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Step Four: Resolving Conflict Requires Loving Confrontation. Wordsworth said, �He who has a good friend needs no mirror.� Blessed is the marriage where both spouses feel the other is a good friend who will listen, understand, and work through any problem or conflict. To do this well takes loving confrontation. Confronting your spouse with grace and tactfulness requires wisdom, patience, and humility. Here are a few other tips we�ve found useful: � Check your motivation. Will your words help or hurt? Will bringing this up cause healing, wholeness, and oneness, or further isolation? � Check your attitude. Loving confrontation says, �I care about you. I respect you and I want you to respect me. I want to know how you feel.� Don�t hop on your bulldozer and run your spouse down. Approach your spouse lovingly. � Check the circumstances. This includes timing, location, and setting. Don�t confront your spouse, for example, when he is tired from a hard day�s work, or in the middle of settling a squabble between the children. Also, never criticize, make fun of, or argue with your spouse in public. � Check to see what other pressures may be present. Be sensitive to where your spouse is coming from. What�s the context of your spouse�s life right now? � Listen to your spouse. Seek to understand his or her view, and ask questions to clarify viewpoints. � Be sure you are ready to take it as well as dish it out. You may start to give your spouse some �friendly advice� and soon learn that what you are saying is not really his problem, but yours! � During the discussion, stick to one issue at a time. Don�t bring up several. Don�t save up a series of complaints and let your spouse have them all at once. � Focus on the problem, rather than the person. For example, you need a budget and your spouse is something of a spendthrift. Work through the plans for finances and make the lack of budget the enemy, not your spouse. � Focus on behavior rather than character. This is the �you� message versus the �I� message again. You can assassinate your spouse�s character and stab him right to the heart with �you� messages like, �You�re always late�you don�t care about me at all; you don�t care about anyone but yourself.� The �I� message would say, �I feel frustrated when you don�t let me know you�ll be late. I would appreciate if you would call so we can make other plans.� � Focus on the facts rather than judging motives. If your spouse forgets to make an important call, deal with the consequences of what you both have to do next rather than say, �You�re so careless; you just do things to irritate me.� � Above all, focus on understanding your spouse rather than on who is winning or losing. When your spouse confronts you, listen carefully to what is said and what isn�t said. For example, it may be that he is upset about something that happened at work and you�re getting nothing more than the brunt of that pressure. Step Five: Resolving conflict requires forgiveness. No matter how hard two people try to love and please each other, they will fail. With failure comes hurt. And the only ultimate relief for hurt is the soothing salve of forgiveness. The key to maintaining an open, intimate, and happy marriage is to ask for and grant forgiveness quickly. And the ability to do that is tied to each individual�s relationship with God. About the process of forgiveness, Jesus said, �For if you forgive men for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions� (Matthew 6:14�15). The instruction is clear: God insists that we are to be forgivers, and marriage�probably more than any other relationship�presents frequent opportunities to practice. Forgiving means giving up resentment and the desire to punish. By an act of your will, you let the other person off the hook. And as a Christian you do not do this under duress, scratching and screaming in protest. Rather, you do it with a gentle spirit and love, as Paul urged: �Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you� (Ephesians 4:32). Step Six: Resolving conflict requires returning a blessing for an insult. First Peter 3:8-9 says, �To sum up, all of you be harmonious, sympathetic, brotherly, kindhearted, and humble in spirit; not returning evil for evil or insult for insult, but giving a blessing instead; for you were called for the very purpose that you might inherit a blessing.� Every marriage operates on either the �Insult for Insult� or the �Blessing for Insult� relationship. Husbands and wives can become extremely proficient at trading insults�about the way he looks, the way she cooks, or the way he drives and the way she cleans house. Many couples don�t seem to know any other way to relate to each other. What does it mean to return a blessing for an insult? Chapter three of 1 Peter goes on to say �For, �the one who desires life, to love and see good days, must keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit. He must turn away from evil and do good; he must seek peace and pursue it�� (verses 10-11). To give a blessing first means stepping aside or simply refusing to retaliate if your spouse gets angry. Changing your natural tendency to lash out, fight back, or tell your spouse off is just about as easy as changing the course of the Mississippi River. You can�t do it without God�s help, without yielding to the power of the Holy Spirit. It also means doing good. Sometimes doing good simply takes a few words spoken gently and kindly, or perhaps a touch, a hug, or a pat on the shoulder. It might mean making a special effort to please your spouse by performing a special act of kindness. Finally, being a blessing means seeking peace, actually pursuing it. When you eagerly seek to forgive, you are pursuing oneness, not isolation. Our hope As difficult as it is to work through conflict in marriage, we can claim God�s promises as we do so. Not only does God bless our efforts based on His Word, but He also tells us He has an ultimate purpose for our trials. First Peter 1:6-7 tells us, In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. God�s purpose in our conflicts is to test our faith, to produce endurance, to refine us, and to bring glory to Himself. This is the hope He gives us�that we can actually approach our conflicts as an opportunity to strengthen our faith and to glorify God.