View From the Manse 2.0

 The other night, my wife and I had a fight. It was loud enough that the 2 oldest kids heard us upstairs (or they snuck down and sat on the stairs, I’m not sure which- I was busy fighting).

    When my wife went upstairs after the fight, she was met by the two of them. They expressed their concern to her. She told them, “We disagree sometimes. We fight sometimes. But neither of us is going anywhere.” My 12-year-old responded, “That’s what I told Lily.” 

    The next morning, my son and I sat down to read the Bible and pray together and I asked, “Did you hear us fighting last night?” “Yes,” he replied, “But I know everything’s ok.” And I said, “Yeah. It is. Sometimes, mommy and I fight. Just like sometimes you and I fight, but you and I aren’t going anywhere either, are we?” “No.” he said. “And I love you, right?” I asked. “Yes.” he said. “When I got upstairs, I had to say sorry to mommy,” I told him. “Because I was wrong.”

    We would rather our kids catch us kissing and say, “Ew! Gross! Stop!”, than for our kids to catch us fighting (after all, kissing my wife is much more fun than fighting with my wife). But sometimes we have things to fight about.
 
    We recently finished our 3rd quarter Sunday school classes. I am very grateful to the Flowers and Ray Jenks for leading classes this quarter. I taught a class entitled, Marital Basics, which pivots around a point that was taught to me by my pastor and friend, Zack Eswine and it’s this; when we enter marriage we come with assumptions and ideas that were modeled for us. We think about marriage in the categories and ways that we have received. We learned these ways from our parents or grandparents or even from television or society. They might not have said, “This is how married people fight.” But when they fought, we learned, “This is how you do it.” We learn by words and ways. 

    In the class, I encouraged those who are married or preparing to be married to learn to fight fair. Sometimes, a fight needs to happen. And if it needs to happen, it ought to happen productively. A fight between a married couple is not about winning or losing; it is about understanding. You are not fighting to get your way or even to come to a compromise and you are certainly not fighting to hurt your spouse. The goal is to understand your husband or wife.

 Here are the rules I recently gave my class: 

1.    Don’t name call: this will only distract from the important issues. 
2.    Don’t universalize: avoid language like “you never” or “you always.”
3.    Avoid assigning motives: Make statements about how their actions or words impacted you (i.e. made you feel). Don’t draw conclusions from their actions or words. 
4.    Ask yourself, Did I make my (unmet) need known?
5.    Ask, “This is what I heard you say… Is that what you meant?” (You are giving the gift of a second draft. Maybe with more time or less reactivity, they would’ve said or done something different).
6.    Ask yourself, am I hungry or tired? This may or may not be a question you can ask your spouse (probably not). 
   
Surely, there are more rules that we could give. Perhaps you have rules that you keep in mind when fighting with the one to whom you have promised to be faithful and cherish- what are they?
 
  I really enjoyed teaching this Sunday school class. Thank you to all of you who came regularly or just stopped in for a week. And I am looking forward to starting our next quarter of Sunday school classes on April 12 (the week after Easter). 

Bryan Fitzgerald, Pastor 

(bryan@argylepresbyterian.org)