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NOTE: This article provides help for distressed relationships. It does not address abusive relationships. Nothing of what is said here should be taken as providing help for abusive relationships.

Christians follow the Prince of Peace, whose Word tells us to “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you” (Ephesians 4:32), and to “Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone” (Colossians 4:6). Unfortunately, some of us find ourselves doing the exact opposite, even with those closest to us. We can find ourselves giving and receiving verbal hurt, insult and accusation. We probably don’t like this kind of talk, including when it comes out of our own mouths, but even so, we find ourselves doing it again and again. Why do we do that, especially with the people we love, and why can’t we stop even though we may want to stop?

Romans 7 teaches us one way that won’t help us to stop our hurtful talk, which is making up our minds, once and for all, that we are going to not talk like that again and then trying our hardest to do just that. The reason we’ll fail if we take this approach is that, once we set up a law in our mind (e.g., “By golly, I am turning over a new leaf; from now on, I am not going to talk that way to my husband and children; I am going to talk nicely to them no matter what; I am going to work out my problems with them in a civilized manner”), the law of sin in the members of our body starts a war with the law in our mind, and the law of sin always wins. This is true for Christians as well as for non-Christians. And it is the reason New Year’s resolutions don’t usually last too long. [For more information, see Why Is It That, When I Try to Do the Right Things, I Screw Up?

While our sinful speech is certainly a matter for confession and seeking God’s cleansing from all the unrighteousness in our heart that may be attached to it (1 John 1:9)[2] - and we omit this step to our loss because God’s transforming power is essential to our victory - there is also a certain amount of learning that can be useful. That is what this article is about. And, while the article will at times focus on the closest of human relationships - marriage - the principles throughout apply to any relationship.

Let’s start with what usually propels us into “mouthing off” to another human being - the judgment. Back at the beginning of time, Adam and Eve decided that God was wrong and the devil was right - people could know what was good and what was evil all on their own (Genesis 3:4-5).[3] They threw in their hat with the devil and ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and people have been making moral judgments ever since. Usually those judgments are some variation of “I’m right, and you’re wrong”. When Jesus was on earth, He warned us specifically not to be doing that (John 7:1-5),[4] yet we often still can’t resist. To make matters worse, judgment wears many faces. We may think that, since we never call names, as in “You’re just a good-for-nothing SOB”, then we are non-judgmental and we pass Christ’s warning. But judgments happen in our heart before they ever cross our lips. They begin in our thoughts and attitudes and emotional reactions. If we have a speech problem of any kind, this is where we need to begin - in our own heart and attitudes - because Jesus said that it is from here that our evil reactions come (Matthew 15:19).[5]

If judgments begin in our heart, how can we spot them so we can deal with them before nasty words come pouring out of our mouth? Following are some of the faces that our heart judgments can wear.

People enter any relationship with expectations of what that relationship will be like and how the other person will treat them. When those expectations are disappointed, a common response is to jump to a negative conclusion about the other person: “He’s being selfish”; “She doesn’t really care about me”; “They aren’t being fair”. Once we draw a negative conclusion about the other person, we have an unfortunate tendency to self-protect by attacking or withdrawing. The other person then feels unjustly treated and has an equally unfortunate tendency to retaliate.

Now, let’s back up to the beginning - to the disappointment - and try something different. When the other person disappoints our expectations of them, what if we “put a sock in it” and take a moment to examine our interpretation of what just happened. Remember that our judgments come in some form of “I’m right, and you’re wrong”. But what if we’re not right? What if we’ve simply misunderstood the situation?

I ask my husband to take the trash out to the curbside before bedtime. Next morning, when I go to retrieve the empty bins, I discover that the trash is not at the curbside. It’s still in the garage. I get angry. Now we have to keep the old trash for another week, and there’s a bag limit of two bags per weekly pickup. We’ll exceed the limit next week, so now I have to go buy a garbage sticker for each of the extra bags. We’re out of pocket, and I have to make a trip to the town offices for the stickers because he couldn’t do the one simple thing I asked. I have to do everything. He never does anything around here. Shows how much he cares about me!

In this example, I’ve concluded that my husband doesn’t care about me. But in fact, that is not the truth. The day I asked him to take out the trash, he had had a miserable day at work but didn’t want to burden me with it. So he never shared and, although I knew he was out of sorts, I didn’t know the magnitude of his inner turmoil. He heard the request about the garbage cans but was exhausted, and his mind was heavily occupied turning over solutions to his work problems. He forgot completely about the garbage until later at work, when he realized his oversight and called me to apologize. But when his call comes, I am well down the road into anger and self-pity, and I blow up at him. He is wounded by my anger because his preoccupation was around his job, which we both know he needs in order for us to get by. So he becomes angry in turn, and snaps back at me. Which reinforces my original, although false, conclusion that he really doesn’t care about me.

The problem here wasn’t the husband’s lack of care for his wife, but his wife’s overzealous jumping to one conclusion after another without any evidence for those conclusions. Proverbs 19:2 says: “It is not good to have zeal without knowledge, nor to be hasty and miss the way.” But we may find ourselves jumping hastily to negative conclusions in a variety of ways:

(1) Mind reading: What is important to us in our relationships is not so much what the other person does, but how he or she feels about us. And so we tend to interpret their behaviour as evidence of what they’re thinking or feeling about us. Often, though, we jump to conclusions based more on our own fears and expectations than on a reasonable evaluation based on adequate evidence. If my usually talkative husband is quiet over dinner and I am a fearful and insecure person, then I may conclude that I have done something to offend him, when in fact, he may simply be preoccupied with something that doesn’t concern our relationship at all.

(2) Misreading the signals: We may give the other person’s actions and words a “symbolic” meaning. This is a meaning beyond the obvious one and, unfortunately, a meaning that produces an automatic and usually a negative response in us that bypasses all logic and just seems to happen. Symbols have two major themes:

We develop these symbols out of our lifetime of relationships, often in our growing up family. This means that symbols are highly personal. But we assume that everyone thinks the same as we do. That is where misunderstandings and false conclusions can arise in our relationships.

Jane: [Puzzled. Why didn’t he consult with me on this? People who love each other talk about big decisions before making them.] “Why do we need a new car?” [This sounds like Jane is just asking for information, but Jane’s tone of voice betrays her real motive, which is to challenge Sam’s having made a big decision without her input since loving people always seek the other’s input. She assumes he believes the same about how loving people go about making major decisions.]

Sam: [She’s calling my decision into question. She doesn’t have much respect for my judgment.] “We’re getting a new car because we need it.” [Notice that Sam has picked up on the fact that Jane wasn’t asking for information, or he would have listed for her the problems with their old car that mean keeping it one more year wouldn’t be wise financially or otherwise. However, Sam has now added his own symbolic meaning to this conversation. He believes that people who ask questions about your decisions are really challenging your decisions. Then he took that one step further and concluded that his wife doesn’t have respect for his judgment, period, and not just in this situation.]

Jane: [He’s annoyed at me for asking. He doesn’t think I can make good decisions. Feels hurt.] “I still don’t see why we need a new car.” [Jane here is very far from communicating what is really the problem from her point of view. If she were honest, she wouldn’t be talking about the car any more, but about her expectations concerning how big decisions should be made in their marriage.]

Sam: “You never trust my judgment on anything, do you!” [Sam has now brought the attack out into the open. But again, he is fighting about something that is not at issue. Jane has no problem with Sam’s judgment, just about his proceeding on what she sees as a big purchase without involving her in the decision. So, while Sam and Jane may now have an all-out fight, the fight will not help resolve for them what is really in their hearts but remains unacknowledged and unspoken.]

(3) Bias: Bias, or prejudice, can twist our interpretations about others and also about ourselves. Bias can be either positive or negative but, if we take Jesus at His word that it is the truth that sets us free (John 8:32),[6] neither one is good for us. Take courtship as an example. While we are dating, our bias concerning our loved one is positive. We can’t seem to see their negative points at all or, if we do, we minimize them. However, once the honeymoon is over, truth sets in:

“He never picks up his dirty socks and underwear; always leaves it to me to get them to the laundry basket.”

At this point, we have a tendency to jump to the opposite end of our positive bias, and negative bias may enter the picture. Now we may label our mate as selfish or inconsiderate. Once we’ve done that, we’re in trouble because now we may see other things our mate does through the lens of selfishness and lack of consideration even though none of that may be in play. For example, if I have a negative bias toward my husband that he lacks consideration for me and I ask him to mail a letter on his way to work but he forgets, I may not gloss over his forgetting as just one of those things because, after all, everyone forgets at some time or other. Instead, I may conclude that he didn’t mail the letter because he is so selfish and lacks so much consideration for me that he couldn’t even do this one little thing for me. Bias can happen without the other person changing in any way. And strangely enough, the things that attracted us to the other person in the first place can become the very things we see as negatives later on. For example, if a man has a carefree attitude toward life, this may initially attract a rigid woman who has lived with a lot of rules and structure all her life and secretly craves more freedom. But later, if the woman continues to be rigid because she is fearful unless there are structure and rules, she may be unable to continue to appreciate the lack of structure in her husband and may begin to label him as “flighty and irresponsible”. She may then take her negative labelling one step further and become worried that her initial attraction to her mate was an illusion.

(4) Preconceptions and entitlements: While it is natural, when we enter into relationships, to have expectations about what those relationships will be like and what we can expect from the other person, some of our expectations may prove to be unrealistic. Take a very simple expectation - people who respect each other will be on time to meet with one another. Most of us realize that this means the other person will be on time most of the time. People are sometimes unavoidably late. And occasionally they will forget appointments completely. But what if I have an unrealistic expectation and believe that the other person should always be on time? Then, if they’re late, I may not decide that the 15 minutes I had to wait is fine, given that many things can knock a person off their schedule. I may instead become angry. If I hold to my unrealistic expectations about timeliness, that expectation can quickly morph into a sense of entitlement: “She doesn’t have the right to keep me waiting. I never keep her waiting. I’m entitled to the same in return.”

(5) Broken promises: People sometimes make explicit promises to one another, as did the two friends, David and Jonathan (1 Samuel 20:16-17).[7] But often the “promises” between two people are not promises that were explicitly made, but “promises” one or both of them merely assumed had been made. For example, while dating, each person tends to be on their best behaviour, resulting in unrealistic expectations of how the other will behave after marriage. These expectations are based on the assumed “promise” that dating behaviour will continue forever. As well, there can be a hidden marriage “contract”, comprised of each partner’s expectations of what a husband or wife is like in general and what their partner specifically will be to them and what they are entitled to receive from their partner. This “contract” is seldom made clear, meaning the other person can violate it without even knowing they have done so, but the result is still a sense of let-down or betrayal on the part of the “offended” spouse. For example, if my date always does things like opening the car doors for me and pulling out my seat at the table, and if I believe that husbands are “Prince Charmings” who always do such considerate things, then, after marriage, the first day he wakes up out of sorts and lets me fend for myself in everything, I may find myself rudely awakened and hurt.

(6) All or nothing thinking; generalizations: This is a refusal to see people as the complex mix they are, for example, mostly generous but sometimes selfish. So, if a friend treats me well most of the time, but one day she says something negative about me behind my back and I learn of it, I may, out of my hurt, jump to the conclusion that I was wrong about how nice my friend is because she has just proved that she is “mean”, period. This will keep me from honestly talking with her about the situation and trying to reconcile the hurt and restore our otherwise good friendship. I may instead walk away from the friendship and, forever after, see my former friend through a negative lens of meanness. Thus, I rob myself of what could still be a valuable relationship. The other thing that can happen with generalization is that we mislabel someone negatively when there may be something else going on that we haven’t taken into account. Take, for example, a friend who is always promising and never delivering. Is he selfish, inconsiderate, all talk and no action? Perhaps. But he may also have an overly developed sense of responsibility and, as a result, can’t say “no”, over-commits and then can’t deliver on all his promises much as he really wants to. This may not be a selfish and inconsiderate person at all, but a tender-hearted person in desperate need of learning to set boundaries on their time.

Most of us live our lives as if we know what’s going on. Nevertheless, we keep an open mind, realizing that we may sometimes be wrong. This keeps us open to new information that might cause us to reconsider. The Bible supports this. It says that “we know in part” (1 Corinthians 13:9), and it advises us to be humble and teachable. It also tells us in Philippians 2:4: “Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.” And so most of us realize that there are two sides to every story, two points of view in any conflict, and two people’s separate needs and desires at play in any relationship. So we try to be sensitive to the other person and to what they think and feel about things.

However, some people tend to keep their perspective, that is, their view of the world, closed, meaning they interpret events only according to how those events relate to them personally. They give no consideration to what those same events may mean to others or, if they try to see things from the other person’s perspective, they find themselves stuck in their own. If a conflict arises, they defend themselves by retreating into their own view of the world. This, of course, does nothing to help resolve differences. Where a person’s closed perspective contains desires, feelings, needs and expectations carried over from childhood, the problem is aggravated because the other person sees the closed perspective person as the adult they are and expects adult behaviour, whereas the closed perspective person may be crying out for the same kind of attention they should have received in childhood. The Bible says (1 Corinthians 13:11): “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.” But that’s the ideal. Some of us, even as men and women, carry parts of our childhood with us and, at times, we think and reason as a child.

As may be obvious, a closed perspective will be challenged over and over again in one’s relationships because other people will inevitably have thoughts, feelings and opinions that are different. The closed perspective person is deeply challenged by this. If they react by grinding in each time their perspective is challenged, that perspective will harden over time. They then become prone to drawing “always” and “never” conclusions, meaning, if someone does something negative, this is not seen as an isolated incident or even as part of a pattern, but as something permanent.

In the family in which I grew up, Mum and Dad shared indoor and outdoor work. So, shortly after my wedding day, as my new husband and I were in the kitchen and I was cooking bacon for breakfast, I passed two plates to him and asked if he would make the toast while I cooked the eggs. Unbeknownst to me, in the family in which my husband grew up, Dad held a job and did the outdoor work. Inside the house, Dad and the boys were catered to by Mom. The boys helped Dad outside but they definitely knew that doing “women’s work” inside the house was a no-no. When my husband heard my request, he was dumbfounded and said, “No, you do it.” As a newlywed already juggling bacon, eggs and juice, I was dumbfounded in turn. I was also hurt. Families share work, right? If we love one another, we help one another out. I had no idea about a division of labour between “men’s work” and “women’s work”. “Don’t you want to help me?” I asked. My husband stated flatly, “Men don’t make toast”, and walked out into the living room, leaving the kitchen to me. I was wounded by this rejecting message from the man I thought loved me. “Fine,” I thought, “I’ve already done the eggs and bacon. See if I do toast for him!” When he came back into the kitchen looking for breakfast, I had a full meal of bacon, eggs and toast on my plate. His eggs and bacon were still in the fry pan, and there was no second serving of toast in sight. Seeing that, he put on his hat and coat and stormed out to get breakfast at the restaurant.

No matter what we might think of the merits of the individual positions of the husband and the wife in this example, the fact is, they both kept a closed perspective that they had learned in childhood: families help each other no matter what, and men and women each have their own work to do. However, notice that the conflict seems to be about toast, when it really isn’t. It’s about how family members show their love to one another and about what each spouse understands about how the division of labour in a loving family should work. If this couple never talk about the real issues and come to some kind of consensus about them, these kinds of fights will continue, with each spouse grinding in on what they think is the correct view of things. If that continues for any length of time, they may begin to draw “always” or “never” conclusions about the other person:

Once their perspective has hardened, they will end up with “framed pictures” of each other. “Framed pictures” are negative, biased and rigid mental images of someone like “She’s a nagging bitch” or “He’s a lazy good-for-nothing”. These images will then determine what they notice and what they don’t notice about each other in their ongoing life together so that, no matter what anyone does, the other person will always see their actions through a negative “frame”.

As has already been said, we enter relationships with expectations of what those relationships will be like. Often these expectations were formed in our childhood as we adopted or rejected what was modelled by our parents. We may never think to discuss these assumptions with the other people in our current relationships or ask if they agree with them. For example, I may expect that the husband does all the outdoor yard work, but he may have grown up with a mother who loved her gardens and always kept that job for herself. If I simply assume that hubbie will do the yard work, then, when we move into our first house together and he doesn’t garden and has no aptitude or desire to garden, but expects me to take on that job, we may have a problem. Unfortunately, where these kinds of silent assumptions in a relationship don’t match and if, in addition, the people involved lack the one quality that could help them through this kind of issue - flexibility or the ability to negotiate when personal assumptions, hopes, dreams and expectations are disappointed - then, when those disappointments come, as they inevitably do, the parties involved may grind in and demand (at least mentally) what they believe they are entitled to. Demands (e.g., “my husband should place the family first”) can then give way to rules (e.g., “my husband should place the family first and this is how he must demonstrate that to me”). Whereas an unmet expectation will result in sadness and disappointment, rule-breaking - even if unintentional or done without the knowledge that a rule exists because the rule has always been unspoken - is more likely to stir anger.

While one way to end up rule-making is to carry expectations into a relationship, another way is to carry principles into a relationship. I may have a principle that friends should respect one another, which is true - they should But I may then form a rule out of that principle; for example, one way in which respect should be shown is for friends to be on time. If my friend has a tendency to be lackadaisical about time and is often late, I may automatically interpret that behaviour as a lack of respect for me since I believe that respect is shown by timeliness. Thus, when my friend is late, I punish him because he’s broken the rule: I show anger or make an unkind remark. In this way, I avoid the hurt of disappointment by going straight to anger. I have moved from seeing my friend’s timeliness as a principle of being a good friend, to imposing it on him as a demand.

Unfortunately, these kinds of rules are often imposed without taking into account the other person’s needs and wishes, without their agreement, and sometimes without their knowledge. We may not even be aware ourselves that we have these rules operating in our minds. Such rules tend to also come with a faulty assumption that our personal expectations are universal, and so we expect that the other person will fall in line without being asked or informed. The result when one of these “rules” is “broken” is a sense of violation, which produces a huge emotional reaction even when the “offence” is relatively minor. For example, I may greet my happy friend, who is 10 minutes late, with a huge round of anger and scolding. The reason for my extreme reaction is that it feels to me like more than my rule has been violated. Since these kinds of rules are based on important personal needs and principles, when someone breaks one of them, it can feel as though we have been violated as a person. The other person may be quite amazed at the reaction to what they see as something minor or completely innocent, and they may in turn be hurt and angry, and then retaliate. This can create a cycle of anger and blame that completely distracts the people involved from addressing the real problem: differing expectations and definitions regarding how people in relationship should relate. Thus the Bible is proved correct when it says: “The law was added so that the trespass might increase” (Romans 5:20a).

Oddly enough, we tend to try to “enforce” our rules as if we need to enforce them in order to have a happy, fulfilled relationship with the other person when, in reality, such unspoken rules do a great deal to sabotage the health of any relationship (Proverbs 14:12): “There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.” Even when people realize that their reprimands of the “offending” party are useless and even destructive, they may nevertheless persist in obeying their internal command to punish. At the worst, rules can become a means by which one person attempts to dominate and control the other. This puts the other in the position of being forced to completely submerge their own personality, goals and needs in order to please, something no one can do and remain psychologically and emotionally healthy.

If our rules are broken often enough, and if the real problem is never addressed so that our real differences with the other person can be successfully resolved, we may move to “awfulizing” the other person: e.g.,“It’s horrible being married to such an inconsiderate person.” After this may come “devilizing”: “He is such a self-centred, uncaring, horrible person.” Lastly, may come “catastophizing”: “I will never be happy as long as I am stuck in this dead-end marriage.” At the least, we may end up concluding that we are putting way more into the relationship than we are getting out of it.

The preceding are just some of the ways in which we form judgments in our heart. The list is, unfortunately, not a complete one.

Almost everyone would agree that clear communication is important to any relationship, and particularly to intimate relationships such as marriage. But we tend to assume that we are communicating clearly when, in fact, we may not have communicated in a way that the other person understands, and so, the other person hasn’t received the correct message. For example, if I am a person who worries about crossing other people but I want to express an opinion, I may, before stating that opinion, first send out feelers about what I’d like in order to test the waters and see what the other person thinks first. So, if I’d like to have the Watsons over for a visit, I may say to my husband, “I wonder what the Watsons are up to these days.” If I get an answer like “No idea”, I may think he’s not too interested in the Watsons and forget about inviting them over. But it may be that he has taken my comment purely at face value, is simply stating that he has no idea what’s going on in the Watsons’ lives of late, but really would be interested in having them over to catch up on them. If this kind of “communication” happens often enough and I never do what I really want to do as a result, I may decide that my mate is a killjoy, when in fact he simply has no idea what I want because I never tell him plainly.

Sometimes problems arise as a result of different speaking styles. For example, if one person tends to like to collect their thoughts before expressing themself, they may say what they have to say, but interspersed with pauses. If the other interprets pauses as “I’m done”, that person may then “interrupt”. Or, one person may think that listening to the other’s story in complete silence is good listening with complete concentration, but the other person may need some “hm-hms” as a signal that the other is interested in what they have to say.

Then there are our personal filters. If my parents were always asking “why” questions to show their disapproval (“why are you still watching TV”, “why are you late getting home”, “why is your room still not cleaned”), then “why” questions from my mate, who simply wants to know why, may stir a lot of baggage that he or she had no intention of stirring.

There are even gender differences in communicating. Women tend to ask questions in order to encourage conversation; men tend to assume that if people have something to say, they’ll say it without having to be asked. Women tend to make more sounds like “hm-hm” to encourage conversation than do men, and men are more likely to comment during conversation rather that “waiting their turn”. Men frequently make no response at all to what has been said to them or, if they do, they are more likely than women to challenge or dispute what the other person has said, which explains why some women feel like their husbands are always “argumentative”. Finally, men tend to make more statements of fact and opinion than do women, thus leaving their wives resenting “the voice of authority”, whereas the husband may just be communicating in a masculine style with no sense of superiority over his wife.

Finally, people may differ in what they want to hear from one another. My wife may be bored silly with the details of my job, but may love to hear stories about my co-workers. I, on the other hand, may be fascinated with her job but not so interested in hearing about the people she works with whom I’ve never met. Assuming that the object in sharing about our work is to allow our partner to share in this part of our life, we may want to consider what it is about that part of our life that draws them in.

The good news in all this is that communication styles are learned - and they can be unlearned or modified for the good of our relationships.

In looking at this topic, we will focus in on the marriage relationship. But the principles apply across our less intimate relationships.

We mature into these qualities. However, when we’re dating and are infatuated with one another, we tend to see all kinds of positive qualities in the other that the other person may not have at all or that he or she does have, but not to the degree we imagine (that positive bias thing again).

After marriage, as reality sets in and both partners begin to live less out of a single desire to impress the other, and as the resulting disappointments happen, each partner, out of their disappointments and hurts, may apply a label to the other (“jerk”, “selfish”, “inconsiderate”, etc.). The label colours their view of their mate so that even innocent acts may be seen as further evidence of the jerk or the selfish person or the inconsiderate one, until the trait is seen as a permanent character flaw that is the exact opposite of the ideal:

However, whereas one may see the other’s behaviour in quite a negative light, the other may not agree. For example, the husband may see a night out with the guys as a time to unwind from the responsibilities of his life and a legitimate need, whereas his wife may see it as him shirking his responsibilities at home.

As partners clash in their views of one another and of each other’s behaviour, they tend to take the stance that their view would be seen as the right one by any reasonable person. They then work hard at getting their mate to see things the way they do, which tends to result only in bolstering the other’s resistance and escalating the clash. Each one grinds in to their position, which blinds them from seeing that they may be dealing simply with a difference of perspective and not a malicious mate. For example, if my husband gives me instructions about my driving, I may see him as patronizing, while he may see himself as helpful. We might end up in a fight if I snap at him for telling me what to do but, in reality, there is nothing to fight over. There is, however, something to talk about, that being how we each view that kind of behaviour by a passenger and what might be best in the future. However, in this situation, there is no evil intent worthy of taking battle positions.

Interestingly, what attracted us to our mate in the first place may end up being the very thing that turns us off our partner later. I, as a dependent, anxious person, may admire my fiancé’s independent spirit. What I may not realize, however, is that he will want times apart and alone, which foster his sense of freedom and which he needs as an independent sort, whereas I, from my emotional perspective of being dependent and anxious and always needing someone around to make me feel safe, may see his times away from the home as abandonment and selfishness. His initially attractive quality then begins to lose its attractiveness. However, the real problem is not my mate’s independent spirit and need for times apart, but my interpretation of those times apart. That independent quality could become attractive again if we can overcome our misunderstandings about it.

In addition, we may have started our love relationship based on our partner’s good looks, personality, charm, humour, empathy, and so on. But we may have overlooked the fact that marriage has another, very practical side (maintaining the house, division of labour, managing finances, raising children, planning and enjoying leisure events, relationship with the in-laws, etc.), and our mate may lack the skills and attitudes to make that part of the relationship work well. If we stir in a dose of egocentricity, demands and entitlements, plus some poor communication, we have a recipe for clashes and hostility.

Whereas initially it may seem as though no price is too high to pay for a sense of belonging and intimacy with a partner, after marriage, we may realize that other personal needs are not being met and we’re not liking that price. Many couples work this through over time, finding their way to greater sharing and caring that allows for the needs of each person to be met to the maximum degree possible. But other couples do the opposite; they move from altruism to egocentricity. Each decides that they need to work at satisfying their own needs even if those are opposed to their partner’s needs. Their drive to please their partner diminishes, and they see concessions made for their mate as something they have to do, but no longer as something they want to do or that gives them joy to do. This drift into egocentricity warps the way the two view the same situations, thus giving rise to conflict over who is “right” and who is “wrong” in their view of things like the discipline of children, spending the family’s finances, and so on. As these differences in viewpoint become more pronounced, each may come to see their partner as the enemy or as a threat. Then, even the smallest disagreement can escalate into a full-blown fight.

The start in healing a distressed relationship is to bring clarity to what it is that distresses us. We may think we know, but we may be completely wrong. Take for example, the situation where my friend arrives late for a scheduled meeting at a local restaurant. When he finally arrives, I am angry, and I blow up at him. I huffily state that I am angry because he has showed up so late. But, in between his arrival and my blowup, odds are, something else happened that triggered my anger: I interpreted my friend’s lateness without even knowing what was holding him up. As I waited in the restaurant, the thought took hold of me that my friend was disrespecting me by keeping me waiting when I had other important things I could be doing besides sitting alone in a restaurant. That thinking probably went through my mind in a nanosecond, and I never even noticed that my anger started with that thought and not when I first noticed my friend was late. If I had suspended judgment about my friend’s motives until he arrived and asked about the late arrival, with the answer being that he had witnessed a car accident and stopped to offer assistance and give a statement to the police, would I have been angry at him? Perhaps not. I may have understood that an emergency is more important than my waiting a few minutes and felt pretty good about my friend’s sense of compassion and responsibility toward people in need.

Interpreting other people’s behaviour should not be seen as a complete negative. We need to do this. If someone raises their fist, how will we know if they are threatening us or celebrating a success if we don’t interpret from the surrounding circumstances? Where we get into trouble is with our automatic thoughts - those thoughts interpreting a situation that pop to mind before we have enough evidence to know if they are true or not. Such thoughts tend not to be based on the circumstances, but on our own inner needs, fears, etc. In the example of the late friend, my automatic thought sprang out of my insecurities and out of my belief that respect is shown by being on time. We probably can’t completely stop our automatic thoughts, and they wouldn’t necessarily pose so many problems to our relationships except they are so often followed by automatic reactions. I blustered at my late friend when I should have taken a moment to ask what had held him up. If we would learn to catch our automatic thoughts and process them before acting or speaking, we wouldn’t find ourselves so often doing or saying things that end up hurting our relationships.

Let’s take another example and follow more closely how automatic thinking works. One morning, my husband comments that I seem to be putting on weight. My automatic response is to be angry and indignant that he is telling me he doesn’t like how I look with a few extra pounds on, so I lash out: “And just who do you think you are, Mr. Beer Belly!” However, if I had stopped myself from talking and paid attention to my automatic thought - that my husband is telling me he thinks I’m ugly - I may have avoided starting an ugly confrontation. This is because, once the initial automatic thought is caught, if it is an angry, indignant, or otherwise offended kind of thought, the odds are pretty good that there is another thought feeding that one, which is painful (e.g., hurt, threatened, fearful). Under my automatic thought about my weight may lurk my fear that my husband doesn’t think I’m good enough for him and may be thinking of leaving me. Which may be the furthest thing from his mind. He may even like the extra curves and padding. However, once I’m launched into attack because I have responded automatically, it is very difficult to pull back. The best place to nip this fight in the bud is right at the point where I experience anger and the automatic thought. I can then process that thought to discover the real problem, and then act to correct that problem instead of the perceived but non-existent one. This may simply involve bringing correction to my automatic thought; in other words, I may correct my automatic thought by telling myself that my husband has never given me any cause to believe he doesn’t think the world of me. In fact, he does and says many things to indicate that he cares for me a great deal. Or, instead of assuming and lashing out based on my assumption, I may choose to ask him what he thinks about my extra weight so that I know exactly what he’s thinking. In either case, I may also consider if I need to do some further work on why I am so insecure in this relationship

(a) our personal doubts about our adequacy (e.g., “I wonder if I’m a good wife and mother”);

(b) guilt arising out of our self-criticism (e.g., “Why am I always so stupid!”);

(c) alarmist fears (e.g., “If we buy this house, what will happen if we can’t make the mortgage payments; we may end up on the street”);

(d) “shoulds” and “oughts” that we fail to live up to (e.g., “I should be there for my husband and make a nice dinner for the family even though I’ve had the worst work day of my life and would just like to crawl into bed and let the world go by on its own for a while”);

(e) mismatched expectations (e.g., Wife: “Listen to my good news” / Husband: “Listen to my bad news”);

These things can be summarized as threats to vital aspects of our lives: our security, safety and close relationships.

The mind is designed to shift into emergency operation in the face of danger. But it also slips into emergency operation in the face of perceived danger, producing reactions that are more automatic than intentional. What can become intentional is learning to realize when we are reacting automatically and out of an interpretation of an event that may be completely wrong, and then to take measures to lessen the extremity of our reaction. It does take time and persistence to alter psychological habits, but it can be done. On the other side of the situation, we may learn to recognize the signs of an automatic reaction in our partner and take our partner’s sensitivities into account so that we aren’t continually pushing his or her buttons.

If we are going to go down the proverbial path of an automatic thought, this is what will typically happen. First, in a fraction of a second, one or more thoughts will jump to mind. They may happen so quickly that we may react without even noticing that they have popped. Here are some typical kinds of distortions that may be part of those automatic thoughts:

(1) Tunnel vision: People with tunnel vision see only what fits their preconceived ways of thinking, and they ignore everything else. They may interpret an event on the basis of a single detail. For example, if I have a good friend who one day forgets to return my telephone call, I may let this “insult” cloud my whole view of our relationship and end up thinking that she’s a lousy friend when, in fact, she has done many kind things for me and we have enjoyed good times together, which I now forget about in my distress over her not returning my call. This works against a relationship because it stops us from seeing the good in the relationship while we magnify the bad.

(2) Taking things out of context: If we do this, we’ll come to a wrong conclusion every time. If I see my husband looking through the stock reports, I may become alarmed that he’s planning a risky venture with the family moneys, whereas he may have been told that there’s an article about an old school chum on those pages, and he’s looking for it.

(3) Bias: This is making an unfavourable judgment for which there is no evidence, but simply on the basis on one’s bias; e.g., “My husband is singing in another room just to irritate me”. This stems from a habit of needing to assign causes to events in order to feel that life is predictable and hence controllable. This, we think, gives us security. If we know what to expect, we can prepare in advance and better handle events when they happen. But in a distressed relationship, the explanations conjured up tend to be negative, which undermines the security of the relationship.

(4) Overgeneralizing: When we do this, we take an isolated or rare happening, and we make a general conclusion based on that single or rare event. For example, if my son is usually home on time for supper, but one night he walks in late, and if I tend to overgeneralize this kind of behaviour, I may think: “That child is inconsiderate and is never on time for anything.”

(5) All or nothing thinking: In this kind of thinking, there are only two extreme choices. So, if my husband makes a request that I think is unreasonable, instead of talking it through to a consensus solution, I may simply decide that my choices are to submit completely to my husband and be miserable all my life, or contradict my husband and then end up divorced as a result of the conflict that would ensue. Perfectionism is another example of this “all or nothing” kind of thinking. If someone doesn’t do something perfectly, then what they did was no good at all. This kind of thinking makes compromise very difficult since there is no middle ground in it.

(6) Exaggeration: This is a tendency to exaggerate another person’s qualities, either for the better or, as would be the case in distressed relationships, for the worse. This kind of catastrophic thinking tends to be triggered when a threatening situation seems to be no longer controllable, for example, when the other person expresses intense emotions, as during an angry blow-up. We can also magnify or “awfulize” our own emotions if we are people with low frustration tolerance; e.g., “I just can’t stand the tension around here any more. I need out.”

(7) Negative labelling: This tends to follow naturally from arriving at a negative explanation for the other person’s action: we negatively label the person. So, if my husband is late for dinner and I assume that he’s working late, I may conclude that he loves his job more than me and therefore he’s a loveless workaholic.

(8) Taking it personally: This is the belief that actions directed at others or at no one in particular are directed at me. Erratic drivers are “out to get me”, or my wife came home early and prepared a special dinner “just to show me up”.

(9) Mind reading: This is the belief that I can tell what the other person is thinking or, taking it the other way around, that the other person should know what I want or need without my having to ask or say so.

(10) If I feel it’s true, it’s true: This is the belief that since I have a strong emotion, the emotion must be justified. There is a reason for it. Someone or something has caused it.

You will perhaps recognize in this list some of the heart judgments that were talked about at the beginning of this article. None of the things in this list is the truth. All are tricks of the mind. Nevertheless, they are powerful.

The first step in getting control over this kind of thinking is to choose to get control. So, when we think that someone has launched an attack or is about to, rather than letting ourselves become angry and then fighting or fleeing lest we be hurt, we can instead seek to recognize our automatic thoughts and any distortions in our interpretation of things and hold back the impulse to defend ourselves until we can take a more rational look. This does take time to learn, as well as patience and tolerance, but the dividends are better relationships and more effective problem-solving. Of course, for effective problem-solving, some other skills and qualities are needed. By way of example, let’s say that I perceive that my wife has just criticized me. I can catch the “How dare she! Who does she think she is!” angry thoughts, check what was said for whether it was indeed a criticism and, if so, how accurate a statement it was, and then deal with those findings. If I need to set my mate straight because she was out of line, then I need to find the courage to do so and the compassion to set her right in a way that respects her as well as me.

Where do these automatic thoughts come from? How do we end up in such crazy thinking and reacting at times?

On thing that fuels automatic thoughts is our basic beliefs. We all hold basic beliefs about our world, ourselves and others. Some of those beliefs are accurate and encourage loving and godly reactions to life events and to people. For example, if I truly believe that my God will supply all my needs “according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19), and I realize that I may not be able to pay the end-of-month bills, I may avoid exaggerating the negative and feeling doomed, or the all-or-nothing view that, if I can’t make this month’s bills, it’s all over and next thing I know I’ll be out on the street, or the tunnel vision of “my life just sucks” when in fact other things in my life are going very well indeed, or taking it personally as in “God must be angry with me or punishing me for something”. Instead, I may be able to take the problem to God in prayer and then think through how I can meet this month’s financial needs as well as each following month’s financial demands: Am I spending on something I really don’t need, was this just a month with unusual and unforeseen expenses and won’t be repeated, could I supplement my income somehow, could I cut back somewhere, and so on.

On the other hand, some of our beliefs are birthed out of the hurts of life and reflect our efforts to keep from being hurt like that again. Some examples are:

· No one must ever know how afraid and weak I really am or they will take advantage.

· I have to be in control of everything in order for life to run smoothly. If something goes wrong or someone is out of sorts, then I am responsible. If the kids get out of line, then I need to fix them.

· God can’t be counted on when the going gets tough (usually never put into such clear terms) or to keep the enemy at bay since more goes wrong in life than goes right.

· If I don’t do a perfect job every time, people will think I’m a bad person or a bad employee.

· I can’t ever voice a contradictory opinion, appear to be different from the crowd, stand up for myself, or make waves, or the other person will hate me.

Now, if I hold a belief like “If I don’t do a perfect job every time, people will think I’m a bad person or a bad employee”, and I hand a report to my boss, who gives it a quick initial look then frowns, my automatic thoughts may be “She hates it; I did a lousy job”, when what is really going on is that she can already see it’s good and is mentally scheduling some time in the day to give it her full attention. But, given my basic belief, fear may grip me that I’m being considered a poor employee. Nevertheless, my boss can’t know what I’m thinking because I also have a basic belief that “No one must ever know how afraid and weak I really am or they will take advantage”, so I smile and say, “I’ll just leave you with that”, then go off and grumble to myself or later to my mate that I think the boss hates the report I spent all weekend on, and what an unpleasable tyrant she is. I may even spend the evening reworking that report in my head to see what was wrong and how it could be made better. I thus tear myself apart and end up warring with a perfectly reasonable boss in my head.

Our belief system is the key to our response to life’s events. What we believe about a situation, and not the situation itself, usually dictates our response. Our beliefs are certainly the key to how we talk. As Jesus said in Matthew 12:34b: “For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.” If we were to diagram this, it would look like the following:

Situation Þ Our beliefs Þ Our interpretation Þ Emotional reaction to our interpretation Þ Our emotional reaction expressed in actions/words

To discover some of your own underlying beliefs, simply ask yourself: “Why did I get angry when ______? I was angry because _________. So, if last week your friend called you to say she would be late picking you up for work and you got angry, if you ask yourself why you were angry, you may answer:

· Why do I think my friend was inconsiderate when I don’t know why she was running late?

· I hate being late because I’m expected to be on time and I want my boss to know I’m a good and a conscientious employee.

· I’m not sure why I jumped to the conclusion that my friend was inconsiderate.

You’re now pretty close to discovering your core beliefs. Ask yourself, what you believe about situations like this in general?

You may perhaps see some of your upbringing/social culture/work culture in these beliefs. People who, as children, were expected by their parents to meet perfectionist standards and who were told, when they failed to meet those standards, that Mum and Dad were disappointed in them and they were going to be punished, without ever being allowed to make the mistakes children naturally make, may hold all of these beliefs. That was what was taught and modelled to them at a young and impressionable age. They were praised when they met their parents’ approval and punished when they didn’t. Never did they feel loved unless they were performing well in their parents’ view of things.

But all three beliefs are false. They don’t apply globally to every situation. Sometimes excellent workers are late, or sick, or make mistakes, and they don’t fall from grace in the eyes of their superiors. If we live our lives for the approval of others and will do anything to avoid disapproval, then we are not living our own lives, but a false life dictated to us by others. Proverbs 29:25a says: Fear of man will prove to be a snare”. In other words, worrying so much about approval will lead to no good for you. Besides, people (including ourselves) who fail need compassion and help, not condemnation and punishment. Which is how God reacts to our failures.

38 Yet he was merciful; he forgave their iniquities and did not destroy them. Time after time he restrained his anger and did not stir up his full wrath.

39 He remembered that they were but flesh, a passing breeze that does not return.

1 Every high priest is selected from among men and is appointed to represent them in matters related to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins.

2 He is able to deal gently with those who are ignorant and are going astray, since he himself is subject to weakness.

9 and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him

All of this means that we can use our negative emotional reactions as our friend and guide. Automatic emotional reactions are learned habits, and they can be unlearned. When they occur, we can use them as a guide to determine if our belief and response to a given situation are based on the truth or a lie. Feelings are signals, telling us something about ourselves. When we are bent out of shape about something, it’s a good idea to take a step back and ask: “Why am I reacting this way? What am I believing? Is this belief a lie? What is the truth?”

Often our faulty emotional reactions stem from beliefs at opposite ends of a spectrum - either “I’m completely without blame” or “I’m completely/always at fault”. Let’s call these being “God” and being “Judas”. Pat Springle, in his book Conquering Codependency: A Christ-Centred 12-Step Process,[8] gives the following table of some common feelings and behaviours, which can be helpful in identifying patterns in our lives:

Once we are stirred up and angry, we experience that anger as an internal pressure to do something to release our internal tension. The action that anger normally prompts us to take is aggressive action or hostility. Angry people may be unnecessarily provocative in the way they talk to the person at whom they are angry, using sarcasm, needling, criticism or a certain tone of voice. This can, in turn, provoke anger and hostility in the other person. However, the angry person can be oblivious to the fact that the way they have just responded to someone is a good way to provoke resentment, opposition and retaliation instead of co-operation. Worse, hostility, in order to be “successful”, must inflict pain, and the angry person may keep attacking until he or she sees a pained reaction. So hostile action tends to produce reaction, which can produce another reaction, and so on, with each person tending to give more than they just got, until someone stops the escalation. It is fairly obvious that such an escalation may result in a great deal of pain.

For the average human in the average life situation, taking hostile action is probably counter-productive. It is generally unlikely to change the other person’s attitudes, and it may only temporarily suppress unwanted behaviour. Heated arguments may also cause people in relationship to pull away from one other and to experience a decline in loving feelings toward one another. In other words, “man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires” (James 1:20). Further, where hostility is based on misunderstandings, exaggerations, and other kinds of faulty automatic thoughts, it is likely to increase rather than to solve problems. While I may believe that I am angry because my wife never cleans up after herself in the kitchen, in reality, the real issue may not be the dirty dishes, but rather the interpretation that this act means my wife is disrespecting me by not keeping the kitchen clean for when I want to come in and use it. People are thus well advised to learn how to control or reduce their hostility rather than just let it fly.

Our anger is perhaps best dealt with by understanding it rather than by acting it out. If understanding can change our mental picture of the “threat”, our anger will change as well. Sometimes we can come to realize that there is no real threat at all, in which case, our anger will evaporate. Unfortunately, once we get angry, not only do our bodies stiffen in preparation for attack, but so do our minds. Anger tends to narrow our thinking to the one thing that has provoked us, and we disregard all other aspects of the situation. However, we still do not need to act. Anger mobilizes us to act, but we can apply the brake instead. This, of course, is a temporary solution. Ultimately we still need to come to grips with what is distressing us and our relationship with the other person and how change can be brought to bear.

When we experience angry feelings, before venting, it is wise to take a deep breath, mentally step back from the situation, and ask ourselves some questions:

(1) Do a reality check: Is my anger warranted? Do I have all the facts I need to properly understand the situation?

(3) What will I lose if I vent? If there are good short-term results, are these more than offset by negative long-term results?

Putting the shoe on the other foot, if it is the other person who gets angry, we would do well to try to defuse that anger. We have some choices to make in order to do that:

(1) Choose not to get involved in a back-and-forth attack-counterattack session. This is extremely difficult, but needed if the other person’s anger is to be defused and not escalated. So we allow them to bluster and have their say.

(2) Calmly ask if the two of you can talk further about the problem but without yelling. Or maybe talk later when the other person has had a chance to cool down some. If needed, call a time out in order for both people involved to have a chance to cool before coming back to the problem.

(3) If needed, schedule a troubleshooting session when you both can sit down and rationally deal with the issue.

Sometimes, when it comes to talking things through, it may become evident that there exists another problem, that being an inability to express oneself, either through fear of retaliation or concern about hurting the other’s feelings. Or the person may not know exactly what is bothering them, or may lack the skill to lay out their problem to the other person and and work constructively through the conflict. Conflict resolution skills can be learned. On the other hand, the angry partner may be overly compliant to the point of submerging their own needs and desires and always yielding to the other person. Such a person needs to learn to become more assertive, again, a skill that can be learned.

Obviously, learning to communicate and to problem-solve in ways that help us to solve problems rather than creating even more problems requires that each person in a relationship be willing to change how they do things, if that is what is called for. However, some people resist this kind of change. Following are four beliefs that may result in resistance. It should be noted that these are all faulty beliefs that can be changed to more realistic ones so that a distressed relationship can move forward.

· the other person will never go along, and nothing can be done unless he/she co-operates

· it’s wrong to have to work this hard at a relationship; a relationship shouldn’t need so much work if it’s a good one

· there’s been too much damage done for us to think we can ever get back to being good together

The truth is, people can and do change - constantly - and they can be helped to change in positive ways. Christians, in particular, are called to constant change (2 Corinthians 3:18): “And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”

Changes that result in more rewarding interactions increase pleasure in the relationship and so begin to erode the hopelessness that spawns defeatist attitudes. And change can begin to happen if only one of the partners makes the initial effort. This can stir the more reluctant person to join in.

What about the idea that a relationship is sick or hopeless? Well, the fact is that people enter relationships with many personal differences and little idea of how to reconcile those differences. Many of us have never observed our parents engaged in problem-solving, and we have had no other training in it. Thus, we shouldn’t look at our relationship as flawed if we haven’t yet developed the skills needed to adapt better to each other. Once we start to see our dilemma as a skills problem rather than a hopelessly sick relationship problem, we can perhaps be encouraged that we can’t decide our relationship is doomed until we have tried our hand at some basic skills.

Finally, trying to mend a relationship will make things worse if those efforts are counterproductive things like fault-finding, demanding, shaming, etc. However, if those changes have been proven to be helpful to relationships, they are worth a try. Yes, in the short-term, the other person may react negatively to the changes in your behaviour as they try to adjust to the “new you”. But, if they are at all interested in healing the relationship, they will probably come to respond positively to your changed behaviour as an invitation to make a move themselves to bridge the gap to a closer relationship.

· there’s nothing wrong with the way I behave; my behaviour is perfectly normal

Self-justifying beliefs pose a challenge because they sound so reasonable and righteous. However, people need to be encouraged that, even if certain behaviours “feel” right, if those behaviours are undermining the relationship, then they are self-defeating. And living your marriage or any other relationship on the philosophy of “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” only produces blind, toothless people. Someone has to break the cycle of hurt and retaliation if that cycle is ever going to stop.

· it’s not fair that I have to do all the work and make all the right decisions

· the other person has hurt me so badly that it’s going to take a lot for them to make it up to me

Actually, for a relationship to improve, it’s not necessary that both people start to make changes at the same time. If just one begins to make positive changes, there may be a positive effect on the other. It’s simply reality that one may be in a better position than the other to begin the process, perhaps because they’re more optimistic or hopeful or because they are in greater pain and so have a greater motivation for change. If that person waits until the other is equally ready, the right moment may never arrive. It is far better to accept the “inequality” and get something accomplished than to cling to our notions of fairness and see our relationship continue to limp along.

· there’s nothing wrong with me; if the other person would shape up, everything would be fine

The fact that the other person will never budge can’t be known for sure until the one makes an effort to change. Then they can see whether the other is indeed incapable of change. Even then, if it’s true that the other person is impossible to get on with or to live with, the final word still can’t be spoken without an attempt at getting them into counselling, which may succeed in breaking through their resistance to change.

Part of working on what is good in a relationship is knowing just what the building blocks of a strong relationship are. Sometimes people are unaware of these as needed facets of a healthy relationship. In a marriage, the following are elements of a mature love (these can be applied, in modified form if needed, to other kinds of relationships):

(1) feelings of warmth (Ephesians 4:1a (KJV): “And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted …”)

These feelings replace the intensity of infatuation (the obsessive thinking about one another, the idealization of the partner, the overpowering desire to be together, the emotional highs and lows that are common at the start of an intimate relationship).

(2) caring (Philippians 2:4: “Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.”)

“Caring” means believing in the other and letting them know that they are important to you. Two major aspects of caring are being concerned about the other person’s welfare and being ready to help or protect them if needed.

(3) expressions of affection (Song of Solomon 1:15, 16: “How beautiful you are, my darling! Oh, how beautiful! Your eyes are doves.” “How handsome you are, my lover! Oh, how charming! And our bed is verdant.”)

These are such obvious ways to stir warm feelings, but they tend to diminish with time and marital stress and may disappear altogether. Distressed couples need to be encouraged back to doing these things whenever they genuinely feel like it.

(4) acceptance and tolerance (Ephesians 4:32: “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”)

· accepting the other person in totality, with weak points as well as strong ones

Acceptance is unconditional in a mature relationship - being aware of differences without being critical, and being aware of weaknesses in the other without being judgmental. Such acceptance is deeply reassuring to the other and helps foster their self-acceptance. Couples can then relax and let down their guard. This doesn’t mean blindness to real problems, but it does mean that problems can be worked on together without casting anyone as the “bad guy”.

(5) empathy and sensitivity to the other person’s concerns and vulnerable spots (1 Corinthians 8:9: “Be careful, however, that the exercise of your freedom does not become a stumbling block to the weak.”)

· being able to sense when the other person is feeling poorly without being told (assuming the signals are there and you don’t have to mind read)

Unfortunately, our vulnerable spots tend to manifest in our overreactions. This means that the empathetic person needs to avoid their own automatic reactions in order to try to gently explore with the other what the underlying problem/concern/fear might be. This requires bearing in mind that overreactions are generally signs of hidden vulnerabilities and not the result of some horrible personality deficit.

(6) understanding (Psalm 103:13-14: “As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust.”)

· being able to see a situation through the other person’s eyes even though you may disagree

· being able to tell what the other person is upset about when they complain (in other words, not jumping to self-defence, but coming alongside them)

Mutual understanding is one of the first things to be lost in an interpersonal fight. In an attempt to win, the parties to the relationship accuse and seek to outwit each other in order to gain the high ground. Again, checking for automatic thoughts and mind reading, coupled with an intentional self-reminder to work on the problem rather than attack the other person, can go a long way to avoiding throwing away understanding.

(7) companionship (Ecclesiastes 4:9-12: “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up! Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.”)

Companionship may be lost as partners become preoccupied with things like work, child rearing and managing the household. Companionship can be improved simply through planning: thinking of things to do together, putting those things on the calendar and then doing them. These don’t have to be big things. They can be as simple as cleaning the house together (emphasis on together, without one person telling the other how to do their part of the job or that they’re doing it wrong or that they aren’t doing it well enough).

(8) intimacy (Amos 3:7: “Surely the Sovereign LORD does nothing without revealing his plan to his servants the prophets”; 1 Corinthians 2:16: “For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?" But we have the mind of Christ”; Exodus 33:11a: “The LORD would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend.”)

· feeling free to share with your mate what you wouldn’t share with another soul

Intimacy is in many ways a byproduct of caring, acceptance, sensitivity and understanding, and it is undermined by misunderstandings, criticism, punishing and controlling.

(9) friendliness (1 Corinthians 12:25: “…so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.”)

“Friendliness” refers to taking a genuine interest in the other as a person. It involves discovering what really matters to them and joining in on that.

(10) pleasing the other person (1 Corinthians 7:33, 34: “But a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world - how he can please his wife . . . a married woman is concerned about the affairs of this world--how she can please her husband.”)

This is a two-way street. And, as you give the other person pleasure, you can share in their satisfaction.

(11) support for the other person (Psalm 145:14: “The LORD upholds all those who fall and lifts up all who are bowed down.”

Support conveys a sense that you’re dependable, you’re behind the other person, and you can be counted on. Sometimes partners are too neutral. Take, for example, a situation where my partner is weighing the possibility of a new venture such as accepting a promotion at work. By hesitating to take a stance, I may unwittingly undermine my partner’s sense of initiative and capability, or I may withhold cautions that might prove helpful to my partner in arriving at a well-reasoned decision. How one partner gives support to the other will vary from couple to couple and will take a certain amount of trial and error.

(12) closeness (Isaiah 40:11: “He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young”; Proverbs 18:24: “A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother”; Isaiah 49:16: “See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me.”

Closeness has to do, not just with being together, but with the quality of that time together. If one is distracted and thinking about other things, there really isn’t an experience of closeness even though the two may be together. Closeness can be fostered by discussing important matters together, sharing plans and goals, or reflecting on the day together, not to mention doing loving acts for one another.

It is a good idea to begin with behaviour changes first, then move to thinking patterns. This is because, when actions change, there can be an immediate reward. In making behaviour changes, it is also wise to start with positive changes rather than seeking to eliminate negative behaviours in the relationship, which may suggest to a sensitive spouse that they are being blamed or criticized. Thus, if the husband brings his wife flowers “just because”, or if the wife asks her husband how his work day went and spends a few moments listening before bustling off to look after dinner and the kids, the reaction may be immediate and positive with no backlash. As well, working at creating a more positive atmosphere will help to create a safer, sounder foundation for moving on to dealing with what is problematic in the relationship.

Because people in a distressed relationship tend to be very focused on what is wrong with that relationship, they may lose sight of what is right and of what they once found attractive in each other and perhaps still do if they would only take the time and energy to have a good look for it. So they may need to make a deliberate effort to look for what is still good about each other and their relationship. This is somewhat difficult territory to navigate because of the power of a single unpleasant event to wipe out many positive ones in each other’s mind. However, it is necessary because, as part of the work to improve a relationship, people need to not only stop doing what is destructive to the relationship, but also work to improve what they like about it.

Simply keeping track of small pleasures may increase satisfaction with a relationship. As well, this can give a baseline for later comparison as people work to improve their satisfaction with each other. And, after observing one another’s spontaneous good behaviour, the couple may be able to say what else they would find pleasing.

Another way for people to move a relationship forward is to try to do something to help meet each other’s needs. This may be somewhat difficult. One reason for the difficulty is that many people have not developed ways of letting others know specifically what their needs are, or they prefer to have other people perceive their needs without having to be prompted or asked for help. Some need assurance that asking for help is not a sign of weakness or failure. While it is true that people, especially in intimate relationships, can sense when the other is in difficulty and come alongside, usually their first act is to ask what’s wrong. It is not a lack of sensitivity or love to not be able to mind read. We need to share what is wrong in a way the other person can understand. Melting into tears may be our first response to the question, but that still may not communicate well. The other may need to wait til our tears are spent and we can find words to express our pain more clearly.

Once people have made some positive moves to increase the pleasure factor in their relationship and decrease the conflict, they hopefully will eventually find themselves in a position to see the problems in their relationship as problems and not as characteristics of the other person. Working together in a relationship, including on problems, involves some basic attitudes or outlooks. In a marriage, these would include the following (which, again, can be applied to other relationships, modified as needed):

In the early stages of marriage, couples tend to be enthusiastic about building their relationship together. In a mature marriage, the partners’ interests and goals may diverge, but they can negotiate or submerge their own special interests - for instance, to solve problems such as the division of household labour or their differing views on raising the children - for the sake of their long-term goal, which is an enjoyable, stable relationship. Of course, there are also immediate rewards. A spirit of co-operation, of pleasing one’s spouse, and of settling problems is satisfying in and of itself. Many spouses identify with each other so that the pleasures and pains of the one are shared by the other. All of this can be pressed into service so that the couple can override the divisiveness produced by a conflict of interests, values or perspectives.

(2) commitment (each one determines that they will stay in the marriage no matter what the difficulties)

As the heady feelings of infatuation subside, dedication to each other’s welfare and happiness becomes the binding force in a marriage and later in the parent-child relationship. Commitment, in order to be strong enough to weather the storms of life, needs ideally to be full.

Fear is very often the driving force behind incomplete commitment. If I don’t commit myself fully to my spouse, then my spouse can’t hurt me as badly or I can get out of the marriage more easily if things go wrong. Unfortunately, incomplete commitment also feeds fear because now there is no guarantee of support when life gets tough.

Also, incomplete commitment undermines intimacy. If spouses find themselves in a situation of incomplete commitment, they may consider doing a trial run for some months, during which time they commit themselves completely to the relationship and look for the positive rather than the negative. Then they can see if it’s better for them to invest in their marriage this way rather than holding a large emotional reserve.

Another thing that can inhibit full commitment is that full commitment often requires giving up something else. If I’m committed to my wife and children, that means I can no longer run around with the boys every night like a free bachelor. Choices need to be made. People need to take stock of what those choices are and what the pros and cons are to having one or the other, then be encouraged to make a choice and stick with it.

If couples would make an effort to live more as a unit and less as two people inhabiting the same house, they would give themselves a chance to learn from experience the satisfaction of that way of living.

(3) basic trust (being able to assume that one’s spouse is dependable and available)

· I know I can depend on my spouse for help in ordinary situations and in an emergency

A solid trust is, unfortunately, difficult to develop and easy to shake. Erik Trust is something a child begins to learn through interaction with his or her parents. A child’s basic trust includes the following:

· The important people in my life will not overstep their bounds, take advantage of me, or knowingly injure me.

Such trust, if learned, may not carry over to peers if peers prove to be cruel, deceitful or unreliable. And mistrust, no matter when or how learned, may be carried into marriage, although masked by the initial infatuation. Many spouses trust their partners part of the time but not all of the time. They may trust their mates in all matters except the handling of finances or in their time spent away from the home. One thing that can help mates in matters of trust is to see things less as black and white. Thus, if my husband lies to me once, that doesn’t make him a chronic liar. Most people are truthful most of the time but not all of the time. Most of us have good motives most of the time but mixed motives some of the time and poor motives a small portion of the time. That’s the reality of life in a sinful world. But trust can still flourish because exceptions don’t negate the rule that such partners are basically for each other and will stand with each other. Once some of a couple’s initial hostility has been worked through, they may be able to agree on the assumption that they have a basic good will toward each other and that they will get along better if they attribute that good will toward each other instead of always suspecting and accusing each other of the worst. This includes giving one another the benefit of the doubt. Forgiveness would also go a long way, together with the understanding that no one is perfect in our imperfect world. Perfectionist ideals should not be allowed to undermine an imperfect but generally rewarding relationship.

Loyalty, in this sense, refers to placing our spouse’s interests above the interests of others. For example, if one partner is criticized by a third party, the other partner will stick up for them and not take sides with the third party against their mate. In other words, it is a sense of alliance: we are for each other, right or wrong. Remaining neutral may not be an option, as neutrality may be perceived as disloyalty.

In order to ensure a solid marriage, each partner has to limit their satisfaction to those things that are compatible with marriage and to relinquish those that would threaten it. One of those things is sexual intercourse. Sexual infidelity tends to be viewed as a direct attack on the marriage relationship and a mockery of the commitment that was supposed to have been made. Over and above the moral issue, infidelity severely damages the relationship and the offended partner’s self-image and trust. If there is infidelity and the marriage survives it, the hurts may persist indefinitely, which will make life together difficult.

Since our personal distortions are so misleading and destructive to our relationships, we are well advised to work toward changing these. We do this by:

As a starting point, we begin by identifying situations that tend to be troublesome for us and the meanings we attach to those situations. So, if I know that I have difficulty every time my spouse speaks to me in a gruff voice, I can begin to pay attention to my stream of automatic thoughts whenever he speaks to me gruffly. I may discover that my mind pops thoughts like these: “What did I do wrong” (fear); “I don’t deserve this” (anger); “He’s always doing this to me” (awfulizing); “I can’t stand this” (despair); “Our marriage is doomed” (catastrophizing). I may be used to my spouse’s gruff voice being immediately followed by my emotional reaction. But there will be a link of automatic thoughts in between the voice and the emotion.

When our automatic thoughts trigger an automatic emotional reaction, we need to resist automatically acting on that emotion in our usual but self-defeating ways, such as getting our back up, snapping back, becoming defensive or withdrawing. Instead, we need to stop and pay attention to those in-between thoughts. Those are our interpretation of the event and what really caused our emotional reaction. For example, when my husband spoke gruffly, I probably didn’t react with fear to his voice. I may instead have reacted with fear to the thought “What did I do now”, that is, to the thought that I was in trouble for doing something wrong.

We then need to tell ourselves that, just because these thoughts feel right doesn’t mean that they are right. My husband may be speaking gruffly because that is how he talks when he is emotionally aroused; he could be excited and not angry at all and still speak that way. But then we need to find a way to prove or disprove our automatic thoughts. In other words, we need to examine them for supporting evidence, contradictory evidence, alternative explanations and more logical explanations. For example, let’s say that my spouse has just spoken to me in a gruff voice because he is upset. But is he upset because I did something wrong? What if he has just had a terrible day at the office and, when he spoke to me, was still thinking of the unfair way he was treated at work? In that case, his tone of voice says nothing at all about how he feels toward me. This is evidence that contradicts my automatic thought. On the other hand, what if he says in a gruff voice: “Look at the state of this house!” Isn’t that supportive of my “What did I do now” thought because he’s grumping about how I didn’t clean the house well enough, didn’t keep it tidy enough, etc.? Maybe. But I really wouldn’t know for sure unless I asked “What is it about the house that’s bothering you?” If he answers “This paint is so tired; I need to plan a painting weekend for myself”, then we’re still proved wrong.

Once we have some evidence in hand about what really may be going on, we may need to come up with a more rational response, which should then also be tested for accuracy. If my husband speaks to me in a gruff voice as he returns home from work, but I take the time to notice that he looks whipped, I may decide that his tone of voice has something to do with what happened before he walked in the door, possibly a hard day at the office. So I test that explanation by asking him if he’s upset about something. If he then rattles off the difficulties of his work day, I’m proved correct. But he may surprise me if he talks about his near car accident on the drive home because another driver was careless. In which case, I’m proved wrong about the details, but right about one thing – the gruff voice had nothing to do with me or our marriage.

We don’t necessarily have to wait for the problem event to happen in order to do this work. We can also imagine such an event, or replay an actual event in our mind at a later date, and then pay attention to our automatic reactions. This can sometimes be easier than trying to do it while in the midst an actual distressing situation.

As we do this work, we may realize that we need to reframe. In the example of the gruff voice, if I think, “He’s always doing this to me”, this frames my spouse as an angry, disrespectful person. If this is an exaggeration. I need to change that exaggeration. The truth might be, for example, “He tends to speak gruffly when he’s upset. But he also tends to get over that rather quickly. Mostly he’s quite polite and considerate.”

Following is one action plan that might help in changing distorted thinking and reactions:

(1) Stop, if you’re about to jump into an automatic reaction, and take a time out to reflect. Or, if you’ve already given in to an automatic reaction, when you’re calmer, take some time to reflect back. Pray for guidance.

(2) Detach, or take a step back from the situation, and ask yourself some questions. What was your emotional reaction? What were you thinking that caused that reaction? Were you operating out of a false belief? If so, which one? What is the truth?

(3) Decide some things. What are you responsible for in this situation, and what will you do about that? What is the other person responsible for? How can you express this to the other person in a way that respects both them and you? When would be the best time to talk with them? Pray before you proceed.

Many of our relationship-building moments occur in conversations: the word of encouragement, the “I love you so very much”, the verbal pat on the back. It is not so very surprising, therefore, that not being able to communicate is a common complaint of people in distressed relationships. Following are some problems that are often named.

If, by this, we mean total, 100% openness and honesty, then that is impossible, even in our marriages. We all see reality through our own psychological and emotional filters and, when we are angry or in some other negative emotional state, those filters colour reality even more. If we speak “absolutely honestly” at that point (or, in a way that we understand at that moment to be absolutely honest), we stand a good chance of communicating our frame of mind, in which we may magnify the other person’s negative traits and ignore their positive ones, and we will wound that person. When we have calmed down, we may see things quite differently. At times of heightened emotion, we are least likely to express our true thoughts if we open our mouths and say what we are thinking. Rather than aiming for total, brutal “honesty”, it is perhaps better to aim at being direct and mindful of the other person’s sensitivities (Ephesians 4:15): “Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ.” So, if a co-worker asks me what I think of a business report she has asked me to look over but I know this person struggles with self-worth and is really wanting someone to boost his courage before he submits the report to the boss, I can say what I like about the report and avoid critiquing its weak points unless asked to do so. Or I may choose to say what I like about the report and then a little about one weak spot in order to test the waters, and then wait for a reaction to see if it’s safe to advance further with the discussion at that time. What I don’t want to do is push this person’s insecurity buttons so that he takes the whole report, which is quite adequate and has several very good ideas, and throws it in the trash in an automatic but overblown reaction of “this report is no good at all”.

This is a problem of having to be on guard all the time lest the other person blow up or run off hurt and sulky. Often this is not so much a problem of what one says as it is of conversational style. If I say something and I get a negative response, then I need to ask myself not just “what did I say that was so wrong”, but “how did I say this that was so wrong”. If my wife is nervous around angry people, then I may need to learn to soften my gruff voice and find ways to put things more gently. If I demand that my friend do something and an argument ensues, I may need to learn to ask respectfully. If my parents complain about my constant whining, I may need to learn to simply ask for what I need or want from them. It’s interesting that we may know how to speak civilly with strangers but not practise that same civility at home. And so we need to learn to mind our manners at home.

(3) He is out of touch with his feelings and hates to hear me talk about mine.

She is always asking how I feel and wants me to wallow with her in what she is feeling.

Women do tend to be more in touch with the emotional side of a problem, whereas men like to analyze and fix the problem. Each may believe that the other is off track. However, both tracks are needed for any relationship to run well. Both are valid components of any problem. The trick is for the two to clue in to which track is being discussed at the moment. If she states that she is feeling hurt, he needs to realize that she is not asking to be fixed; she is asking “are you on my side, are you with me, will you support me”. Similarly, the fact that he wants to lay out a game plan does not necessarily mean that he’s emotionally frigid and out of touch with his heart, but that he wants to tackle a different aspect of the problem. She may ask about his feelings, but if he’s not introspective, he may not have much to offer. However, if he will spend some time listening to her feelings, he may recognize something similar happening within himself and, in this way, become more sensitized to his own feelings.

People in long-term relationships, including spouses, may look like they are doing all things well but may be bored with each other. Some of this may be due to the poverty of their conversation. They no longer bring up topics that interest the other person or that touch on the more pleasurable aspects of their relationship. They may be too busy to even stop to list the current things in their life for which they are thankful and blessed. They may not know that if one starts a conversation with a loving comment, that may not be the best time to launch into wondering what can be done about a certain problem. Also, if life has taken a serious turn, one or both may forget to carve out times for fun, play and humour. It may be time to backtrack to earlier times to rediscover what used to give mutual satisfaction and pleasure and begin to do those things again. Or, if those things are not “do-able” because of illness, infirmity, disability, etc., then it may be time to start afresh - to approach the relationship as if it is new and discover what things now give mutual pleasure within the physical limitations of the parties to the relationship.

(1) Tune in to the other person’s channel and follow that channel until you are satisfied that the person has what they need (advice, assurance, etc.).

(2) Give listening signals. Speaking with no sign from the other that they are listening can be very discouraging even if they really are listening.

(4) Ask questions carefully. Questions can be poorly timed or be too probing or irrelevant, or they may sound accusatory and can thus hinder a conversation.

(5) Be diplomatic and tactful. Everyone has sensitive areas where they can be easily injured. Those areas need to be respected without having to walk on eggshells.

This advice is useful for casual conversations as well as more serious ones, but casual talk should, as far as possible, be kept separate from more serious discussions. That way, relationships can maintain a balance of light and seriousness.

People will disagree. When they do, the solution is not for one to “win” and get their own way. Nor is it fair for one person to assume that the other is in the wrong, selfish or stubborn and then become defensive and harden their position. Disagreements and conflict signal that the people involved now need to work together to:

(1) Define clearly what each wants/needs. This may be a challenge. One or both may not really know what they need or want. But if they make a point of knowing so as to be able to say clearly what they need or want, they stand a better chance of not disagreeing over something like mental tapes from the past disguised as something relevant to the current situation.

(2) Figure out where the differences are. It may be that there really is no disagreement, but the people involved have simply miscommunicated. However, most disagreements are a combination of a genuine conflict plus miscommunication. Any given conflict may consist of:

· differences in outlook (I think the kids should be disciplined this way, but my wife thinks something different should happen);

· differences in personality (I like spontaneity but my friend prefers predictability);

· differences in perspective (we each see the same thing from different points of view).

It is very helpful to try to see the situation from the other’s point of view. It may be that both are “right” according to each one’s point of view.

(3) Brainstorm to find a variety of possible solutions. To do this successfully, the people involved need to embrace flexibility. This means that they need to become aware of where they hold to rigid standards or absolute rules that need to be set aside. The more absolute the standards are that a person holds, the more likely it is that those standards are based in things like fear and self-doubt, which do not help in resolving problem issues. It can be difficult to face up to these and to judge the validity of one’s own rigid standards and expectations, but it is a challenge that is worth rising to since these are so destructive of relationships. As well, seeking some middle ground, or a solution that would satisfy everyone, often means compromising, and compromise can feel like doing something wrong if it violates a personal standard, no matter how illogical that standard may be. This can propel the dispute into a win-lose scenario, where the standard has to win even at the expense of the relationship. Better to tackle the reasonableness of the standard and put it in proper perspective before seeking a mutually satisfying solution.

(4) Select a solution that satisfies everyone involved the most. This means taking into account each person’s preferences and needs, but it also involves evaluating the strength of those preferences and needs. In looking at the various options that are available, it is helpful for each person to state how strongly they feel about those options. If a wife says that she’s not much in the mood to go out to dinner, but the husband replies that he really needs an hour to reconnect after a horrible week at work, the two may see that dinner out is the way to go.

It can sometimes be wise to deal with complaints and conflicts at specially scheduled troubleshooting sessions. Following are some guidelines for these sessions:

(1) Pick a time when it is quiet and both of you can talk freely. Agree on the agenda at the beginning of the session, listing the problems or requests that will be discussed. This avoids blindsiding the other person.

(3) The person talking needs to be brief and specific and to avoid insulting, blaming, accusing or labelling. Any inferences about the other person’s action should be checked out.

(4) If it’s the other person’s turn to talk, listen without defending yourself, making excuses or counter-attacking. Even if what is being said sounds grossly unfair or exaggerated, try to remain as objective as possible. Be an investigator, not an instigator. Try to get as clear an idea as possible of what you have done or not done that has upset the other person. Ask for specific examples. Then summarize what you think you have heard and give a short summary.

(5) Try to find solutions. Apologize if you have clearly injured the other person. Then focus on what you want to achieve rather than on what one of you did wrong. Brainstorm together, and try to come up with as many solutions as possible. Then do a cost-effectiveness analysis of each solution: What will each solution cost each person, and what will each person benefit from it?

(6) Mutually decide on the most workable solution. Above all things, it is important that each person knows that the other is there for them and is invested in the relationship.

(7) Don’t make troubleshooting sessions all about the negative. Make some time to summarize good things about your relationship or to reflect on previous pleasant events. We have a natural tendency to overlook the pleasant events of our life and really do need to make an effort to see our relationships in balance.

Proverbs 18:21a says: “The tongue has the power of life and death”. It is simply not true that “sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me”. Names do hurt. Words hurt. But words can also heal and nurture and breathe life and love. If words have been a problem in your life, either words that you have received or words you have spoken, it might be a good idea for you to also read the article “Six Areas of Life Where Bondages Commonly Need to Be Broken” and to pray the prayers given there for release from curses and bitter judgments.

Or, if you are a person who always seems to be pushing someone else’s buttons without realizing how you are doing that, or who is always saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, along with this article, you may benefit from the teaching on meditation under the “Meditation” button on this website. Meditation will train you in being more alert and sensitive to what is going on in the present moment.

[1] Colossians 4:6: “Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” For a more detailed look at this topic, see Aaron T. Beck, M.D., Love Is Never Enough (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1988).

[2] “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”

[3] “‘You will not surely die,’ the serpent said to the woman. ‘For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’”

[4] [Jesus speaking]: “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”

[5] [Jesus speaking]: “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.”

[6] “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

[7] “So Jonathan made a covenant with the house of David, saying, ‘May the LORD call David’s enemies to account.’ And Jonathan had David reaffirm his oath out of love for him, because he loved him as he loved himself.”

[8] (Nashville, Tennessee: Leadership and Adult Publishing, 2002), at p. 196.