Management
Introduction
Family is one of the most important aspects of personal life. Happy life of a married couple creates a strong foundation for personal well-being of both partners as well as for health, social development and happiness of their children. With increasing rate of divorce in modern society, the most common misconception about marital conflicts is that existence of those conflicts in a family indicates unhealthy relationships. In fact, marital conflicts are present even in the best marriages. But outcomes of the conflicts vary; and every married couple has all the capabilities to learn how to deal with negative emotions and direct the conflict in a constructive direction. Happiness in family life is not the absence of conflicts; it’s an art to find solutions and to cope with the conflicts.
This paper is dedicated to reviewing the sources and causes of marital conflicts, to exploring the differences in approaching to conflict situations in various age groups and also to finding the most universal recommendations for couples how to resolve the conflict in a best way to prevent its possible deleterious impact on physical, mental health of the couple and family relationships.
The Conflicts are Inevitable and often Useful
The conflicts in family life are inevitable. It’s one of the ways the people interact, and it’s nothing to worry about. Moreover, according to Divorce Source, Inc. data, from 55 to 85 per cent marriages that end up with divorce and are marked with the highest levels of anxiety and depression in the couples’ children are relatively low-conflict.
There’re situation regarding entering the marriage that can cause a conflict themselves, for example, pressure to get married, if a person gets married for some reason (loneliness, emotional emptiness, financial problems, etc.), if a person marries someone with children from the previous partner (Brennen.) According to Drs. Les and Leslie Parrott (2013), there’re five major domains of conflicts in marriage: money and financial issues (Papp, Cummings and Goeke-Morey, 2009), sex, work, children and scores. Some scholars also identify the conflicts regarding the power. The roots of the major part of conflicts are in partners’ selfishness and inability to interact effectively.
There’s nothing dangerous in conflicts themselves. According to Duffield (2013), there’re strong reasons why the conflicts can even unite a family and to deter the probable divorce.
First of all, in conflicts people start talking and trying to find the common ground, the conflicts help them to advance their negotiation style. It’s a good opportunity to find a solution acceptable for both. Many couples have problems concealed for years, and only in open conflict they can uncover the problem and start looking for solution, including solutions that are beyond the comfort level.
Secondly, conflicts facilitate freedom of someone else’s wrong judgments and help to build personal independence. Next, the straight conflicts teach people to find win-win solutions, facilitates people to grow and to avoid spending time and efforts on mental elaboration of non-realistic solution.
The Types and Structure of the Family Conflicts
There’re many theoretical approaches applicable to understanding the marital conflict: the conflict theories of Georg Simmel, Jetse Sprey and Lewis Coser.
There’re various types of conflicts. Endogenous or structural conflicts are mostly relationship-oriented while exogenous, or instrumental conflicts in marriage are characterized with the absence of pre-existing system or mechanics for resolution. In symmetrical marital structures conflicts often arises of competition, in asymmetrical family structures fast escalation of a conflict is not likely, but as in the symmetrical structures, there’s a space for issue oriented conflicts.
Marital conflicts differ from other conflicts by presence of strong mutual feelings and greater intimacy. In this situation, arguing creates a bigger emotional resonance and involves strong negative emotions. Tim and Joy Downs in their book “The Seven Conflicts” identify four main stages of conflict in marriage. The first stage, common for just married couples, takes place when the partners “try to settle things by avoiding confrontation” (Down, T. and J., 2007.)
The next, “Have It My Way” stage occurs after the partners tired with ignoring their personal needs become demanding and “bang their heads.” The next stage starts with the husband and wife entering into negotiations and looking for solution of mutual benefits. Often, people lack conflict resolution skills and during this stage some couple fails to resolve the problems effectively. In this case, couples, tired of confronting and becoming even hopeless, just let things go, and many problems remain unresolved. Reaching this stage, the couple often cannot find the solution by themselves.
The other experts, for example Russ Holloman (2012), identify the following stages of a marital conflict: prior conditions, frustration or awareness, active conflict, accommodation or resolution and follow-up stages.
Negative and Positive Patterns in the Marital Conflicts
No matter what stage is passing the specific conflict situation, the married couple should be aware of possible destructive interaction patterns, notice those patterns, first of all, in themselves. Experts like Markman, Stanley and Blumberg describe some of those patterns: escalation, defensiveness, stonewalling, criticism, invalidation, negative interpretations of various information, etc.
Frank D. Fincham highlights the following negative patterns: a chain of negative behaviors that are difficult to stop and demand-withdraw pattern when the one party attacks with complaints, demands, and criticism and the other chooses defensive and passive role.
The researchers of the University of Michigan have found “that divorce rates are higher in partnerships where one spouse deals with conflict constructively and the other spouse withdraws” (Chavis, 2010.)
In the same time, some positive signs (described by Sprey and colleagues) can show the couple that their conflict is directed in a constructive way, for example, free exchange of opinions, bringing out the feelings without suppressing, listening, respect for differences in opinions, attempts to find a solution and settle the differences. These signs of a fair fight show that the parties of the conflict are interested in finding a solution.
Differences in Dealing with Conflicts
Gottman (1993) elaborated the “agreements to disagreements ratio” which is exceeds 1 for happy couples. While observing and analyzing the couples’ positive and negative behaviors in communication, he detected so called “regulated couples” (expressing the positive, problem-solving and dialogue-establishing behaviors five times more often than negative behaviors) and “nonregulated couples.”
Bonnie Rochman (2011) provides the findings of a research the Journal of Family Issues. According to that study, the couples can be classified into the groups defined by the quality of relationship in marriage. Those groups are the following: validator (54% of research population), volatile (20%), hostile (20%) and avoider (6%.) The validators are the most stable groups with the low level of divorce, moderate level of conflicts and mid- or high-level happiness metrics. Volatile and avoiders both experience happy marriages, but attitude to the conflicts in those groups differs a lot; while avoiders literally avoid “fights”, volatile couples are considered to be high-conflict.
Avoidance, according to several studies, can be damaging for relationship of younger couples, but in older couples “avoidance may be a way to move the conversation away from "toxic" areas and toward more neutral or pleasant topics” (Holley, 2013.)
In the study of Buss (1991) various personality predictors of conflict have been studied such as condescension, possessiveness, unfaithfulness, moodiness etc. According to other researches, definite personality features help to resolve conflicts in marriage. Those qualities are often referred as “the Big Five” or ‘OCEAN” (Iveniuk at al., 2014) - openness to new experiences, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. Otherwise, the negative personality traits as well as poor health can contribute to marital conflict, and the effects of those factors are larger for women (Eldridge & Christensen, 2002.)
Social psychological research on attachment and commitment shows that spouses’ prevailing models of attachment and commitment may influence their communications in marriage and also affect reactions to negative partner’s behavior (Fincham, Beach, 1999.)
Recommendations for Couples Dealing with Conflicts
The key to productive conflict is effective communication (Downs, 2003.) The numerous recommendations to the married couples can be summarized in several major points. Before all, couples should have regular family councils to rise, discuss and resolve all the arising issues. During such councils, the problem should be discussed fully from all the points of view before starting to look for solution.
There’re lots of communication tools useful in marital conflicts, for example, leveling, active listening, criticizing the source of conflict but not the other party, role taking and comparing mutual goals. Shifting the focus from the issue to the perceptions, expectations and feelings can also help in resolving conflicts. For example, money-related conflicts may be addressed in easier way if the couple will discuss first their fears of not having influence on important aspects, or not having the feeling of security or not having the possibilities to reach the goals (Parrott, 2013.)
It’s very harmful if the husband and wife keeps score of positive and negative behaviors of the other party. It’s useless and often destructive, because priorities, values and scales are different in various people. Moreover, as various studies prove, forgiveness is a key to conflict resolution (Fincham et al., 2004.)
Early prevention of conflicts is very important. The spouses should be aware of negative patterns activated and should be able to interrupt those patterns as early as possible and to return to non-defensive and non-destructive interaction (Fincham, Beach, 1999.) But if the conflict arises, it’s vital to obey to the rules of “fair fight”: to stick to the subject of conflict; not to quit until the conflict is worked out; not to try to win but to find solution that suits both parties; agree on the solution; to reward each other for approaching the solution.
Conclusion
Conceptualizing the phenomenon of marital conflict and studying various points of view helps to re-frame the common attitude to a conflict and shape the constructive approach in dealing with conflicts as one of the way to settle differences, to find the common ground and to strengthen harmony in marriage.
Noticing early predictors of conflict as well as destructive patterns can prevent the unnecessary arguments and negative outcomes of the protracted “cyclic” conflicts. Various approaches and techniques facilitate establishing of effective communication.
Focusing on their common goals, keeping in mind their love, compassion and forgiveness, the married couples can take advantage of arising conflicts, leaving the conflict situation with increased level of mutual understanding.
Works cited
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