How to Confront Your Spouse without Fighting (Part 1, Preventing Conflict)
Need to confront, but don’t want to fight? There is no need to. Done correctly, a good confrontation does not create conflict and effectively creates change. Learn how today and get a big step toward a closer marriage.
As a reconciliation coach, I need to help people with two things–reconnecting with their spouse and putting an end to marriage damaging behaviors. If you tend to avoid confrontation or use it too much without success, don’t give up on it yet. It is a very handy and effective relationship tool. I will teach you when to use it and when you probably don’t need to.
Confrontation in marriage is not the same as conflict in marriage
First, let’s straighten out some crooked thinking you may have about confrontation.
Our anti-Christian society has been at work for years teaching people the way to a good marriage is to make demands, share all your negative thoughts and feelings, and fight for what you want. Let me tell you, doing that will make your marriage fail. If experience hasn’t taught you that, it will.
Do you think being “conflict avoidant” is a bad thing? Many people do. Conflict is considered healthy while conflict avoidance is considered unhealthy. I challenge you to find anywhere it says so in the Bible. Conflicts are not loving, don’t create win-wins, and are won by the most powerful person at the expense of the other person. Conflict destroys relationships.
Why conflict damages marriages instead of fixing them
I often work with people who have been angrily confronting and having conflict with their spouse for many years, for the same problems.
Conflict and hostile confrontation damage marriages. But, that does not mean that you need to put up with bad behavior and become resentful.
Conflict avoidant doesn’t mean problem avoidant.
Don’t be a problem avoidant person. But do be a conflict avoidant person. Learn how to resolve problems without fighting about them. Give conflict avoidance a good name. It is consistent with the Christian mandate (not suggestion) to love our neighbor and even our enemies.
I am a conflict avoidant person and I recommend you to be that way too. That will help you to look for more loving and peaceful solutions for resolving problems and strengthening your marriage. Positive confrontations can help you to address problems without damaging your marriage.
The difference between confrontation and conflict
To improve your confrontation skills, let’s start with a good definition of “confront” that dissociates if from conflict and hostility.
To “confront” means to bring in to the open in order to seek resolution. It is the opposite of avoiding problems. In a battle situation, it will be hostile and violent. But it is not the way to do it with your spouse.
Just this morning I needed to confront my cable company billing me unfairly for services that had not been working. I was friendly, spoke with a customer service rep and her supervisor. I presented my case in a good way which got them to the point where they said they understood my problem. That did not motivate them to take action, but was a good start. It wasn’t until I told them I would rather not have to report the situation to the FCC that they became motivated to help.
A win-win outcome
For this confrontation, I did not need to treat them like the enemy and in fact treated them like people just trying to do their jobs. I was already prepared with boundaries in case reason didn’t prevail. I think we ended on a good note wishing each other a good day, without sarcasm. It was good for them and good for me.
One of the problems with hostile confrontation is that people become numb to the anger. Then to be effective you have to become even more hostile, and so on and so on, just to get the same level of reaction. Sometimes it leads to physical violence. Always it weakens emotional connection.
Used well, and when other methods don’t work, confrontation can be a loving way to resolve problems. It is loving because it creates a win-win for both you and your spouse, even though they still won’t like it.
Common confrontation mistakes that hurt marriages
Common reasons why people don’t have success with confrontation:
- Confronting as a first choice. Most of the time, we should start with a positive request rather than a confrontation. I have a podcast on how to make good positive requests that I suggest you review if you are not already doing this. Sometimes, confrontation is done without positive requests due to the severity of the behavior (e.g. drug abuse, affairs, other abuse, etc.).
- Waiting too long to confront. If you do this, your negative feelings will have built over a long period of time, you will have thought repeatedly about the problem, your loving feelings toward your spouse will have cooled at least a little (and maybe a lot), and your spouse will have become accustomed to doing the damaging behavior, so it is more entrenched.
- Ranting or complaining rather than having any constructive ideas. This is ineffective in creating change, because your rant does not motivate your spouse to stop his or her behavior, unless just to shut you up. It might seem like a win, but this resentful compliance is not heartfelt desire. It often provokes passive aggressive behavior, secrecy, and lying.
- Too soft of a confrontation. Just as people can be too harsh, they can also be too gentle. Confrontations should be spoken seriously, with matching body language. There needs to be an action that you will take if the other person’s behavior continues. That is a type of boundary. It is the boundary that does the heavy lifting. Having good boundaries means never having to try to get our way with hostility.
- Confronting in an already bad relationship. As Jesus told us, we must take the log out of our eye before trying to take the splinter from our neighbor’s eye (Matthew 7:5). Even though you may not be doing the same bad behavior as your spouse, you need to stop all of your bad behaviors before getting after your spouse’s bad behaviors. Good relationships make confrontations less frequent and more successful.
- Not following through with boundaries when boundaries are necessary. You can imagine that doing this not only will get you disrespect, but will also make your confrontations very weak in the future. Never make an empty threat. If my cable company hadn’t seen fit to drop the charges, I indeed would have filed a complaint with the FCC.
While we are on it, let me tell you to never threaten to divorce if you won’t actually do so. Although it may work at first, it will create significant relationship damage. The only time you should ever threaten divorce is if something is so bad that if it continued you certainly (without a doubt) would file for divorce. Even then, you would need to say in a loving way.
I’ll give you some examples that are both loving and strong.
How to confront your spouse about an affair or addiction
Affairs and addictions typically require confrontations to end and are dealt with very similarly.
Consider this example of a woman confront her husband, John, about his affair
John, although we haven’t been close recently, you have been an amazing husband. I would like us to have an even better relationship going forward. Unfortunately, that can’t happen if you continue your relationship with this other woman, or have any contact with her at all. It’s up to you, John, whether you give up the other woman for us, or I give up our marriage by divorcing you.
In the case of an addiction, you would make it a choice between the addiction and the marriage. Although God hates divorce, you are only going to delay divorce if you don’t do what it takes to end this marriage damaging behaviors. And, the sooner you do it, the better chance you have of saving your marriage.
The three parts of a confrontation
Let me break down this confrontation for you so you can see the three different parts. The first part is a positive, validation message which does not contain a complaint or criticism:
John, although we haven’t been close recently, you have been an amazing husband. I would like us to have an even better relationship going forward.
The second part is defining the problem behavior and why it is a problem:
Unfortunately, that can’t happen if you continue your relationship with this other woman, or have any contact with her at all.
The third part is the choice you are giving your spouse. It is a boundary because the alternative is under your control.
It’s up to you, John, whether you give up the other woman for us, or I give up our marriage by divorcing you.
Notice that the confrontation is not a discussion or a debate. You can confront in writing in order to avoid that. If you can be loving in your approach, face to face can be even better. If your spouse wants to say something, then listen, but don’t discuss or debate.
Your spouse will get over his or her anger. Temporary anger from your spouse is much better than long term damage from ongoing bad behaviors. Be conflict avoidant, but do not be problem avoidant. Use the lowest level of intervention that will get the job done, but do whatever is necessary to create a happy marriage for you and your spouse.
More to come/more help
This original version of this post turned out too long because I want you to be fully equipped to enhance your marriage with effective confrontation. So, I made the post in two parts. My next post will continue on this topic with more examples and a twelve step guide you can follow to have effective confrontations.
If you need help in the meantime, sign up for my Difficult Partner Coaching Package. I will help you directly, one on one with all the steps you need to effectively deal with your spouse’s problem behavior and to restore love in your marriage.
Learn more about conflict the right way:
Daily Marital Interactions and Positive Affect During Marital Conflict Among Newlywed Couples (Driver & Gottman, 2004). Family Process, 43(3), 301–314.
