Marriage Disagreement Quotes

Friends become wiser together through a healthy clash of viewpoints.

Marriage isn't a love affair. It isn't even a honeymoon. It's a job. A long hard job, at which both partners have to work, harder than they've worked at anything in their lives before. If it's a good marriage, it changes, it evolves, but it does on getting better. I've seen it with my own mother and father. But a bad marriage can dissolve in a welter of resentment and acrimony. I've seen that, too, in my own miserable and disastrous attempt at making another person happy. And it's never one person's fault. It's the sum total of a thousand little irritations, disagreements, idiotic details that in a sound alliance would simply be disregarded, or forgotten in the healing act of making love. Divorce isn't a cure, it's a surgical operation, even if there are no children to consider.

Once you understand this, you will be ready to accept one of the most surprising truths about marriage: Most marital arguments cannot be resolved. Couples spend year after year trying to change each other’s mind—but it can’t be done. This is because most of their disagreements are rooted in fundamental differences of lifestyle, personality, or values. By fighting over these differences, all they succeed in doing is wasting their time and harming their marriage.

Differences of opinion may occur between husband and wife. But one's objective in marriage is never to win an argument, but to build an eternal relationship of love.

Nobody can define what exactly true love is. Some believe in it and many others don't. If somebody tries to define it, there will be many agreements and disagreements. Especially since nowadays marriages don't even last long anymore which encourages many to stay single. Faith and understanding in relationships is what many lack because it seems we've forgotten nothing and no one is perfect.

Bonnie and Jerry told me they never run away fro disagreements. They face each one head-on. "By holding it in, you'll begin to slowly form a negative opinion of each other," Bonnie reasoned, "which means you can't work out what the disagreement is.

Some day, I must ask him what it's like to be married to someone who, eyes narrowed in thought, peers at him over the tops of sociology articles with titles like "Who Gets the Best Deal from Marriage: Women or Men?" We've had our disagreements, of course. When, for example, are a few dirty cups a symbol of the exertion of male privilege, and when are they merely unwashed dishes?

Arguments escalate when we want to be right more than we want to be CHRIST. It's easy to get blinded in the heat of disagreement. Soon, all we want is to win. Even if victory requires sin. The one who wins the argument is usually the one who acts LESS like Christ.

But what makes our marriage holy, what makes it “set apart” and sacramental, isn’t the marriage certificate filed away in the basement or the degree to which we follow a list of rules and roles, it’s the way God shows up in those everyday moments—loading the dishwasher, sharing a joke, hosting a meal, enduring an illness, working through a disagreement—and gives us the chance to notice, to pay attention to the divine. It’s the way the God of resurrection makes all things new.

It was possible for couples to not discover that they are in profound disagreement over the very fundamentals of life until ten or twenty years of marriage.

An eternal marriage is eternal. Eternal implies continuing growth and improvement. It means that man and wife will honestly try to perfect themselves. It means that the marriage relationship is not to be frivolously discarded at the first sign of disagreement or when times get hard. It signifies that love will grow stronger with time and that it extends beyond the grave. It means that each partner will be blessed with the company of the other partner forever and that problems and differences might as well be resolved because they are not going to go away. Eternal signifies repentance, forgiveness, long-suffering, patience, hope, charity, love, and humility. All of these things are involved in anything that is eternal, and surely we must learn and practice them if we intend to claim an eternal marriage.

We seem normal only to those who don't know us very well. In a wiser, more self-aware society than our own, a standard question on an early dinner date would be; "And how are you crazy?" The problem is that before marriage, we rarely delve into our complexities. Whenever casual relationships threaten to reveal our flaws, we blame our partners and call it a day. As for our friends, they don't care enough to do the hard work of enlightening us. One of the privileges of being on our own is therefore the sincere impression that we are really quite easy to live with. We make mistakes, too, because are so lonely. No one can be in an optimal state of mind to choose a partner when remaining single feels unbearable. We have to be wholly at peace with the prospect of many years of solitude in order to be appropriately picky; otherwise, we risk loving no longer being single rather more than we love the partner who spared us that fate. Choosing whom to commit ourselves to is merely a case of identifying which particular variety of suffering we would most like to sacrifice ourselves for. The person who is best suited to us is not the person who shares our every taste (he or she doesn't exist), but the person who can negotiate differences in taste intelligently - the person who is good at disagreement. Rather than some notional idea of perfect complementarity, it is the capacity to tolerate differences with generosity that is the true marker of the "not overly wrong" person. Compatibility is an achievement of love; it must not be its precondition. Romanticism has been unhelpful to us; it is a harsh philosophy. It has made a lot of what we go through in marriage seem exceptional and appalling. We end up lonely and convinced that our union, with its imperfections, is not "normal." We should learn to accommodate ourselves to "wrongness", striving always to adopt a more forgiving, humorous and kindly perspective on its multiple examples in ourselves and our partners.

most marital arguments cannot be resolved. Couples spend year after year trying to change each other’s mind—but it can’t be done. This is because most of their disagreements are rooted in fundamental differences of lifestyle, personality, or values. By fighting over these differences, all they succeed in doing is wasting their time and harming their marriage. Instead, they need to understand the bottom-line difference that is causing the conflict—and to learn how to live with it by honoring and respecting each other.

Who knows what goes on in a marriage? Even my parents, who had a compatible marriage, had their points of contention. They had figured out how to disagree and how to find common ground.

Between Barton and Delaford, there was that constant communication which strong family affection would naturally dictate;—and among the merits and the happiness of Elinor and Marianne, let it not be ranked as the least considerable, that though sisters, and living almost within sight of each other, they could live without disagreement between themselves, or producing coolness between their husbands.

In a nutshell, I was looking for meaningful work and meaningful relationships. I quickly learned that the best way to do that was to have great partnerships with great people. To me, great partnerships come from sharing common values and interests, having similar approaches to pursuing them, and being reasonable with, and having consideration for, each other. At the same time, partners must be willing to hold each other to high standards and work through their disagreements. The main test of a great partnership is not whether the partners ever disagree—people in all healthy relationships disagree—but whether they can bring their disagreements to the surface and get through them well. Having clear processes for resolving disagreements efficiently and clearly is essential for business partnerships, marriages, and all other forms of partnership

A MAN HITS YOU ONCE and apologizes, and you think it will never happen again. But then you tell him you’re not sure you ever want a family, and he hits you once more. You tell yourself it’s understandable, what he did. You were sort of rude, the way you said it. You do want a family someday. You truly do. You’re just not sure how you’re going to manage it with your movies. But you should have been more clear. The next morning, he apologizes and brings you flowers. He gets down on his knees. The third time, it’s a disagreement about whether to go out to Romanoff’s or stay in. Which, you realize when he pushes you into the wall behind you, is actually about the image of your marriage to the public. The fourth time, it’s after you both lose at the Oscars. You are in a silk, emerald-green, one-shoulder dress. He’s in a tux with tails. He has too much to drink at the after-parties, trying to nurse his wounds. You’re in the front seat of the car in your driveway, about to go inside. He’s upset that he lost. You tell him it’s OK. He tells you that you don’t understand. You remind him that you lost, too. He says, “Yeah, but your parents are trash from Long Island. No one expects anything from you.” You know you shouldn’t, but you say, “I’m from Hell’s Kitchen, you asshole.

On top of all that is the general complexity of life, complicating the search for clarity. Consider the question “What really happened?” say, in a failed marriage, divorce, and child-custody battle. The answer to that query is so complex that settling the disagreements frequently requires court evaluation and multi-party assessment

A MAN HITS YOU ONCE and apologizes, and you think it will never happen again. But then you tell him you’re not sure you ever want a family, and he hits you once more. You tell yourself it’s understandable, what he did. You were sort of rude, the way you said it. You do want a family someday. You truly do. You’re just not sure how you’re going to manage it with your movies. But you should have been more clear. The next morning, he apologizes and brings you flowers. He gets down on his knees. The third time, it’s a disagreement about whether to go out to Romanoff’s or stay in. Which, you realize when he pushes you into the wall behind you, is actually about the image of your marriage to the public.

Marriage isn’t a love affair. It isn’t even a honeymoon. It’s a job. A long hard job, at which both partners have to work, harder than they’ve worked at anything in their lives before. If it’s a good marriage, it changes, it evolves, but it goes on getting better. I’ve seen it with my own mother and father. But a bad marriage can dissolve in a welter of resentment and acrimony. I’ve seen that, too, in my own miserable and disastrous attempt at making another person happy. And it’s never one person’s fault. It’s the sum total of a thousand little irritations, disagreements, idiotic details that in a sound alliance would simply be disregarded, or forgotten in the healing act of making love. Divorce isn’t a cure, it’s a surgical operation, even if there are no children to consider.

You squeeze and crinkle the toothpaste tube even though you know it bothers your spouse. You complain about the dirty dishes instead of putting them in the dishwasher. You fight for your own way in little things, rather than seeing them as an opportunity to serve. You allow yourself to go to bed irritated after a little disagreement. Day after day you leave for work without a moment of tenderness between you. You fight for your view of beauty rather than making your home a visual expression of the tastes of both of you. You allow yourself to do little rude things you would never have done in courtship. You quit asking for forgiveness in the little moments of wrong. You complain about how the other does little things, when it really doesn’t make any difference. You make little decisions without consultation. You quit investing in the friendship intimacy of your marriage. You fight for your own way rather than for unity in little moments of disagreement. You complain about the other’s foibles and weaknesses. You fail to seize those openings to encourage. You quit searching for little avenues for expressing love. You begin to keep a record of little wrongs. You allow yourself to be irritated by what you once appreciated. You quit making sure that every day is punctuated with tenderness before sleep takes you away. You quit regularly expressing appreciation and respect. You allow your physical eyes and the eyes of your heart to wander. You swallow little hurts that you would have once discussed. You begin to turn little requests into regular demands. You quit taking care of yourself. You become willing to live with more silence and distance than you would have when you were approaching marriage. You quit working in those little moments to make your marriage better, and you begin to succumb to what is.

The traditional Roman wedding was a splendid affair designed to dramatize the bride’s transfer from the protection of her father’s household gods to those of her husband. Originally, this literally meant that she passed from the authority of her father to her husband, but at the end of the Republic women achieved a greater degree of independence, and the bride remained formally in the care of a guardian from her blood family. In the event of financial and other disagreements, this meant that her interests were more easily protected. Divorce was easy, frequent and often consensual, although husbands were obliged to repay their wives’ dowries. The bride was dressed at home in a white tunic, gathered by a special belt which her husband would later have to untie. Over this she wore a flame-colored veil. Her hair was carefully dressed with pads of artificial hair into six tufts and held together by ribbons. The groom went to her father’s house and, taking her right hand in his, confirmed his vow of fidelity. An animal (usually a ewe or a pig) was sacrificed in the atrium or a nearby shrine and an Augur was appointed to examine the entrails and declare the auspices favorable. The couple exchanged vows after this and the marriage was complete. A wedding banquet, attended by the two families, concluded with a ritual attempt to drag the bride from her mother’s arms in a pretended abduction. A procession was then formed which led the bride to her husband’s house, holding the symbols of housewifely duty, a spindle and distaff. She took the hand of a child whose parents were living, while another child, waving a hawthorn torch, walked in front to clear the way. All those in the procession laughed and made obscene jokes at the happy couple’s expense. When the bride arrived at her new home, she smeared the front door with oil and lard and decorated it with strands of wool. Her husband, who had already arrived, was waiting inside and asked for her praenomen or first name. Because Roman women did not have one and were called only by their family name, she replied in a set phrase: “Wherever you are Caius, I will be Caia.” She was then lifted over the threshold. The husband undid the girdle of his wife’s tunic, at which point the guests discreetly withdrew. On the following morning she dressed in the traditional costume of married women and made a sacrifice to her new household gods. By the late Republic this complicated ritual had lost its appeal for sophisticated Romans and could be replaced by a much simpler ceremony, much as today many people marry in a registry office. The man asked the woman if she wished to become the mistress of a household (materfamilias), to which she answered yes. In turn, she asked him if he wished to become paterfamilias, and on his saying he did the couple became husband and wife.

On many occasions in our nearly thirty years of marriage my wife and I have had a disagreement—sometimes a deep disagreement. Our unity appeared to be broken, at some unknowably profound level, and we were not able to easily resolve the rupture by talking. We became trapped, instead, in emotional, angry and anxious argument. We agreed that when such circumstances arose we would separate, briefly: she to one room, me to another. This was often quite difficult, because it is hard to disengage in the heat of an argument, when anger generates the desire to defeat and win. But it seemed better than risking the consequences of a dispute that threatened to spiral out of control. Alone, trying to calm down, we would each ask ourselves the same single question: What had we each done to contribute to the situation we were arguing about? However small, however distant…we had each made some error. Then we would reunite, and share the results of our questioning: Here’s how I was wrong…. The problem with asking yourself such a question is that you must truly want the answer. And the problem with doing that is that you won’t like the answer. When you are arguing with someone, you want to be right, and you want the other person to be wrong. Then it’s them that has to sacrifice something and change, not you, and that’s much preferable. If it’s you that’s wrong and you that must change, then you have to reconsider yourself—your memories of the past, your manner of being in the present, and your plans for the future. Then you must resolve to improve and figure out how to do that. Then you actually have to do it. That’s exhausting. It takes repeated practice, to instantiate the new perceptions and make the new actions habitual. It’s much easier just not to realize, admit and engage. It’s much easier to turn your attention away from the truth and remain wilfully blind. But it’s at such a point that you must decide whether you want to be right or you want to have peace.216 You must decide whether to insist upon the absolute correctness of your view, or to listen and negotiate. You don’t get peace by being right. You just get to be right, while your partner gets to be wrong—defeated and wrong. Do that ten thousand times and your marriage will be over (or you will wish it was). To choose the alternative—to seek peace—you have to decide that you want the answer, more than you want to be right. That’s the way out of the prison of your stubborn preconceptions. That’s the prerequisite for negotiation. That’s to truly abide by the principle of Rule 2 (Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping).

... we decided to create a Nothing Place in the living room, it seemed necessary, because there are times when one needs to disappear while in the living room, and sometimes one simply wants to disappear, we made this zone slightly larger so that one of us could lie down in it, it was a rule that you never would look at that rectangle of space, it didn't exist, and when you were in it, neither did you, for a while that was enough, but only for a while, we required more rules, on our second anniversary we marked off the entire guest room as a Nothing Place, it seemed like a good idea at the time, sometimes a small patch at the foot of the bed or a rectangle in the living room isn't enough privacy, the side of the door that faced the guest room was Nothing, the side that faced the hallway was Something, the knob that connected them was neither Something nor Nothing. The walls of the hallway were Nothing, even pictures need to disappear, especially pictures, but the hallway itself was Something, the bathtub was Nothing, the bathwater was Something, the hair on our bodies was Nothing, of course, but once it collected around the drain it was Something, we were trying to make our lives easier, trying, with all of our rules, to make life effortless. But a friction began to arise between Nothing and Something, in the morning the Nothing vase cast a Something shadow, like the memory of someone you've lost, what can you say about that, at night the Nothing light from the guest room spilled under the Nothing door and stained the Something hallway, there's nothing to say. It became difficult to navigate from Something to Something without accidentally walking through Nothing, and when Something—a key, a pen, a pocketwatch—was accidentally left in a Nothing Place, it never could be retrieved, that was an unspoken rule, like nearly all of our rules have been. There came a point, a year or two ago, when our apartment was more Nothing than Something, that in itself didn't have to be a problem, it could have been a good thing, it could have saved us. We got worse. I was sitting on the sofa in the second bedroom one afternoon, thinking and thinking and thinking, when I realized I was on a Something island. "How did I get here," I wondered, surrounded by Nothing, "and how can I get back?" The longer your mother and I lived together, the more we took each other's assumptions for granted, the less was said, the more misunderstood, I'd often remember having designated a space as Nothing when she was sure we had agreed that it was Something, our unspoken agreements led to disagreements, to suffering, I started to undress right in front of her, this was just a few months ago, and she said, "Thomas! What are you doing!" and I gestured, "I thought this was Nothing," covering myself with one of my daybooks, and she said, "It's Something!" We took the blueprint of our apartment from the hallway closet and taped it to the inside of the front door, with an orange and a green marker we separated Something from Nothing. "This is Something," we decided. "This is Nothing." "Something." "Something." "Nothing." "Something." "Nothing." "Nothing." "Nothing." Everything was forever fixed, there would be only peace and happiness, it wasn't until last night, our last night together, that the inevitable question finally arose, I told her, "Something," by covering her face with my hands and then lifting them like a marriage veil. "We must be." But I knew, in the most protected part of my heart, the truth.

But they'd had disagreements through the years, some of which I'd seen resolved, some I hadn't, and they always pressed on. Mother had told me this was the blessing of being married to a man who loved her for her mind as much as anything else. A marriage in which thoughts mattered, Mother said, meant that there would be disagreements. But love would prevail. That's what she said. And that's what I held to.

Emotions such as anger and contempt can seem very threatening for couples. But our study suggests that if spouses, especially wives, are able to calm themselves, their marriages can continue to thrive,” Bloch said. While it is commonly held that women play the role of caretaker and peacemaker in relationships, the study is among the first to reveal this dynamic in action over a long period of time, researchers point out. Results show that the link between the wives’ ability to control emotions and higher marital satisfaction was most evident when women used “constructive communication” to temper disagreements. [UC Berkeley]

He always walked home now. It would not have occurred to him to make an excuse for this stratagem, which was one of delay, and yet he could not bring himself to give the true reason for it. Tissy had ceased complaining; he sensed a withdrawal in her. Her earlier timidity had hardened into a kind of refusal to engage which was in fact a sign of strength rather than weakness. Her silences were loaded with criticism, yet they were maintained as silences, and they became more eloquent than the words they suppressed. There was no open disagreement between them. Their routines were so established that they moved with an automatic accord through their daily lives. Sometimes it seemed to Lewis that their value to each other was as a foil for what was essentially an individual experience of solitude, which, borne alone, might strike either one of them down with intolerable perplexity: with the other there neither could feel totally abandoned. Yet for each of them a peculiar loneliness was an older, perhaps a more natural experience than companionship, and perhaps there was a recognition of the inevitable, even a rapture, in succumbing once again to this experience, which was felt to be archaic, predestined. Down they sank, through all the pretences, through the eager assumption of otherness that each had sought in marriage, down to that original feeling of unreality, unfamiliarity, with which they had first embraced the world. With this, a recognition of strangeness between them, as if each were puzzled by the continued presence of the other. From time to time there was a coming together; afterwards they took leave of each other, like partners at the end of a dance.

The reasons for disagreement between man and wife are as many as there are leaves on the trees and fish in the sea. But luckily the wind blows, the waves crash, and leaves and fish are swept away.

Many marriages would have succeeded today but many of the individuals didn't have the equipment; the knowledge to use to fix the situation. No marriage is irreparable but most most people are just too tired to fix it. This why it is important for you to get understanding. In all your getting don't get love....get understanding first. Understand what it means to be a woman. Understand what it means to be with a woman. You need to understand the complexancy in a woman and the uniqueness in a man. Understand communication skills, understand how to manage emotions and how to handle anger, you have to understand the dynamics of disagreement , you have to understand how to handle unfaithfulness; broken trust, if you do not understand all these things, you will always be stocked in life.

All couples have some irreconcilable differences. But when partners can’t find a way to accommodate these perpetual disagreements, the result is gridlock. When couples gridlock over issues, the image that comes to my mind is of two opposing fists. Neither can make any headway in getting the other to understand and respect their perspective, much less agree with it. As a result, they eventually view the partner as just plain selfish. Each becomes more deeply entrenched in his or her position, making compromise impossible.

She was diagnosed with leukemia when Lily was six months old.... Diana and I had looked at each other, no clue, nowhere to begin, certainly no answers, other than the largest answer, that is, the answer that emerged in how, despite or maybe in lieu of the terror of the situation, our bodies had involuntarily gravitated toward each other, how our petty grudges and growing disagreements—all the fissures and loggerheads that had been emerging in our marriage—had given way.

Once you understand this, you will be ready to accept one of the most surprising truths about marriage: most marital arguments cannot be resolved. Couples spend year after year trying to change each other’s mind—but it can’t be done. This is because most of their disagreements are rooted in fundamental differences of lifestyle, personality, or values. By fighting over these differences, all they succeed in doing is wasting their time and harming their marriage. Instead, they need to understand the bottom-line difference that is causing the conflict—and to learn how to live with it by honoring and respecting each other. Only then will they be able to build shared meaning and a sense of purpose into their marriage.

No relationship survives or, more accurately, survives happily without a joint commitment to the genuine happiness of the other person. We do not have to sacrifice our destiny, talents, friendships, or ambitions, but their impact on the other person has to be seriously considered. When times are uncomfortable, challenging, not what we wanted or imagined, or actively distressing, we should not revert to dishonesty, nondisclosure, or manipulation to get our own way. What good is getting our way if that way is destructive to our partner? We will end up suffering anyway from the painful demise of our relationship. A different, new, reformed way can evolve. Some things aren’t that important, and disagreement is of minimal importance. Some things have a huge impact on the life of both people, and some sort of agreement has to be earnestly sought. Compromise is not difficult when the people involved care about the other’s emotional, mental, and physical health.

To me, great partnerships come from sharing common values and interests, having similar approaches to pursuing them, and being reasonable, and having consideration for each other. At the same time, partners must be willing to hold each other to high standards, and work through their disagreements. The main test of a great partnership is not whether the partners ever disagree, people in all healthy relationships disagree, it’s whether they can bring their disagreements to the surface and get through them well. Having clear processes for resolving disagreements efficiently and clearly is essential for business partnerships, marriages, and all forms of partnership.

God uses your spouse, your disagreements, and your faults to help you become more like him.

We must not be naive. The legitimization of same-sex marriage will mean the de-legitimization of those who dare to disagree. The sexual revolution has been no great respecter of civil and religious liberties. Sadly, we may discover that there is nothing quite so intolerant as tolerance.6 Does this mean the church should expect doom and gloom? That depends. For conservative Christians the ascendancy of same-sex marriage will likely mean marginalization, name-calling, or worse. But that’s to be expected. Jesus promises us no better than he himself received (John 15:18–25). The church is sometimes the most vibrant, the most articulate, and the most holy when the world presses down on her the hardest. But not always—sometimes when the world wants to press us into its mold, we jump right in and get comfy. I care about the decisions of the Supreme Court and the laws our politicians put in place. But what’s much more important to me—because I believe it’s more crucial to the spread of the gospel, the growth of the church, and the honor of Christ—is what happens in our local congregations, our mission agencies, our denominations, our parachurch organizations, and in our educational institutions. I fear that younger Christians may not have the stomach for disagreement or the critical mind for careful reasoning. Look past the talking points. Read up on the issues. Don’t buy every slogan and don’t own every insult. The challenge before the church is to convince ourselves as much as anyone that believing the Bible does not make us bigots, just as reflecting the times does not make us relevant.

Arguments escalate when we want to be right more than we want to be Christ. It is easy to get blinded in the heat of disagreements. Soon, all we want is to win, even if victory requires sin. The one who wins the argument is usually the one who acts less like Christ.

When We Want God to Breathe New Life into Our Marriage Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth; shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. ISAIAH 43:18-19 WE ALL HAVE TIMES when we know we need new life in our marriage. We feel the strain, the tension, the sameness, or possibly even the subtle decay in it. When there is so much water under the bridge over what seems like a river of hurt, apathy, or preoccupation, we know we cannot survive the slowly and steadily rising flood without the Lord doing a new thing in both of us. The good news is that God says He will do that. He is the God of new beginnings, after all. But it won’t happen if we don’t make a choice to let go of the past. We have been made new if we have received Jesus. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17). But in a marriage, it is way too easy to hang on to the old disappointments, misunderstandings, disagreements, and abuses. It becomes a wilderness of hurtful memories we cling to because we don’t want to be hurt, disappointed, misunderstood, disregarded, fought with, or abused again. Hanging on to old patterns of thought and negative memories keeps them fresh in your mind. And you don’t let your husband forget them, either. You remain mired in them because you don’t feel the situation has been resolved—and it still hurts. Only God can give you and your husband a new beginning from all that has gone on in the past. Only He can make a road in the wilderness of miscommunication and misread intentions, and make a cleansing and restoring river to flow in the dry areas of your relationship. Everyone needs new life in their marriage at certain times. And only the God of renewal can accomplish that. My Prayer to God LORD, I ask that You would do a fresh work of Your Spirit in our marriage. Make all things new in each of us individually and also together. Dissolve the pain of the past where it is still rising up in us to stifle our communication and ultimately our hope and joy. Wherever we have felt trapped in a wilderness of our own making, carve a way out of it for us and show us the path to follow. If there are rigid and dry areas between us that don’t allow for new growth, give us a fresh flow of Your Spirit to bring new vitality into our relationship. Help us to stop rehearsing old hurtful conversations that have no place in any life committed to the God of new beginnings. Sweep away all the old rubble of selfishness, stubbornness, blindness, and the inability to see beyond the moment or a particular situation. Only You can take away our painful memories so that we don’t keep reliving the same problems, hurts, or injustices. Only You can resurrect love, excitement, and hope where they have died. Help us to forgive fully and allow each other to completely forget. Help us to focus on Your greatness in us, instead of each other’s faults. Holy Spirit, breathe new life into each of us and into our marriage today.

Part of the problem in the gay marriage debate is that emotions run high on both sides. Each side digs in its heels and refuses to budge in any way. Sometimes gays are vilified and misunderstood by traditionalists, but the reverse can be true as well. How do we handle this matter of defining (or changing the definition of) marriage in the public square? Are traditionalists discriminating against gays who believe they should have “equal rights under the law”? First, Christians should seek to understand, show grace, correct misperceptions, and build bridges wherever possible when interacting with those who disagree about this emotional issue. Both sides ought to be committed to truth-seeking, not playing power politics. The term homophobic is commonly misused today: “If you don’t accept homosexuality as legitimate, you’re homophobic.” Christians often are, but shouldn’t be, homophobic—afraid of homosexuals. It’s helpful to ask what people mean when they use this term. If they mean nonacceptance of homosexuality as a legitimate way of life rather than fear of homosexuals, then they are being inconsistent. In this case, they are being homophobic-phobic—not accepting the view of traditionalists as legitimate. Both sides should be committed to fairness and truth-seeking. Elizabeth Moberly explains: Neither side should make inflated claims or distort data. Both sides need to be frank about their own shortcomings. Truth-seeking also implies an essential concern not to misrepresent others, and not to withhold research grants or publication from persons who hold other views. Genuine and principled disagreement needs to be respected, not dismissed as homophobia or bigotry. This debate is not an easy one. But if we all seek to act with integrity—if we promote truth-seeking and show real respect for those with whom we disagree—then we may realistically hope for the future.1

If a couple isn’t following God’s guidelines for life or being led by the Holy Spirit, disagreements and misunderstandings skyrocket.

The distance between you and the door when you have had enough of your spouse is love.

As a result, your subconscious mind will do its best to keep you from a successful marriage, because you have a disagreement between your consciousness and sub consciousness

After this quarrel, Harilal composed the long letter that he then had printed. The letter rehearsed their decade of disagreement, the son saying that the father had ‘oppressed’ him, and paid him ‘no attention at all’. ‘Whenever we tried to put across our views on any subject to you,’ said Harilal, ‘you have lost your temper quickly and told us, “You are stupid, you are in a fallen state, you lack comprehension.” Harilal also accused Gandhi of bullying Kasturba, writing: ‘It is beyond my capacity to describe the hardships that my mother had to undergo.’ Gandhi had disapproved of Harilal’s marriage, since he fell in love and chose his bride, rather than, as was the custom, have his parents choose a wife for him. Harilal’s relationship with his wife, Chanchi, was intensely romantic; this wasn’t to Gandhi’s liking either, since he believed sex was strictly for procreation and a true satyagrahi should be celibate. Harilal emphatically disagreed. ‘No one can be made an ascetic,’ he told his father. ‘A person becomes an ascetic on his own volition... I cannot believe a salt-free diet, or abstinence from ghee or milk [all of which Gandhi preached and practised] indicates strength of character and morality.’ Harilal claimed he spoke on behalf of his younger brothers as well. Gandhi had imposed his will on his four sons, without ever giving them a hearing. ‘My entire letter stresses one point,’ remarked Harilal. ‘You have never considered our rights and capabilities, you have never seen the person in us'.

Among the more important letters written by Gandhi in the first half of 1926 was one to his son Manilal. Still based in Natal, running the Phoenix Ashram, Manilal had fallen in love with a girl named Fatima Gool, whose parents, based in Cape Town, were also of Gujarati descent, but Muslim rather than Hindu. Fatima loved Manilal too, and was even amenable to the idea of converting to Hinduism. When Manilal wrote to his father about the relationship, Gandhi conveyed his strong disagreement, writing to his son that 'what you desire is contrary to dharma. If you stick to Hinduism and Fatima follows Islam it will be like putting two swords in one sheath; or you both may lose your faith. And then what should be your children’s faith?... It is not dharma, only adharma if Fatima agrees to conversion just for marrying you. Faith is not a thing like a garment which can be changed to suit our convenience. For the sake of dharma a person shall forgo matrimony, forsake his home, why, even lay down his life; but for nothing may faith be given up. May not Fatima have meat at her father’s? If she does not, she has as good as changed her religion.' Gandhi continued: ‘Nor is it in the interests of our society to form this relationship. Your marriage will have a powerful impact on the Hindu–Muslim question. Intercommunal marriages are no solution to this problem. You cannot forget nor will society forget that you are my son.’ Manilal seems to have asked his father to speak to his mother on his behalf. ‘I cannot ask for Ba’s permission,’ said Gandhi. ‘She will not give it. Her life will be embittered for ever'.

Healthy relationships have two essential character qualities. First is the humility of approachability. When both people step out from behind protective walls and open up to the perspectives and help of others, each individual—and their relationship—will be given an opportunity to grow and change. The second quality is equally important. In fact, these two qualities cannot live without one another. The second is the courage of loving honesty. Not only do we defend ourselves from the opinion of others, but we avoid uncomfortable moments by failing to say what needs to be said. In the fear of disagreement, tension, and rejection, we choose to be silent about things that, if addressed in love, could be used to bring new insight to one another and a fresh start to the relationship.

Women, on average, do not mind plunging into the unpleasantness of a marital squabble nearly so much as do the men in their lives. That conclusion, reached in a study by Robert Levenson at the University of California at Berkeley, is based on the testimony of 151 couples, all in long-lasting marriages. Levenson found that husbands uniformly found it unpleasant, even aversive, to become upset during a marital disagreement, while their wives did not mind it much. Once flooded, husbands secrete more adrenaline into their bloodstream, and the adrenaline flow is triggered by lower levels of negativity on their wife's part; it takes husbands longer to recover physiologically from flooding. This suggests the possibility that the stoic, Clint Eastwood type of male imperturbability may represent a defense against feeling emotionally overwhelmed.

But the heart & soul of our union was then, & is still today, intense, luminescent conversation. Even to the writing of this very sentence, if Jada & I begin a conversation, it is a minimum two-hour endeavor, & it is not uncommon that we talk for five or six hours at a stretch. Our joy of pondering & perusing mysteries of the universe through the mirror of each other’s experience is unbridled ecstasy. Even in the depths of disagreement, there is nothing in this world that either of us more cherished or enjoys than the opportunity to grow & learn from each other through passionate communication.

Here is a thought, a terrifying and dispiriting thought, to motivate improvement in your marriage—to scare you into the appalling difficulties of true negotiation. Every little problem you have every morning, afternoon, or evening with your spouse will be repeated for each of the fifteen thousand days that will make up a forty-year marriage. Every trivial but chronic disagreement about cooking, dishes, housecleaning, responsibility for finances, or frequency of intimate contact will be duplicated, over and over, unless you successfully address it.

The wedding is similar to driving a tandem bike (synchronized double pedal bike). Spouses, as 'tandems', need to have solid mutual trust and fluid communication to pedal in harmony. However, the road to marriage sometimes involves obstacles, such as difficult climbs of life and tight turns of disagreements. These challenging moments test their trust and communication. Nevertheless, it is by overcoming these difficulties together that their bond deepens, leading them to a stronger complicity on the path of life.

But these stereotypes also poison our public discourse, distort our understanding of the real differences among us, and reduce the chances for resolving those differences even in part. These stereotypes corrode the bonds of mutual concern and respect that hold a pluralistic society together. These bonds are stretched enough by honest disagreement and simple demands for change. Once in our history they broke entirely, and some minority groups have been placed outside their protection for long periods. But generally these bonds have held. They make it unsurprising when Americans from “opposite ends of the political and cultural universe” help one another. To corrode these bonds unnecessarily is a dangerous thing. And we should have no illusions about who is most endangered. In any outbreak of intolerance, in any reduction of mutual concern and respect, the weak and oppressed will suffer more than the strong and dominant. Those who are most endangered by stereotypes and prejudice have special reasons to avoid invoking their own stereotypes and prejudices against others.10

Friendship fuels the flames of romance because it offers the best protection against feeling adversarial toward your spouse. Because Nathaniel and Olivia have kept their friendship strong despite the inevitable disagreements and irritations of married life,

Followers of Christ are the most widely persecuted religious group in the world.. the most fundamental freedom is the privilege of each person to explore truth about the divine and to live in light of his or her determinations..from the beginning God has given men and women the freedom to decide whether to worship him..God did not (and does not) remove human responsibility..the Bible indicates the importance of willful choice and personal invitation..the gospel message is fundamentally invitation, not coercion..no one can believe except willingly..faith must be free in order to be genuine..What our government calls this "right" is commonly known as the "freedom of worship," but this label can be somewhat misleading because the way it is often applied in our culture unnecessarily and unhelpfully limits the "free exercise" of religion to the private sphere..This is part of the "free exercise" of religion: the freedom of worship not just in episodic gatherings but in everyday life. And it is such "free exercise" that is subtly yet significantly being attacked in American culture today..you have a hard time conceiving how you can participate in a celebration of something that you are convinced God condemns..in your heart you can't avoid the conviction that such participation would dishonor God..while [she] is free to exalt he God in the church she attends, she is not free to express her beliefs in the business she owns..while we have certain obligations to our government, our ultimate obligation is to our God..Church history..contains other examples of shameful attempts to spread Christianity by force or military might..none of this was, or is, right..the search for religious truth is often supplanted by the idolization of supposed tolerance. The cardinal sin of our culture is to be found intolerant, yet what we mean by intolerant is ironically, well, intolerant..the very notion of tolerance necessitates disagreement..I don't tolerate you if you believe exactly what I believe..it would be wise and helpful for us to patiently consider where each of us is coming from and why we have arrived at our respective conclusions..we can then be free to contemplate how to treat one another with the greatest dignity in view of our differences..tolerance applies to people and beliefs in distinct ways..toleration of people requires that we treat one another with equal value, honoring each other's fundamental human freedom to express private faith in public forums..toleration of beliefs does not require that we accept every idea as equally valid, as if a belief is true, right or good simply because someone expresses it. In this way, tolerance of a person's value does not mean I must accept the person's views.."Hey, as long as someone believes something, that makes it right.." Either Jesus is or isn't the Son of God..I lament the many ways that Christians express differences in belief devoid of respect for the people with whom they speak. Likewise, I lament the many ways that Christians are labeled intolerant, narrow-minded, and outdated whenever they express biblical beliefs that have persisted throughout centuries..The more we become like Jesus in this world, the more we will experience what he experienced. Just as it was costly for him to counter culture, it will be costly for us to do the same..It's only when we stand up and counter the culture around them with the gospel of Jesus Christ that they will experience suffering..On the other hand, if they stay quiet, they can remain safe. But they know that in so doing, they will violate their consciences and disobey the commands Christ has given them to share grace and gospel truth with the people around them..in a country where even our own religious liberty is increasingly limited, our suffering brothers and sisters beckon us not to let the cost of following Christ in our culture silence our faith.

LORD, teach us to listen to one another and recognize the signs in each other that give us greater understanding. Help us find things we enjoy doing together so that we will grow closer and not apart. Enable us to be able to communicate love, appreciation, and honor to each other at all times. Help us to take instant authority over any attack the enemy brings against us—especially in the area of communication. Help us to settle all matters of disagreement between us in a loving, compromising, and considerate manner. Enable us to always be in unity with You and with each other.

If supporters of same-sex marriage regard it as a matter of basic justice and fairness, and Christians regard it as a matter of sin and contrary to human flourishing, conflict is bound to occur. It’s important, then, to understand what the nature of the disagreement is; for the discussion pertaining to sexuality and marriage pertains to almost every area of life: education, entertainment, the media, and politics.

Suzanne laughed, but it was dutiful. Her friend’s marriage problems were real—real enough for Mia to habitually employ humor as a cover. Suzanne had never understood how Mia and Malcolm Stone had stayed together as long as they had. They didn’t seem to agree on anything, and both had personalities too forceful to put disagreements to the side

The sharp segmentation of the electorate goes much deeper than just policy disagreements. Americans of different political hues have started to positively hate each other. In 1960, roughly 5 percent of Republicans and Democrats reported they would “[feel] ‘displeased’ if their son or daughter married outside their political party.” By 2010, nearly 50 percent of Republicans and over 30 percent of Democrats “felt somewhat or very unhappy at the prospect of inter-party marriage.” In 1960, 33 percent of Democrats and Republicans thought an average member from their own party was intelligent, compared to 27 percent who had the same view about someone from the other side. In 2008, those numbers were 62 percent and 14 percent!64

Together, the two of you will create a family. Perhaps there will be biological children or adopted children, perhaps not. Perhaps you will live to celebrate sixty-three years of marriage, as Nonie and Pops did, perhaps not. Perhaps you will always be madly in love, perhaps you will not. Life is uncertain, especially given the current state of the world, but what you are doing today is permanent. The two of you will be bound together through this life and the next, in a way that I do not understand but know to be true. I say all of this to scare you just a little,”—he offered me a hint of a smile—“to make sure you are in fact aware that what you are committing to today is not the stuff of fairy tales, it is not about happily ever after. It is about real life, real struggles, real disagreements, and real love. It will not be easy … but it will be worth it.

How many marriages are turned into slave-master relationships because a man could not simply say no and laugh at the ensuing outrage. She will get angry and she will move on. Those husbands suffer through miserable lifetimes because they did not want to deal with a painful argument.Think of the women that threaten or outright withhold sex from their husbands due to small disagreements. It is not the act, but even the threat shows the man's weakness. He has shown that he is weak there and will cave for the tiniest morsel of physical gratification,because if a woman thinks the threat will work, sex has completely devolved to a scheduled activity for her. The passion and animal spirits are gone. She knows he cannot say no and deal with her upset at him. She knows he will not verbally retaliate with barbs that cut far deeper than simply withholding sex.

Anyone who is awake nowadays knows that Republicans and Democrats seem to disagree on most issues — and neither side seems able to be persuaded by the other. Why? After analyzing the data from 44 years of studies and more than 22,000 people in the United States and Europe, John Jost and his associates86 have concluded that these disagreements are not simply philosophic disputes about how, say, to end poverty or fix schools; they reflect different ways of thinking, different levels of tolerance for uncertainty, and core personality traits, which is why conservatives and liberals are usually not persuaded by the same kinds of arguments. As a result of such evidence, some evolutionary psychologists maintain that ideological belief systems may have evolved in human societies to be organized along a left–right dimension, consisting of two core sets of attitudes: (1) whether a person advocates social change or supports the system as it is, and (2) whether a person thinks inequality is a result of human policies and can be overcome or is inevitable and should be accepted as part of the natural order.87 Evolutionary psychologists point out that both sets of attitudes would have had adaptive benefits over the millennia: Conservatism would have promoted stability, tradition, order, and the benefits of hierarchy, whereas liberalism would have promoted rebelliousness, change, flexibility, and the benefits of equality.88 Conservatives prefer the familiar; liberals prefer the unusual. Every society, to survive, would have done best with both kinds of citizens, but you can see why liberals and conservatives argue so emotionally over issues such as income inequality and gay marriage. They are not only arguing about the specific issue, but also about underlying assumptions and values that emerge from their personality traits. It is important to stress that these are general tendencies. Most people enjoy stability and change in their lives, perhaps in different proportion at different ages; many people will change their minds in response to new situations and experiences, as was the case in the acceptance of gay marriage; and until relatively recently in American society, the majority of members of both political parties were willing to compromise and seek common ground in passing legislation. Still, such differences in basic orientation help explain the frustrating fact that liberals and conservatives so rarely succeed in hearing one another, let alone in changing one another’s minds.

Soon-Yi will be the first to tell you in over twenty years of marriage, and the many disagreements we’ve had, I have never once been right on a single issue.

On average, married couples experience a slow decline in the quality of their marriage as the years go by. It’s a depressing but well-established pattern. But when couples practice a version of going to the balcony, something unexpected happens. Social psychologist Eli Finkel and his colleagues directed a group of sixty married couples to spend seven minutes writing about their most recent fight from a different perspective. Specifically, “from the perspective of a neutral third party who wants the best for all involved.” They imagined a mediator like Gary in the room, in other words. “How might this person think about the disagreement? How might he or she find the good that could come from it?” Then they were asked to think about that person’s perspective during their next fight. Every four months, for a year, they repeated this writing exercise. The couples who did this marriage hack, reconsidering their conflicts from an imaginary third party’s point of view, reported feeling less upset about their disputes than couples who hadn’t done it. More importantly, the usual, slow loss of marital satisfaction did not happen for these couples that year. They still had conflict, but it didn’t wear on them the same way. Because it was healthy.

most marital arguments cannot be resolved. Couples spend year after year trying to change each other’s mind—but it can’t be done. This is because most of their disagreements are rooted in fundamental differences of lifestyle, personality, or values. By fighting over these differences, all they succeed in doing is wasting their time and harming their marriage. Instead, they need to understand the bottom-line difference that is causing the conflict—and to learn how to live with it by honoring and respecting each other. Only then will they be able to build shared meaning and a sense of purpose into their marriage.

The twenty-dollar man, whose memory embittered her, had opened her eyes to the reality of her marriage, sustained thus far by a conventional happiness that avoided disagreements in order not to stumble over them, the way people hide dirt under the rug.

Getting marriage right is a lifelong project of many dimensions, but money is a bigger one than we want to admit. The greatest predictor of divorce in America for both men and women isn’t cheating or parenting decisions or career goals—it’s financial disagreement. Money is the second-most-argued-about topic among American couples (number one is tone of voice or attitude). Half of Americans struggling with financial tension say it’s had a negative impact on intimacy with their partner. Lack of money is one of the greatest—if not the greatest—strains on relationships, which is why divorce rates are significantly higher among lower-income Americans. Marrying someone who is better at money than you can be a great benefit (note: “better at money” doesn’t mean cheap). Marrying down in terms of money skills is fine (half of all spouses do it), but know what you are in for. I have a friend who makes an incredible living, and his spouse is pathological when it comes to spending. This person will spend $1,500, no joke, on flowers for a dinner party. They are broken when it comes to managing money. It’s a source of anxiety for both of them. Unhealthy relationships with money can come in many forms and will eat away at relationships.

In case you’re wondering how this guy-girl thing started, here’s how it all began: It seems that Adam was walking around the Garden of Eden one day, feeling very lonely. The Lord took notice and felt sorry for Adam. “Is there anything wrong with you?” God asked. “Is there anything I can do for you?’ “Well, it would be nice to have someone to talk to,” said Adam. “You seem awfully busy these days.” “Okay, tell you what. I’ll create a companion for you. She’ll be a woman. She’ll gather food for you, cook for you, and when you discover clothing, she’ll wash it for you. She’ll agree with every decision you make. She’ll bear your children and never ask you to get up in the middle of the night to care for them. She won’t nag you, and she will always be the first to admit she was wrong when you’ve had a disagreement. She’ll give you love and passion any time you want it, and she’ll never go to bed with a headache.” “Wow, that sounds great!” said Adam, his interest rising. “What will a woman like this cost me?” “An arm and a leg.” This seemed like a lot to Adam. Then he had a brainstorm. “What can I get for a rib?” he asked. The rest is history…

Is that what marriage was all about? Periods of happiness and contentment between the drips of illness and disagreements? If so, they should give new brides umbrellas as wedding gifts. Something to ward off

When a partner looks at the marriage more like a partnership or business relationship, they put more focus into making it work. They don’t see leaving or divorce as an option and are thus committed to solving issues and compromise. Having disagreements or lacking that spark are not seen as legitimate reasons to end a relationship, whereas they may be the nail in the coffin for love marriages built on attraction and love alone. This tendency to look into the future and get around problems before they appear gives arranged marriages a strategic advantage that passion-based relationships do not have.