Empathy is more than feeling sorry that your spouse is burdened or troubled. Empathy takes place as you carry your spouse’s burdens.
Marriage
Validation is safely allowing your spouse to share his or her thoughts and feelings. The message is that it’s okay to think and feel the way he or she does.
Couples often find themselves in avoidable conflict. But how can you avoid it?
If you cultivate a cooperative attitude with your spouse, you will save yourself a lot of grief. And you will have found the secret to fighting a good fight.
Before you can begin to talk over the conflict like reasonable, loving adults, you have to pry your closed hearts open again.
Pride leads to conflict in marriage, so what are you doing to nurture humility in your own heart?
Conflict is inevitable in marriage and can create damage or discovery — we choose which it will be. Discovery means learning new ideas, approaches and solutions if we fight together for our marriage.
Marriage is not a competition. Too much conflict in marriage does not create a safe or fun relationship.
If your approach to conflict resolution is going nowhere, you may need a heart change. Try these five ideas.
Darby Strickland, a counselor and teacher at the Christian Counseling & Educational Foundation, defines financial abuse in marriage and offers advice for helping wives who are oppressed in this way.