Practice with the Minor Conflict, Because the Major One Is Coming!

I put together an online course a few years ago on the Win-Win Marriage in which I provide participants a six-step process for finding win-win.

• Listen to understand
• Affirm all that I can
• Unpack self-interest that’s good
• Guard against suppression—not good
• Hone in on common ground
• Suggest win-win til found

I then challenge them to agree on a minor conflict they are currently having and to step through these six steps (which I expand on for them) as they seek win-win. There are two reasons I stress starting with a minor conflict: One, we want to avoid World War III breaking out. The point here at the onset is to build skills, not solve their biggest problems right off that bat. Two, by building these skills with a minor conflict, they will then be better equipped to apply the same skills when a major conflict comes… because one is coming!

One couple who accepted this challenge shared with me how they applied the six steps to a minor conflict. I’ll share their story here:

Listen to understand: We are currently away on a vacation and will be heading home soon. My disability keeps me from working anymore, so I have no need to rush home. I’d prefer to take a longer, slower route. My wife needs to get back to her job, though, and wants to take the more direct, less scenic route home.

Affirm all that I can: She understands that as I have no job to get back to, our vacation away together is extra special for me and I am not in a hurry to end it. She knows that making stops along the way, discovering new places, and enjoying the scenery would be my preference for ending our vacation. However, I get it that she has responsibilities at work to get back to, plus we have a garden at home that needs tending to, as well as other responsibilities.

Unpack self-interest that’s good: We have so much to do in the garden we are building, so we obviously don’t want to delay that more than is needed. As well, there are chores and projects we both should get to around the house, and our laundry from camping is building up. My wife also wants to get home so she can make pies for the church bake sale coming up. At the same time, we will be traveling through some beautiful states. It only makes sense that we should try to enjoy the scenery and use the opportunity to ease back into the “real world.” Let’s enjoy a little vacation as we transition back to the day-to-day.

Guard against suppression—not good: We shared all of the above, without holding back any of our goodwilled reasons for why we held the views we did. In the end, she was mostly concerned with getting back to work and duties; I was thinking mostly about enjoying our vacation as much as possible.

Hone in on common ground: We are both on vacation together seeing new parts of the country we have never spent much time going through before. Responsibilities aside, we would both like to see the sites and enjoy more vacation time on the road.

Suggest win-win til found: We suggested different options until we came to the joint idea of taking the long way home for the sights if we stay focused and didn’t take long lunch stops. We agreed on one tourist-type stop but otherwise would drive home and simply enjoy the scenic drive.

Perfect! See how it’s done? Neither of them was wrong in their preference for how slow or fast they’d take to drive home from their vacation, yet a decision still had to be made. Who says they had to make a decision where one of them would be unhappy? Instead, they walked through the six-step process and found win-win! 

But this was a minor conflict, of course, which was the assignment. Start small so they can develop the skills then use them when the next major conflict arises. But it wouldn’t be long before a major conflict concerning finances arose. How could the six steps be applied with this? In his words: “We have a problem setting limits financially and sticking to them.” As a result they found themselves in credit card debt.

Listen to understand: When it comes to spending money, whether it’s big chunks like car repairs or marriage counseling, or smaller day-to-day things like the costs of running a garden, my wife is more of a “just spend the money, it’s necessary” kind of person without considering whether it was budgeted. I, on the other hand, feel a need to set a strict budget and keep to it. That would include an emergency budget for things like car repairs. And if we haven’t previously budgeted for counseling, then we need to figure out what to cut out of the budget before we add it in.

Affirm all that I can: We both affirm for the other that neither of us is opposed to any of these things we want or need to spend money on. Who can argue with needed car repairs? And it’s hard to justify spending what we do on gardening but then not wanting to spend money on marriage counseling. The difference of opinion comes in, do we just break out the credit card and figure it out later, or do we figure it out now before we pay for it?

Unpack self-interest that’s good: I want us to be careful about staying out of debt. With me not being able to work anymore because of our disability, I am extra conscious and careful about spending money. I consider saving money to be “my part” of the finances now, since I am unable to earn it. And she is not trying to spend money on silly and unnecessary things. We both enjoy gardening. And of course, who can blame her for suggesting marriage counseling? Her intentions are fully goodwilled.

Guard against suppression—not good: My main concern is that we don’t spend money we don’t have. She agrees with that in principle, but there are some things, like marriage counseling, that she thinks trumps any budget concerns. If it needs to be bought, then what else is there to consider?

Hone in on common ground: We both agree on the need to have a monthly budget. We also agree to have a stricter control on our lusts for “stuff.” Do we need this or do we just want it, will be the question that drives our purchases. We also agree that counseling is a good thing and something we should fit into the budget. We actually don’t disagree on what we should spend money on!

Suggest win-win til found: She suggested setting aside an envelope for “hard-to-calculate” items like unforeseen car repairs, as well as another envelope for “desires,” like counseling sessions or other marriage-enhancing courses/books/seminars. This meets my need to pay as we go and not go into debt again, but also provides the funds in advance that allows her to sign up for these kinds of things as we go, without wondering how we’re going to pay for them.

This is how we were able to apply the six steps for future budget problems, but we were unable to figure out a win-win for our current debt problem. The fact is, after our vacation, after the car repairs we had to take care of when we got home, and a few other big things that came up that we just put on the Visa and said we’d figure it out later, we still had debt that would require some sacrifices to get out of. But where? Our budget is already limited because of my inability to work. There simply wasn’t much room to find the money we needed to pay off the credit card.

So we had no choice but to pray about it and give it to the Lord. And that’s when He brought us what we now call the “Raymond option,” named after the man who blessed us unexpectedly. It is a real five fishes and two loaves story. I guess one  never knows how God will provide, when you just give it to Him. I’m amazed! Adonai provides!

Yes! Adonai provides, indeed! Sometimes we are not going to find a win-win. After all, how can one quickly pay off, say, five thousand dollars of debt when that is what they make in a month and have all their regular bills to pay first? But the point is to get to finding common ground and suggesting win-win possibilities. 

Problems like finances, unemployment, and other hardships are driving couples apart every day, because they are not seeing the common ground they still have but just aren’t recognizing. Instead they can’t get past their disagreements, which then gets the Crazy Cycle spinning, and before they know it the issue is no longer the issue. The issue now is that she is feeling incredibly unloved and he has never felt so disrespected.

So sometimes the victory is simply finding that common ground and then giving it to God. Let Adonai provide!