Managing your spouse

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I have decided to revisit conflicts in marriage today because of the many marital conflicts my husband and I, have been attending to in the last two months. It’s obvious that one should not be tired to keep repeating oneself over and over, in order to drive home the points. Otherwise, you will just be wasting time and efforts.

Let me state here that one key factor in minimizing conflicts in marriage is what I termed spousal management. This involves deployment of your knowledge of your spouse in relating with him or her. This is a huge one, and it takes a lot of sacrifices and determination to travel this route. The motivation for this is achieving marital success. In my clime, it’s a saying that once you know your enemy, it’s easier to deal with him or her, successfully. Likewise, husbands and wives know one another’s strengths and weaknesses. All what one needs is to leverage on such strengths and weaknesses in order to bring harmony into the marriage.

So, once you are determined to make a success of your marriage, begin to manage your spouse, in the line of his or her strengths and weaknesses, and it will amaze you how much success you will birth in your marriage. How well you can manage your spouse will determine how successful your marriage will be. Today, I enjoy my marriage because my husband and I have come to learn how to manage ourselves well. I know him inside out to a large extent, and therefore know what to do in order to get the best of him. Likewise is the situation with him concerning me.

What to manage about your spouse

Weaknesses: One thing that causes conflicts in the home regularly is what our spouses are not good at that displeases us. One man is ever complaining about how dirty his wife is. This was a source of conflicts in the marriage until the husband decided to help her manage that dirty habit. How? He took it upon himself to clean the house by himself. It’s a huge sacrifice for him, but it’s worth the peace of mind he is enjoying in the marriage. Is your wife lazy at house chores, you can fill in the gap by helping her out, or get a house help, or a contract cleaner to take care of such. Of course, by the time you do that, she will also compensate you in other ways. The truth in all these is that we are helpers of each other’s joy, and should make allowance for our inadequacies. No one is perfect, so we have to manage each other, if we want to make a success of the marriage.

Manage his or her emotions: Is your spouse petty, given to outbursts when angry. Or he or she can be nice to a fault, you have to device ways of managing him or her. For example, if he is one given to anger, you should avoid things that can trigger anger, and when he gets angry, learn not to return fire for fire. I knew a man in his sixties who was just given to anger. He could rave for his wife when angry, saying all sorts of unprintable things against the wife. But you would never hear any response from her. It used to amaze me how she was coping with him. But I learnt that she ruled in the house and her words were the command. She had the key to keep the man in check, despite his angry outbursts.

Manage his or her professional trait: When you are married to a lawyer you must be ready for serious questioning in the marriage. Lawyers are usually not emotional, but factual about issues. You will have to provide evidences for things, and be ready to hear him or her out. What you call insults ordinarily, is just normal with a lawyer. What you feel is non-submission from a lawyer-wife, is just a normal conversation for her. The same goes for other professions as well. So, if you want to enjoy your marriage, you have to manage your spouse along the area of his or her profession. You just have to understand that aspect of his or her life, and learn to flow along with it. Otherwise, conflicts will be the order of the day in your marriage. The truth is that a lot of married people are not given to manage their spouses well. Rather, we react negatively to our spouses in so many ways about things. Thus, conflicts abound in so many marriages.

Tools of Managing Your Spouse

Patience: My people say that with patience, one can cook a stone to a point of being soft like banana. Patience is an enduring virtue in life. Let us learn to be patient with each other as couples. It will help in solving most conflicts in marriage. Listen patiently, respond patiently, express your feelings patiently, and you will enjoy peace in your marriage.

Silence: At times, all what you need to do for peace to reign is to maintain silence in the face of provocation. That wife who was married to the anger laden husband taught me the tool of silence. No matter how angry the husband was, or whatever abuses he voiced out at her, she would always maintain absolute silence.

Soft answer: The Bible says that “a soft answer turns away wrath”. That’s an undeniable truth in life.

Tough love: There are times that what you need to deal with your spouse is tough love. That is, you insist on your spouse doing the right thing, instead of allowing him or her to always have his or her ways. I always remember an incident of a neighbour who drove away from the compound, a palm wine seller in order to stop her husband from patronizing him at the expense of the family needs. It helped to reset his brain to prioritise family comfort above his personal enjoyment.

Sensitivity to mood swings: Being sensitive to the moods of your spouse is a weapon of managing a combat ready one. I am sensitive to know when not to approach my hubby on certain issues, if I desire peace in the house. I just avoid such conflict triggering situations, from time to time. I can tell you, it’s working for us. He does the same with me.

Pampering: A little pampering of your spouse will not do any damage to your spouse or marriage. Rather, it may ease off tension in the house.

When we learn to deploy all these and others, we will realise that conflicts can become an exception in the marriage.

May we take advantage of the tools to make our marriages heaven on earth.

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