Reflect

One of the unfortunate memories I have as a child was my mother and father arguing in the kitchen. I only remember them yelling the one time, but apparently, it was something that happened on a regular basis. It got bad enough that the discord between the two of them was one of the reasons they got divorced.

After Mom married my stepfather, the two of them turned over a new leaf. I know they had disagreements. There was one in particular that I recall when one of them lost their temper to the extent that I was close to leaving the house. (I won’t say which one it was to be fair, because I’m also not going to rehash what led to the hotheaded moment.) They ended up taking that problem behind closed doors, and when it was all over, they both emerged and the angry partner made amends.

We never saw or even really heard them arguing about anything. Unfortunately, I took that to mean in my first marriage that I really wasn’t supposed to ever have any disagreements. Sadly, that just led to us burying our differences and never resolving anything. In fact, a counselor once told me, “You say that you and your wife never argue. I hope you realize that’s not a good thing.”

Arguing might be the wrong word for it. It’s having serious differences in the way we see things, and that’s going to happen now and then if you’re in a relationship with someone. But the way we resolve those differences helps develop and shape our relationships. Having a disagreement isn’t a bad thing. In fact, learning to work through disagreements is an important part of any healthy relationship. The problem comes when those disagreements turn into hostility, accusations or arguments that hurt the people around us, especially our children.

Children need to know that we don’t always agree, but they also need to know that we have a peaceful way of resolving our differences and that their parents are united in their decisions. There’s nothing wrong with children seeing their parents disagree respectfully. They can learn something valuable from watching two people listen to each other, compromise and even apologize when they’ve been wrong. Looking back, that’s one of the things Mom and my stepfather demonstrated that day. They didn’t just take their disagreement behind closed doors. They came back out having resolved it, and one of them made amends.

Whether you have children or not, the best place to begin settling your differences with someone else is privately, and that’s a principle Jesus pointed out in Matthew 18. Go and share your problem with the other person “between you and him alone,” Jesus said. He was specifically addressing how to handle sin between believers, but the principle of going directly to someone rather than involving others unnecessarily applies to many of our disagreements. You can involve someone else later if it’s not resolved that first time, and sometimes a counselor, pastor or trusted mediator can help. But when we discuss our differences in love, we give ourselves a much better opportunity to find a resolution.

When we turn our disagreements into public disputes, especially when we draw our children into them, we only complicate and deepen the problems. There’s a difference between allowing children to see that their parents don’t always agree and making them feel responsible for resolving those disagreements. Our children shouldn’t have to choose sides or carry the burden of problems that belong to the adults.

As you move forward in your faith, make sure to put this principle to work in your life — inside and outside of the home. And make sure to protect your children from the hostility that can arise from disagreements in your marriage. They have enough to handle without having to play referee between their parents.

The lesson isn’t that people who love each other never disagree. It’s that people who love each other learn how to disagree without destroying what they share.