How To Handle Conflict In My Marriage

You are in for a treat with a message that Lennon preached at Hill City in Cedar Hill, TX about Marriage and conflict. We hope you will be ministered to and your marriage will be blessed. 

Transcript

Lennon 0:03

This is the Home and Marriage Podcast with Lennon and Crystal Noland, where we help couples become better at home and stronger together. We are husband and wife, parents and ministers who want God's best for our home and for yours

Speaker 6 0:18

Well, hello friends. Welcome to the show today. We have something special for you this episode. A little while back, I spoke at Hill City Church here in the Dallas area, and they asked me if I would address on a Sunday morning how to handle conflict in marriage. We all know that conflict is a part of marriage, and so I don't think there is anyone listening today that won't find this to be incredibly relevant. Uh, you won't hear from Crystal on this episode since I was speaking by myself that morning, but you will have her influence because guess what? She is who I fight with in marriage the most. And so I think that you're gonna be encouraged by some of the things that I share that we have learned together, and most of all, we hope that you hear something in here that makes you better at home and stronger together. We love you friends. We'll see you next week

Lennon 1:08

in this first union, there was nothing traditional as of yet. Adam and Eve didn't have a ceremony in a traditional chapel. There probably wasn't any traditional music playing. They weren't wearing the traditional clothes. Come to think of it, they weren't wearing clothes, per se, because the next verse says they were naked and unashamed. Everything was so absolutely pristine, and yet there is a reason why, over time, the tradition developed into the ch- into taking what? Vows. That whenever we have a wedding ceremony, we don't simply have a party, we make vows to each other in front of those who lovin- us and in front of God. And there's one particular vow that no bright-eyed married couple ever, on the day of their wedding, believes they will actually need to refer to. Now, we wouldn't need to make vows if everything was gonna stay perfect and be easy, and the vow that we definitely don't think that we're gonna have to encounter is this: for better or- Worse worse. We don't believe that. On our wedding day, we look at Pastor Adam and say, "We'll say it if you want us to, Pastor, but I think we know that good times with them are better than good times with anyone else. In fact, even bad times with them are gonna be better than good times with anyone else." To which couples that have been married for more than 10 minutes roll their eyes and go, "Ugh, stop it." Because what you know is that bad times with them can actually be really bad. What you know is that the for worse part of marriage always comes. It will always show up. You will go through things you never thought you would go through, whether it's financial difficulty, sickness, some sort of unexpected evil visits your marriage from the outside, and what happens is it affects you in ways that you never knew you could be affected. Conflict with this person you were one with hurts more than conflict with anyone else because they are part of you. And sometimes for worse doesn't come with, like, a big hurricane storm. Sometimes for worse just creeps in really slowly, that little things persist and become really big things. It becomes increasingly frustrated, and suddenly you don't like the way they breathe. He's doing that thing again, Lord. He's doing the breathing. And we can become enemies with each other, and what we do is we start fighting each other instead of fighting for each other. And here's why we always have to go back to these fundamental scriptures in the Bible. It's this, forgetting that we are one flesh, this is what sabotages our marriage. Whenever you're having conflict, whatever the issue is, the bigger issue is are you gonna stay connected through this? Tomorrow, are you gonna feel miles away from each other, or are you gonna feel like yesterday we went through something and we're better on the other side? This one flesh thing is a really big deal. The word used whenever scripture says, "The two will become one flesh," is this Hebrew word echad. I won't repeat that because it sounds real guttural and gross. But, well, I will repeat it. Echad. Say that with me just one time. Echad. Okay, now can we move past that? And what it means is that s- something fundamentally unique, like an absolute oneness. In fact, it's the same word that's used to describe the nature of God. And so whenever scripture says, "The two will become one flesh," it's saying that a married couple that leaves their family, they initiate that oneness through covenant and through physical intimacy, and in the eyes of God, you have to understand, you could not be any more one than you already are. Even if you're here this morning and you don't particularly feel like you're one because you don't even particularly feel like they understand you, like they get you, but in the eyes of God, you are absolutely one on a deep spiritual level. And that's why whenever we look for the eject button, some Pharisees come to Jesus and they say, "Can a man divorce his wife for any reason?" And Jesus says, "Haven't you, haven't you read that a husband will leave, the man will leave his family, that two will become one flesh?" And Jesus basically answers a divorce question with a marriage answer, and He says, "What are you talking about? They're no longer two, they're one." And so He says, "Let nobody separate," not what a couple has decided to do. He says, "Let no man separate what God has joined together." And so just at the outset as we're talking about conflict in marriage, we've got to address what we really are, that we are not two people at odds, we are one unit. We are one flesh with a problem, and how we deal with the problems we face will determine if we are perpetually divided or growing closer over time Can I ask you to do something that's gonna make you feel stupid? But we're all gonna feel stupid together, okay? Can you hold your hand up between your eyes? I'm looking at you. Some of you are like, "I'm not gonna do it just 'cause you asked me to." But you hold your hand up between your eyes. Now close one of those eyes. Can you see the opposite side of the room at all? No. No. Now close the other eye if you can do it. For some reason I'm good at it with one and I'm awkward with the other one. But now you can't see the other side of the room. Now you have two eyes and yet you are one, and you cannot see the whole picture unless both sides are engaged And this is why we always have to approach what we're going through as, as us as one. Where we get divided is instead of being one, we're each fighting for our old, our old ways. We're our old selves. Well, this is how I like things. This is the type of family I grew up in. This is what I want and what I need, but it's no longer a question of I. And as long as we are fighting for I, we will not enjoy being one. Here's what you have to know. Marriage relationships are targets, Pastor Adam said this already, are targets for Satan's efforts. Satan will do some of his dirtiest work in your home and between the two of you. And you see that he started attacking marriage really, really quickly. It says the two become one flesh. They were naked and unashamed. In the very next verse, Genesis 3:1 says, "Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, 'Did God really say you can't eat from any tree in the garden?'" Now, if you've read the scripture, you know that God actually did not say that at all. He said, "I need you not to eat from this one tree. You can eat from all the others." But Satan goes in on that first covenant that a man has, which is a covenant with God, and whenever he attacks that, he begins to dismantle the oneness of the couple. And so as he did that, Adam and Eve begin showing some of those things that show up in our own marriages, I don't know, on the way to the honeymoon. This division, blame, sort of laziness and frustration. And so you see Satan going after the very first couple. Adam says, "God, I didn't do it. The woman that you gave me, she's the one that made me do this." Division right away. And if Satan can't divide you as a couple, he will go after your kids, and he'll probably do both anyway. But there's a reason why after Adam and Eve, he then goes after Cain and Abel, and between these brothers comes, comes jealousy, comes hatred, and between these brothers comes actually murder. The dynamics of your family in conflict are always more spiritual than you think. It is not just that he leaves the toilet seat up. It's what's gonna come between you if we can make this thing be a huge thing. Satan has continued to run similar plays, and that is why for some of us, and some of us grew up in this, some of us may be living this right now, that conflicts become war. Some of us in the room know how bad this can be. I mean, I grew up... Do y'all remember the show Cops? Raise your hands. Yeah. Bad boys, bad boys, what you gonna do? What you... All that, right? I didn't show that, I didn't call that show Bad Boys. I called that show Mama's Friends. Because the cops were always in our yard. And we were not related to them. We did not have conflict in our home. We actually didn't. We had domestic disputes in our home, and it di- over, over time, we threw coffee pots, we threw pots of beans, we threw hands. I had a stepfather who beat my mother all the time and who beat me and my sister sometimes to where these moments of conflict would escalate into, into hatred and into violence. One of the most vivid memories of my childhood is of my bedroom door opening and seeing my stepfather silhouetted against the light of the hallway whenever I was sleeping. And there's, there's something we're gonna use in a few days when we carve up our turkeys. You know those big meat forks? Big, long, two-pronged meat fork? He had one of those in his hand, and he came in. He was angry at me because I had shared with my mother some of the crazy that was happening to me and my sister whenever she was gone. And he came into my room, and he started jabbing me with that, and he started threatening me with it Normal conflicts becoming war. And here's what's on the line. Yellers learn to yell, hitters learn to hit. So much of the time, to an incredibly high degree, we will perpetuate the conflict styles that we grew up with in our home. We need God to help us break these curses. Yeah. The gospel is good news for the home. Yeah. It's good news for the family. I just need you to accept this truth, that the dynamics of your family are more spiritual than you think. Yeah. And you have to know this, that Satan doesn't have to get you divorced to keep you divided. Right. If he can't get you to take the out of divorce, he'll just convince you that it is what it is, it can never be better, and don't expect that it should be. He just has to keep you angry and keep you distant. He needs things to be being said in your home all the time, like, "You just don't care how I feel." Or he needs you to be saying, "This is what you always do. This is the type of person that you are." You need to say things in attack mode like, "You're not happy because you're not a happy person. You're crazy, and you're driving me crazy." And what can happen is that at our worst, there are some defaults that men and women fall into. It's not that both genders aren't capable of all sorts of stuff. There are some women that throw hands, and there are some men that nag. But there are some commonalities within our genders that can happen which, for instance, this: That one of the most important things to a woman in a marriage is, "Do you see me? Do you care about my feelings? Are we connected?" And whenever a woman feels disregarded, like, "Oh, no, I have married this man and he doesn't care how I feel, I don't have a voice," it can make her feel incredibly alone. And out of feeling alone, she can get desperate, and she can even get mean, and she can begin to go in on him. And what a man will feel in that circumstance is, "You're making me feel like a loser. I don't feel respected in my own home." And a man will frequently shut down. Any shutter-downers in the room? You just power down in a fight. I'm a shut-downer. Crystal knows this about me. I, I think really slowly, and I will just power down. But a woman shouldn't have to go nuclear to get a response out of a man. Yeah. And a man shouldn't shut down instead of trying to communicate with his wife. So who is gonna go first in taking things in a godly direction? Say me. It's always whoever you is, it's always gotta be me. We have to be willing to initiate. Because whenever we put each other in a corner of stoking our worst fears, we stay in a cycle of conflict, and what we'll do is we'll begin to get as mean as we need to get to make sure that the other person experiences scorched earth and they never try to hurt us that way again. And so we start fighting instead of fighting for each other. Here's an important scripture. Proverbs says this. It says that, "An offended brother is harder to reach than a fortified city." An offended brother is harder to reach than a fortified city. Now, what does offense mean? It means we might be dealing with something, say, leaving the toilet seat up. Um, just taking a classic example. You leave the toilet seat up, you don't put it down. I've talked to you about that before. You just don't care how I feel. Like, that's a dart. You don't care about me, or you're thoughtless. Something, something goes mean. Or the man says, "You never, ever respect me." And what happens then is the issue is no longer the issue. Now we're defending ourself to try to get this other person to understand that we're not that bad person, and if you're going to attack me, then we're not gonna be good at all. And so what happens then is we put our walls up. The issue isn't the issue. The way that we talk to each other is the issue. In scripture, um, where it says this fortified city, it's talking about a particular thing. I have a picture of just random ancient city and high walls. What the Bible is telling us right here is that whenever we go in on each other with, with insults, with cussing at each other, with name-calling, walls go up because we feel like we have to protect ourselves from this person that we are supposedly one with. And I don't know if you know this, but that's not good, and that's how little things become cold wars. That's how very standard conflicts become huge issues. And this is how Satan gets a foothold, and this is how he destroys a family. Paul said this. He said, "Be angry and do not sin. Don't let the sun go down on your anger, and don't give the devil an opportunity." And so what you have to know and what I have to remember is that whenever we're at odds, we can either approach this in a way where we come out the other side better, understanding each other more. That has to be our goal because Satan is looking, is looking for an in. We can be angry and don't sin. That is obviously scripture. Can we also admit that anger is a difficult emotion to get right? Yes. And that's why we cannot... We have to learn to manage it and deal with it before our spirits feel like they are out of control. And this is the only way that we will be able to maintain emotional intimacy in our marriage, where we feel like we can trust the other person with the worst parts of us. They're not gonna go anywhere. They're gonna continue to love us. And this is also the only way that we're going to be able to maintain a, um, a strong, vibrant, physically intimate connection as well. Sometimes couples aren't thriving on a physical level with any sort of physical intimacy, but what you have is not actually always a physical intimacy problem. What you might have is a conflict problem. Because who wants to be vulnerable in the deepest way with someone who just called you a name? With someone who just accused you of something that you didn't, that you didn't mean? And what you have to know, this little side note, in your marriage, the lack of physical intimacy, even if it feels like an afterthought, it's already an emergency A lack of physical intimacy, it's not an afterthought, it's, it's an emergency. This is why Paul says this, "Don't deprive one another, physically speaking, except for when you agree for a time to devote yourselves to prayer. Then come back together again; otherwise, Satan may tempt you because of your lack of self-control." I don't know about you, Pastor Adam, I haven't been in ministry as long as you, but 20 years in, I have yet to meet the couple that's not connecting physically because they're focused on prayer right now You know, Lennon, we're just really praying and fasting, really seeking first the kingdom of God? Well, I'm not saying it's not a thing, because Paul wouldn't have mentioned it. I'm just saying it's not, it's not common. But I have met couples that can't imagine being physically intimate with each other because they can't stand the sight of each other because of how they've handled conflict. But he says this, "Satan may tempt you because of your lack of self-control." So this woman that feels ignored and disregarded by her husband may feel at work, "You know, this guy looks at me in a way that my own husband hasn't looked at me in years." And that's where Satan will try to get a foothold, and he'll say, "Go for it." Or he'll make a guy feel like she doesn't respect you, but there are a multitude of women that you can look at online that don't demand anything from you, that don't nag you, that don't care what you do. Why don't you just go that way? That's a terrible thing. Satan comes to steal, to kill, and to destroy, and he doesn't do that by manifesting physically and taking the wheel. He does that by dropping direction in our heart and temptation, and he says, "Take the, just take the easier route." Is this heavy or what? Yeah. Can we make a turn to better stuff now? Let's make a turn to better stuff, because everybody is going to have conflict. If you were in a tough spot this morning, if you had a... Don't you love church fights, like, on the way to church? You're barking at each other in the car, and you're like, "Get right. We're about to go in here. Hi, Pastor Jamie." I'm blessed. Loving you. Loving life, loving you, loving this crazy, blessed family that I have this morning. Every family's gonna have conflict. Every couple is. So let's talk about some better ways to navigate it. I wanna give you five ways to fight for each other instead of fighting with each other. Okay? And the first one is this: pray. And specifically pray, "Help me, Jesus." Before you respond to them, go to God. Jesus is doing the breathing thing. He's doing the breathing thing again. "Lord, she's making me wanna punch a pillow right now." Talk to Jesus about it before you punch the pillow. Here's the thing: if you think that you can live out oneness without the help and power of God, you're already destined for divide- Yes and maybe for divorce. It is going to take the power of God to love this other person well. It's gonna take Jesus showing up in you, the fruit of the Holy Spirit growing in you. You know why patience is, uh, an important fruit of the Holy Spirit? I mean, God wouldn't want to grow patience in us unless He was assuming that our patience was going to be tested. Yeah. God defines patience, or defines love as patience- Yes kindness, all of those kind of things. It's gotta show up in us as the fruit of God's work in us or it will never show up as the status of our, of our marriage. And what you will find, and what I have found, that as I go to pray to God about my marriage and about my spouse is that God will begin to deal with me. I listened to the message last week and Pastor Adam said that one of the greatest things I can do for my marriage with Jamie is just grow in my relationship with Jesus. I'm telling you, if your marriage is on the rocks, get your heart on Jesus and He will affect and enable you to love this other person with a love that you just don't have. And He will deal with you in a way that will make you loving, and less selfish. There's a great quote from, um, a book called The Meaning of Marriage by Tim and Kathy Keller. And this is what Tim Keller says, and it's beautiful, "Only you have complete access to your own selfishness, and only you have complete responsibility for it." Do you realize your response to your spouse is your responsibility? They don't make you do anything. Your response is your responsibility. So each spouse should give, should take the Bible seriously, should make a commitment to give yourself up. You should stop making excuses for selfishness. You should begin to root it out as it is revealed to you, and you should do so regardless of what your spouse is doing. And this is where the power is. If two spouses will say, "I'm going to treat my self-centeredness as the main problem in the marriage," you have the prospect of a truly great marriage So Jesus, start the work that needs to happen for us with me. And if we both do that, there's a possibility for great things. God can turn around anything, friends. Second thing is this, attack the issue, not each other. Whenever you have a problem, focus on that problem. And if you can stay in a difficult conversation without slamming a door, without shutting down, without attacking, then you have the possibility of being closer to each other in 30 minutes, as where the other option is being in a cold war three days from now. So let's attack the issue instead of each other. This will require diplomacy instead of launching missiles. And this is very important in a nuclear age, isn't it? Everybody's got their nuclear weapons. We're getting ours ready. You have yours. But in reality, we know that we wanna keep talking because we can all just blow each other off the map. And this is the case in marriage. You are one with each other. You have seen each other at your absolute worst. Nobody can destroy me like this beautiful woman here with blue eyes and high cheekbones. She knows all the bad stuff about me. She can, she can tear me to pieces if she wants to. I can do the same with her, but because we are one. This is why Paul says, "Love your wives as your own flesh." Who would be harsh with themselves? So why would you be harsh with your spouse? Stay focused on the issue. Don't weaponize past failures. Love doesn't keep a record of wrongs, my friends. And so whenever you have to talk the past, if you're addressing a trend, always do it because you're trying to get to a new and better place. Don't do it because you need to win an argument. Because when we do it like that, it's like we pull something out of our back pocket, some sort of weapon, and we jab in. And whenever we take it like that, here's what we're saying to our spouse, "I said I forgave you, but I never did. I will always remember you for who you were at your worst moments, and I will never let it go." Love keeps no record of wrongs. Another little ninja tool, describe how you feel, number three, not how they are. This is some tried and true marriage counseling advice that whenever we go o- go in and we say, "You're so selfish," now we're fighting about whether or not I'm selfish. But if you're telling me how you feel, especially if a woman says this to a man, then as I, I feel like I need to lean in and try to really address something, not defend myself to her. And so Jedi mind trick for you as a woman, okay? Again, I give you something that, that just works. Crystal may or may not use this on me quite often But if whenever you're addressing something with your husband, you might try this. Go ahead and go in on what you're not saying. For instance, maybe there are times whenever Crystal asks me to, I don't know, change the filters on the air conditioner again and again and again. And so she might come to me and say something like this, "Listen, honey, I know that you're working really hard and it's been really, really busy. I know how many days you've been out of the house lately, so I'm certainly not saying you're not trying to, like, do everything you can. You're an awesome husband. But there's some of these things I've asked you to do lately that I can't do myself. Will you please help me?" Here's what my response isn't gonna be. "Are you saying I'm selfish?" No, she came to me in an entirely different tone, and if you will try that with your husband, it, it works on us. And you know what it plays into? The Apostle Paul saying, "Wives, respect your husbands." When she's asking something of me and it's clear that she respects me, I want to be that respectable man. As where if she was to attack me or nag me, I need to prove that I'm worthy of respect or I don't feel like she's respecting me and I might shut down. So talk about how you feel. Don't describe how they are. You don't care. You're not a good person. Number four, hear them out before saying a thing. One of the worst things we can do in conflict is talk past each other. That while you're trying to explain yourself to me, I'm already gearing up for my response. I'm shaking my head. No. No, that's not how it is. What about you? We don't wanna do that, especially if you're right, and who's not always right? But if, if you're really right in the circumstance, you wanna hear out everything they have to say so that you can address how they're feeling in your truthful, non-snarky, non-sarcastic way. Hear out everything they have to say before saying anything that you have to say. And don't lean into being defensive. I've given women a Jedi mind trick. Can I give one to men? Yes. Men, here are two powerful words that will help you in tension and conflict with your spouse I know. I've been asking you to do these things for a long time. I- will you please... I know. You have been, you have been asking me that. It's a powerful thing because what it will help a woman with is it will address her worst fear early on, which is you don't listen to her and you don't care how she feels, that she's alone in her marriage and in her home. Whenever you say, "Listen, I know," you're acknowledging that you screw up sometimes. And is there a husband in here that doesn't screw up sometimes? Just looking around. No. And so if you will just begin with the words, "Listen, honey, I know," then you can begin to move forward. Hear them out before saying anything. Guys, if you will try that, you'll probably have a chance to try it today. If you will try it- you will be shocked. You will be shocked at what can come out of that. And then the last thing, friends, is to learn the two parts of a real apology. Pastor Adam's gonna deep dive on forgiveness and repentance, but let me give you 90 seconds. Two parts of a real apology. I'm sorry for blank. Fill in the blank with whatever you're sorry for. Let me show you real quick what an apology is not. I'm sorry if you. I'm sorry if you feel that way. I'm sorry if you thought. I'm sorry if, which is really not being sorry at all. It's saying you're crazy, and if I was crazy, I would feel the same way as you feel right now. I'm not crazy, so I see things very differently, but if I was crazy, I'm so sorry that you're off your rocker. No. I'm sorry for what? A specific thing. I'm sorry I made you feel that way. I'm sorry I didn't do what I said I was going to do. Honey, I'm really sorry I talked to you that way. And then here's the reset button. Will you forgive me? Yes. Will you forgive me? That's the reset button. It's not over, my friends, until you get to that point. It's not over when you go, "Sorry." No. I'm sorry for what. Will you forgive me? Are these good tools? So good. Yeah. And these are all gospel oriented. All of them are. Let me close with this. I, I told you I grew up in a nuclear war zone, and one of the things that I never wanted to see in myself was a desire to perpetuate any of that. But I'm human, I'm a sinful person, and I have a flesh that God is redeeming. But there was a point in my marriage where I felt the same anger that I had seen so often rising up in me, in situations that did not warrant it. But I found myself wanting to slam doors, wanting to slam cabinet doors, maybe wanting to throw a glass or something like that. I was so horrified about this in me that I didn't even tell Crystal what I was feeling a- and what I was thinking. I didn't tell anybody. I was telling the Lord, "Lord, I'm a Christian. I didn't, I, I don't, I don't even wanna do this. You've redeemed me," all that kind of stuff, and I'm just praying, "God, help me get this under control, because I feel like a pressure cooker. I feel like I'm going to be all of the things and do all the things that I never wanted to see or do in my own marriage." And one day I'm at my church, and we had this thing called a senior's luncheon, which is just everybody of a certain age coming together, having a potluck. And so we'd all get together and hang out, and, uh, young man, I'm never gonna miss a free meal. And so I'd go in and have the meal as well. And there was a, there was an older man in our church named Bob, and Bob's sister Zelda was in from out of town. So, and they just said, "Hey, Zelda loves the Lord, walks with Jesus, and she's gonna give us a devotional today while we eat." And so Zelda gave a devotional. Great name, by the way. Yeah. Right? And then she goes, "Hey, as I close today, I just wanna pray for all of you." I don't remember what she talked about. It wasn't what she prayed about. She goes around the room, putting her hands on people's shoulders and just praying blessing, and she comes to me. Had never seen this woman, hadn't even admitted what I was feeling to my own bride. She puts her hands on my shoulders and she begins to pray and she stops and she says, "Young man, the Lord says that anger will not overtake you, that the Lord is with you." powerful, and it reminded me of something I wanna remind you of. God wants you to win in your marriage. Yes. He can help you break every generational trend that you have gone through. He can help your marriage have a 180, and it can start today. You are not in this alone. Amen?

Christal 34:17

Friends, don't forget to follow or subscribe so you never miss an episode. We drop new ones every Tuesday. If today's conversation encouraged you, would you take a minute and share this episode with someone that you know? You can visit homeandmarriage.com for more resources, like our Six Habits of Happy Couples course. And if you'd like us to come speak at your church or event, you can schedule us through the website. You can also follow along on Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok. All the links will be in the show notes.

Lennon 34:47

So thank you for joining us on the Home and Marriage podcast. We really do believe that home can be your favorite place. We'll be back next week with more encouragement and wisdom to help you become better at home and stronger together