The Power of Conflict: How Disagreements Can Strengthen Your Relationship

The Power of Conflict: How Disagreements Can Strengthen Your Relationship

Can conflict actually help you connect? The whole reason that I wanted to do this episode is to help you to understand that conflict can be a great asset in your marriage. Conflict can actually be a great asset in any relationship if you understand how to use it. Conflict is like a tool. And if you learn how to use the tool correctly, then you're going to find that it's not such a scary thing when conflict shows up in your relationships. So we have a jam-packed episode today, you guys. I'm going to be sharing lots and lots of skills, tools, and resources with you. 

But before we get into all of that, I want to ask you to do me a favor. Right after you finish listening to this episode, I would love for you to write a podcast review, especially if you are listening to this on Apple podcast or Spotify. Let me tell you why there are so many people who find out about this podcast by word of mouth. Shaun and I were in a restaurant, eating dinner with some friends. We were outside, and a couple walked past the table, and they were like, "I love your podcast. I love your podcast." And I was like, Oh, my gosh, I'm feeling famous. You know what I mean? And it was such a cool experience. But then, about ten minutes later, this other woman walks by our table, and she's like, "Oh, my gosh, I love your podcast. I listen to it every single week!"

Why am I sharing this with you? Because both the couple and the woman who walked by heard about my podcast from a friend. So when you share this podcast, you have no idea the seeds that you are planting in your friends' lives. They might hear an episode that I did way back in 2020 or 2021 that will help to save their marriage. So by writing a simple review, you are helping this podcast to be found by people who really need it. So thank you so much for doing that. 

Let's Talk About Conflict

 So I like to talk about conflict, okay? I am not conflict-avoidant at all. Now, when I say that to people, it doesn't mean that I like to stir up trouble either. I don't like to create conflict. I'm just not afraid of it because I have learned that conflict is a tool in your marriage. But it's also a tool in any relationship. If you're a parent and you're dealing with conflict with your children, you can use that conflict to draw you closer to the relationship that you have to teach you more about your child, to teach you more about yourself. And of course, you can just sparse that out into any relationship that you're in. So I want to be able to give us some real practical takeaways today. As you listen to this episode, we're going to be talking about conflict as connection. 

If you've listened to my show for a while, you know that I talk about connection a lot. I'm going to give you five quick reasons, and I might throw in a bonus as to how conflict is connection or how conflict shows up as connection in your relationships. So the first thing is that conflict gets you talking. When you start to have issues in your relationship or issues in your marriage, there's some sort of disagreement, right? It's going to keep you talking. Now, you might not always say the right things or say them in the right way, but at least you're talking. You're getting your feelings out. You're sharing your emotions. You're being authentic, you're being honest about how you truly feel and what that particular thing is bringing up in you. 

Conflict Teaches You How to Speak Up

So let's say, for example, you are having a disagreement with your spouse about parenting. My goodness, that happens to all of us in that connection. It might come up that you realize that when you were growing up, your parents were overly critical of you. Maybe you've never really thought about that before and how that shows up in your parenting, but you get into an argument with your spouse and you're like, you sound just like my dad. You sound just like my mom. My mom was always overbearing. My mom was always critical of me. And you didn't even realize that you were saying that until the words came out.

Now, your spouse might not appreciate that you just said that about them, but if your spouse and you can take a step back and go, whoa, wait a minute. Okay, so this isn't really about my spouse. This is about my parents, and I'm being triggered by something that my spouse is doing. But, at the end of the day, I just had an epiphany. I just realized that I'm still dealing with some trauma or some struggles or some bad memories of how I grew up and how I felt like my parents treated me. And I'm kind of taking that out on my spouse. So when you're in conflict, it can help you to connect to your spouse because it gets you to talk. It gets you to say the things that you've been stuffing down inside. It gets you to say the things that you're thinking about, but