conflicts in marriage is to build a trusted team of friends with each other, if he or she is with you, he or she can't be against you...it's more than physical intimacy but a heart twined friendship that remains faithful forever...

Let's do it!

Good Morning!