Marriage requires team work. This is especially true when it comes to resolving conflict. The absence of a team approach to working through differences can lead to problems that grow worse over time.
Blaming is a frequent symptom in marriages that lack team work. When either spouse adopts the perspective that problems in the relationship were caused by the other, they tend to dismiss any complaints their partner may have and they are close-minded about examining their own behavior. This unwillingness to take responsibility for contributing to problems in the relationship often leads to a stalemate that results in a complete communication breakdown.
Spouses who adopt a blaming perspective are often defensive and distrustful towards one another. Perhaps they entered the marriage with feelings of distrust and insecurity based on baggage from the past or maybe these feelings developed as a result of disappointing experiences with each other. Either way - neither one wants to be vulnerable.
Like it or not, vulnerability is necessary in order to resolve differences. Spouses need to be open to examining their own behavior as well as taking in and absorbing their partner's complaints and feedback. However, this is unlikely if the emotional environment between them feels unsafe.
Good team work requires working together to create a zone of safety in the relationship. Each person needs to feel they can trust the other to give empathic feedback as well as trusting that the other will be open to examining their own behavior.
Spouses whose approach to conflict is dominated by an insistence on being 'right' have a competitive approach to problem solving. When being 'right' is valued more than getting along and working out compromises with your spouse, selfishness and individualism prevails. In addition, being 'right' places a mistaken focus on ideas.
Ideas or judgments about what is 'right' are usually grounded in emotion. Spouses who get locked into ideological competition about who's 'right' fail to delve into the emotional aspects of their differences. In order to avoid a fruitless war of ideas - it's wise to adopt the attitude that feelings are always right. If you spend time trying to understand each other's feelings about a given subject, your conflicts will be less superficial and you may be able to reach resolution more easily.
One of the most important dimensions of a relationship - any relationship - resides in its power to help us grow and change. Spouses in a marriage need to be open to influencing one another's behavior. Couples in healthy relationships that have lasted decades have learned to be emotionally and behaviorally flexible enough to accommodate one another. They are responsive to one another's needs, open to one another's points of view and able to place themselves in their partner's shoes in order to understand the other's needs and feelings. In other words - they have empathy towards their partner. Empathy is a core element in healthy relationships, and it is a foundational element in the type of team work that helps a relationship last a lifetime.
Marriage requires self transcendence. This is a quality good parents exhibit all the time. They place their children's needs above their own. They sacrifice time, money, pursuit of their own pleasure, individual freedom and physical necessities like sleep, in order to respond to and provide for their children. This same type of sacrifice is occasionally necessary in marriage. Not only do we need to value our partner's needs and feelings as highly as we value our own, there are times when we need to give our partner's needs and feelings greater importance then our own. The ability to do this when necessary demonstrates psychological maturity. It too is a characteristic of the kind of team work that leads to a healthy marriage.
Johanna Nauraine is a relationship coach, specializing in premarital, marital and divorce coaching. Read more of her relationship articles at www.johannascouch.com.