Couples relaxing just before the start of session 31. Building Strong Foundations: making marriage time a priority and caring for one another in our relationship.
2. The Art of Communication: Talking about your feelings with your partner and listening to your partner’s feelings without interrupting, criticising or offering advice.
Conflict doesn’t mean that the marriage relationship is doomed to failure. Resolving conflict can strengthen a relationship. Conflict happens because we are all different. It’s not good to try and force our partner to change and be like us or to do things our way.
Principles for handling conflict:
Understand and accept our differences:
1. Romans 15:7 “Accept one another just as Christ has accepted you in order to bring praise to God.”
2. Recognise differences in temperament, personality, and upbringing.
3. Understand that men and women are different.
4. Don’t try to change one another.
Express your appreciation of each other:
We should express our appreciation of each other regularly. No marriage will grow if there is lack of respect and a lack of positive words spoken to each other. We all need encouragement especially from our spouse.
Learn to negotiate:
Negotiation means discussing the issue that is causing conflict and finding a solution that works for the couple. Here are six practical steps to bring peace between a couple:
1. Find the best time
2. Identify the issue
3. Listen to each others point of view
4. Workout possible solutions
5. Decide the best possible solution for now and see if it works.
6. Be ready to try another solution. We can try something different if the first one we came up with isn’t working.
Learn to pray together:
1. Psalm 46:1 “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.”
2. Praying together helps us connect with God and with one another.
It really was an interesting session. We look forward to Saturday's session when we discuss “The Power of Forgiveness”
Compiled by Molly Manhanga
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