5 Questions to Guide You In Resolving Couple Conflict
5 Questions to Guide You In Resolving Couple Conflict
Building healthy communication habits for life
Published on 02 November, 2022
June Yong
author
When she’s not hiding out at a café or having funny little conversations with her three children, June can be found editing articles or dreaming up podcast episodes for Focus on the Family Singapore.
Given a choice, most of us prefer living peaceful and conflict-free lives, especially when it comes to our marriage and families.
But conflict is not necessarily a bad thing. While unhealthy conflict with lots of shouting and physical violence can cause a lot of grief and heartache, most everyday conflicts are made up of disagreements and misunderstanding, and when dealt with constructively, can help us to grow in our understanding of our spouse.
What does healthy conflict management look like?
Fighting constructively means keeping your eye on the prize – a peaceful resolution of the conflict and strengthening of the marriage. It also means not attacking your spouse, or hurting them intentionally through insults, name-calling or threats.
It could mean calling for time-out when the emotions run high and finding a more conducive time and setting to talk things through.
At that time, you may use these 5 questions to help guide the conversation.
1. Are you ready to talk about what happened?
This question gives you and your spouse a moment to decide if you’re truly ready to discuss things, or if you simply need more time to process.
If both of you are ready, and the setting is conducive and calm, then proceed to the next question.
2. What caused you to react in that way?
Asking this question helps your spouse process their experience and figure out what could have been happening internally. Recognise that we could be more prone to having big reactions when the issue is a sensitive one for us.
For example, if we were frequently criticised while growing up, we may get easily triggered when our partner criticises us.
If you are the one asking this question, do give your spouse time to think and respond. Refrain from making judgmental comments about what has been shared; instead, focus on listening and reflecting to your spouse what you’ve heard.
For example, “So you felt criticised and hurt when I said this. It reminded you of what you experienced in your growing up years. That was what caused you to blow your top.”
Refrain from making judgmental comments about what has been shared. Focus on listening and reflecting to your spouse what you’ve heard.
3. What emotions or thoughts were you experiencing in that moment?
It can be hard identifying and expressing our difficult emotions and thoughts, especially if they occurred in the heat of the moment, when we may not be at our best. However, it is still worth exploring – our emotions can provide critical clues as to what might be going in within us, and help provide clarity and point the way forward.
Try to be a safe space for your spouse by first acknowledging that there are no right or wrong emotions. This will help keep their defences down.
If he/she raises some thoughts that you think do not have any basis, allow them to share their points of view first. Later, you may want to gently question or challenge that thought.
For example, “When you saw the picture of me and my colleague together, you felt insecure and jealous. And you thought that I was having an affair behind your back. I can see why you’d jump to that conclusion, but have I ever done anything to break your trust in me?”
4. How do you think we can resolve this?
After sharing emotions and your personal perceptions of what happened, this is where you can kick into brainstorming mode.
Here, don’t be too quick to dismiss any ideas. Just jot down all the ideas and strategies that the both of you can come up with.
Once you have a couple of possible solutions, review each one critically. Make a call as to which would be the simplest to implement, yet would make the most impact to your marriage.
Going back to the scenario of the suspected affair, perhaps one workable solution is to simply avoid situations where you’re dining alone with a person of the opposite sex. And if a situation crops up that you cannot avoid, then make it a point to give your spouse the heads up.
5. What would you like to see happen?
Although resolving conflict is a lot about problem-solving, we can also make space to re-imagine what we desire for ourselves and our marriage.
So this question could possibly help you to go beyond not doing something, to doing something that is desirable and good.
Going back to the example where the spouse felt criticised, one action point might be to intentionally affirm your spouse at least once a day, say for cooking a nice meal or for picking up your dry-clean laundry without you asking.
Although resolving conflict is a lot about problem-solving, we can also make space to re-imagine what we desire for ourselves and our marriage.
Using this simple 5-question method, we are hopefully able to move from understanding each other’s readiness, reactions and emotions, to finding solutions and looking forward.
It will take practice, and you’ll also see some near hits and misses along the way, but don’t lose heart. Keep working on your communication and conflict skills, and in a couple of years’ time, you’ll be reaping the rewards of what you’ve sown into the relationship!
© 2022 Focus on the Family Singapore. All rights reserved.
June Yong
author
When she’s not hiding out at a café or having funny little conversations with her three children, June can be found editing articles or dreaming up podcast episodes for Focus on the Family Singapore.
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