For how long would you stand an abusive relationship? I do not know. I often sit and listen to sad stories of battered spouses holding onto an abusive marriage for either public opinion or for the sake of their children and wonder what went wrong and what makes it so difficult to talk matters over and heal a broken relationship for the sake of all. It all depends on the two, and on the chosen avenue for management of their conflict.
The avenue that ADR offers opened wide for Tina and Chris the day she walked away. He had taken her and their relationship for granted for years. She lost value in his eyes and became a mere object at which he directed his anger and frustration when things went bad for him. Even though she had endured the humiliation, she had enough of it. Her walking out shook him to his senses as he reflected on what he had lost – a loving companion who had sacrificed everything and slaved to make him happy. If you share in such tribulations, the following extracts from my almost-complete manuscript titled “MAKING YOUR MARRIAGE WORK: The Path to a Joyful and Fulfilling Marriage” will set you thinking.
Looking Back to Your Yesteryears
Do you remember how the two of you were immersed in blissful romance during your courtship, and in your early life in marriage. You were passionately bonded, avowedly promising to stand by each other in pursuit of your dreams and aspirations, which you freely shared in endless conversation. You went out of your way to surprise and please each other, making every effort to satisfy your mate’s emotional needs and wishes. Your relationship experienced exponential growth as you consciously developed a strong sense of “we,” and as you worked hard to minimize the occasional personal differences. In return, you were richly rewarded with abounding joy, excitement, happiness, and hope for a bright future as you learned to accept your mate as he or she was. You presented and elicited your best self. You counted on each other despite your humble beginnings. Your life felt expansive and promising as you shared your dreams and romance, a time to be cherished and indelibly imprinted in your memory. If you have been there, you know how good that felt. Yet, you do not need shock treatment experienced by Chris to appreciate and build on the foundations of your family life.
As Time Goes By
With time, though, the two of you come off the high and the intense and highly charged romance gives way to an ordinary life of routine tasks both at home and at the workplace. Your divided attention and increased outdoor responsibilities rob you of much of the energy and youthful vigor with which you went about your early days in marriage. In this stage, life in marriage takes new dimensions as you begin to see life through different lenses and learn to deepen your communication skills, and as you work to understand your spouse and freely express your wants, emotional needs and feelings. You learn to give and take, and to be honest with each other despite the occasional discomfort of feeling vulnerable.
As years go by, you begin to listen to your mate more actively and to become aware of differences not previously noticed. Despite those differences, your relationship grows from strength to strength, and you gradually develop strategies for dealing with them. It is in this stage that you learn to appreciate, negotiate and accommodate your mate’s strengths and weaknesses, always working your way towards your common good. As you soon realise, your effort is not in vain.
Learn to Value Your Mate
Every time you reflect on your life in marriage, you appreciate the invaluable role each one of you plays in the other’s life. In effect, the sacred institution of marriage serves to establish a relationship in which each of you become the other’s pillar and a shoulder to lean on in times of need. Remember, though, that the real source of your strength is our stronghold and the originator of marriage, Jehovah, the almighty God in whom we trust, and who knows and satisfies our every need. You do well to remember these wise words:
“Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their hard work. For if one of them should fall, the other one can raise his partner up. But how will it be with just the one who falls when there is not another to raise him up? Moreover, if two lie down together, they also will certainly get warm; but how can just one keep warm? And if somebody could overpower one alone, two together could make a stand against him. And a threefold cord cannot quickly be torn in two.”
(Ecclesiastes 4:9-12)
And What Went Wrong?
In a later stage in your married life unveils the truth that you cannot always live up to each other’s expectations. For one reason or the other, you disappoint and inadvertently hurt each other as you engage in a power struggle, seeking control and domination of one over the other. By this time, you become intensely aware of your differences and use control strategies to re-establish the desired balance. To what result? Before you know it, you engage in endless blame games and become overly judgmental, critical of your mate and unduly defensive. Within no time, you are clouded in fear and anxiety as you gradually form a habit of viewing matters in a polarized manner. Your thinking narrows down into either right or wrong, good or bad, unknowingly loosening your grip on the humility and mutual understanding that bound you close together for years. You find it difficult to forgive and to put up with one another.
What to Do
Having come this far, you strive to work on your marriage and patch up emerging differences as you envision the ideal family. You learn to forgive and accommodate your spouse’s shortcomings as you do your best to constructively deal with your marital or parenting issues that might be a source of anger and hurt. Though still committed to your marital relationship, you begin to assert your individuality and independence as you go about your day-to-day activities. Happily, though, your family and community serve to support and hold you together as you share in your wider social responsibilities thereby downplaying your increasing autonomy and separateness. Always remember that help is within reach.
Premier ADR Consultants work hand-in-hand with entrepreneurs and marriage mates with strained business or marital relations on the verge of breakup or separation to resolve their disputes by means of our transformative conflict management and dispute resolution strategies. We help parties salvage, restore and maintain healthy business and family relationships in a safe and peaceful environment with guaranteed privacy and confidentiality.
Our expeditious, cost-effective and party-controlled techniques guarantee consumer satisfaction resulting from the voluntary and jointly generated win-win outcomes. We provide the best alternative to the all-familiar costly, time-consuming, adversarial and often emotive court litigation that only works to weaken and ultimately destroy business, marital and family relations.
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