My Husband, My Partner, My Best Friend
Part 3
Peace In A Marriage
Dr. Jane C.
Pan
The notion that a peaceful marriage is a marriage without any fights or
arguments is a fantasy. Any sound person who has an intimate contact with
his/her spouse has conflicts. It is in the core of human nature to respond
differently to different personalities. We are talking about a husband and a
wife who are opposite in gender, apart in ages, come from dissimilar
upbringing, with diverse cultures, and conditioned in his or her own social
class from early childhood development.
The key to a peaceful marriage is not to never quarrel. But how to
quarrel effectively without damaging the relationship.
I can probably illustrate my points better by continuing telling you our
story.
Our honeymoon only lasted 6 months and we started to quarrel over little
things. I remembered one time my husband accompanied me to the shopping center
(it was a mistake that I don't recommend to all the ladies.) He was
impatiently waiting and said aloud so that everybody around me heard. He
wanted to know why it took me so long to buy one thing when he could just go
in the store and out the next few minutes with the desired purchase. After we
got home, we began to argue about the time spent, the money spent, and the
embarrassment he caused me. As the days and years go by in our marriage, we've
discovered we are two very different people. At one point in our
arguments, my husband even shouted, "we are just incompatible!" We found out
we are two entirely different people from different background who are united
together in matrimony. We also discovered that we need to communicate, in
order to share our intimate thoughts and make our daily living a sane one. We
needed peace in our marriage. As we started to find solution and answers, the
turning point to our marriage we found was not to stop quarreling, but rather
to have a rational quarrel or peace-making communication everyday. One has to
take the marriage seriously in order to work hard at it everyday.
Here are some of the productive tips to a peaceful marriage:
-
Ladies, don't use the "silent treatment" to get your husbands'
attention. If you push your husband away, he'll get use to it and find
other source of interest and you'll end up hurting yourself.
-
You argue because you want to be right. You want to convince your
spouse that he or she is wrong. Wake up and see that this is a form of
competition in a marriage. Being right in a marriage is not an important
quality of a good marriage. If you want victory in a marriage, try to
concede defeat graciously and pleasantly. Are you the one who is always
right? Then you must be a lonely person, because there are not many of you
in this world. This world is full of people who make mistakes and admit
them.
-
Perception is not the fact. If you don't verbally explain yourself, you
shouldn't expect your spouse to know what you are thinking. Many times I
hear a wife say to her husband, "If you truly love me, you should know
what I think or feel...." This is a misnomer, a deception. Your spouse is
not a god, he is not omniscient. Only you and God know what you think and
how you really feel. Therefore, you need to communicate in such a way that
is non-threatening and convey what you want your spouse to hear and
understand.
When I first learned of my husband's illness, I knew that we will have to
take this journey together hand in hand so that we can support each other
instead of harming each other and causing more anxieties. I begin to tell
myself that if my husband hurts, I will hurt too. So his battle became mine.
We have this unspoken unity where we shared everything, even shared pain.
Every morning I am thankful to God that I have him one more day. I treasure
the time we have together. I remind myself often that I will make my husband's
everyday as pleasant as I can; that is, I will not do or say anything I regret
later.
Friends, try to make the most of your marriage. Don't do or say things
you'll regret later. If you quarrel, try to be civil to each other. Never
shout, but speak softly and give a listening ear. Keep in mind, that it takes
two to fight, and it takes two to mend. Love peace and pursue it. You'll be
thankful you did!
Dr. Jane C. Pan
panedu@bellsouth.net
