Conflict Styles: What’s Yours?

Ann: Before we get started today, we have something special for you, our listeners. We have a sale.

Dave: Yes, on small group materials. When you are leading a small group, you are always looking for great stuff; and we’ve got some great stuff.

Ann: Yes!

Dave: The Art of Marriage™, Vertical Marriage®, Love Like You Mean It®—you name it—we’ve got great small group material for you, and it’s on sale right now.

Ann: Twenty-five percent off for the whole month of August.

Dave: Go to FamilyLife.com/shop, and get your discount, and get your stuff, and get ready; because God is going to change lives in your family room as you lead that small group.

Debra: When we acknowledge our brokenness, we’re acknowledging a need for a healer. He’s offering us this invitation. I think, sometimes, we feel shame at all our sore spots when really we should hear Him saying, “I’m inviting you to heal.”

Shelby: Welcome to FamilyLife Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I’m Shelby Abbott, and your hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson. You can find us at FamilyLifeToday.com.

Ann: This is FamilyLife Today.

Dave: I was thinking one of the most exciting parts of ministry, especially as a preacher or a speaker, and you give a message, where you are calling people to action—and let’s say people raise a hand or they come forward,—

Ann: Yes.

Dave: —some kind of action—you’re thinking, “This is so exciting. People want to change; they’re coming forward. That’s awesome!”

And then, the most frustrating part of ministry is: they don’t change. A week later/a month later, the same thing.

Ann: I think we, as people, going up and saying, “Yes, I want this to happen. I want God to change me,”—maybe, we’ve repented of sin—sometimes, we can think, because of that repentance and our surrender to Jesus, everything will be great; and we won’t continue to sin or fall into these old habit patterns—but then, we do; and we get super discouraged.

And maybe, our spouse does, too. Maybe, he says, “I’ve struggled with porn; but I’m never going to do that again, ever.” And then, he does; so as a wife or a husband, you can feel betrayed.

So why are we talking about that today?

Dave: Today, we are going to get to the root of: “Why does this happen?”

Debra: Yes.

Dave: It’s a common problem. You can hear Debra’s voice over there; she’s back with us.

Ann: Debra Fileta is back, with her book, Reset. If you have not read Debra’s books, you need to get them.

Dave: As you hear us talking about this, I know this is a universal problem, not just in ministry, but in life.

Debra: Yes.

Dave: It’s like: “I want to change,” “I’m going to change”; and you change for a little bit. I’m saying “they,”—but we do the same thing; I’ve done this—and then, they’re back to the same old patterns.

Debra: You just talked a little bit about being a pastor. You see people come up to the altar and crying—and lives—and “This is it!”

Ann: Genuine.

Debra: Genuine; honestly, so often, those people do change because the Holy Spirit can do whatever He wants to do.

Ann: Good point.

Debra: I have seen drug addicts turn a corner overnight and start living their life in a healthy way.

But the majority of the time, the problem is that we’re giving them directions—let’s say we want them to get from point A to point B—they come up there; we’re saying, “And the next step is to take a left.” And they say, “Yes, we’re going to do it; we’re going to take a left.” They take a left. It’s Monday morning; “Okay, which way do I go next? The pastor is not here anymore to help me. How do I know which way to go next?”

This is why the work of counseling—we see such high levels of success and healing—you were talking about: “It’s hard to see people change”; I see people change every single day of my life. It’s because now they have a GPS: “Turn left; then, turn right. Then go straight for 200 feet; and then, take a left over there.” There is somebody who is helping guide them.

Ann: So they have the Holy Spirit—

Debra: They have the Holy Spirit.

Ann: —who is the Helper, the Guide. But you are saying they also have another person.

Debra: Some practical steps.

Ann: Yes, that’s good.

Recap where we were yesterday, because we get in these situations like we talked about yesterday—where we want to change; we want to be more healthy—or to not be addicted to porn or to not be so angry—we have all these different things; you said so many yesterday, beautifully. Recap that a little bit; and then, let’s move on from where we were yesterday.

Debra: The formula that you need to keep in your mind for healing is the idea that thoughts lead to feelings which, then, lead to your behaviors. You can’t just start with the behaviors: “Here’s what I want to change: I’m angry. My spouse and I have all this conflict.”

“Okay, that’s the behavior. What is the feeling underneath the surface?”—“I’m feeling unappreciated,” “I’m feeling invaluable,” “I’m feeling inadequate.”

“And then, where does that come from? What is the thought under the surface?”—“I’m not good enough,” “My spouse will never see me.”

There’s thoughts under the surface there that are causing you to react, causing you to do what you do. No matter the behavior, you are going to find a feeling that triggers that behavior; and underneath that, you are going to find a thought process that God wants to replace with truth.

Ann: Recently, we did a conference. I had a young woman come up to me, saying that she had had an affair. She hasn’t been married very long, maybe five years; they have a couple kids. She was sobbing, because she said that this has been going on for six months. I asked her: “Do you want to leave him? Do you want to stay married? Where are you in this?” She said, “Yes, I realized I want to stay married. I want to do what God wants me to do.” On follow-up—after she got back, what happened is—she’s like, “Now, I don’t know if I want to follow God; because this feels really good, what’s happening.”

I’m talking to more women right now, who are having affairs, than I’ve seen in a long time. Let’s get to that. Let’s say somebody is saying, “I’m in this affair, because my husband: ‘I am not seen,’ ‘He doesn’t appreciate me,’ ‘He’s not who I thought he was.’” These are things that we hear. What would you say to her, if you met her at that conference or maybe the day after, where she’s like, “I don’t know if I want to do that—go back to my husband”?

Debra: The tricky part is that, sometimes, our unhealthy coping mechanisms feel better peripherally—“Oh, that feels good,”—but they always come at a cost. If they didn’t feel good, we’d be crazy to do them—if alcohol didn’t feel good, if overeating didn’t feel good, if an affair didn’t feel good, if porn didn’t feel good—we wouldn’t do it!

Ann: It wouldn’t even be a struggle.

Debra: We’d be crazy, right?

Ann: Right.

Debra: There’s some sort of reward that you are getting out of that behavior. “What’s the reward?”—that’s where I would start with her We’d be crazy, right?
“What’s the reward?”

Ann: That’s good.

Debra: “What is it that you are for in this? Why do you keep defaulting to this behavior?” Maybe she’ll say, “The reward is that I feel seen.”

Dave: Yes.

Debra: “I feel good,” “I feel seen,” “I feel loved.”

Dave: “I don’t feel that in my marriage.”

Debra: Yes; “I don’t feel that in my marriage.”

Then, I would ask her to dig a little bit deeper: “When do you not feel that in your marriage? Let’s isolate that feeling: ‘When?’” It could be something as small as: “When my husband comes home, he barely says two words to me. He’s so distracted by the kids, and I feel that I am not a priority to him.” You are not a priority—that’s the underlying thought—“I’m not a priority.”

If we take it a step further—usually, people who are struggling with things that are this extreme, if you ask them, “When have you felt like you are not a priority before you got married? Is there any time you can pinpoint feeling that you are not a priority?”—almost 99.9 percent of the time, they’ll say, “Yes, I was neglected in my family. My mom and dad were so busy and distracted, and I felt like I had to raise myself.”

There’s going to be some sort of a theme that is making this interaction with your spouse feel so painful; because for Betsy, it might not feel painful as it does for Sue. Her husband might come home, and he’s distracted; and it doesn’t feel that painful because: “Guess what? He’s helping with the kids, and he’s running here and there”; so she sees it differently. Whereas, for the first person, it’s like, “I feel so neglected”; because he’s pushing on a sore spot/a trigger that she didn’t even know existed.

Ann: This is so good. Debra, when you talk about this in the book, I thought, “Oh! This is so good:—

Dave: —emotional sore spots?

Ann: —"emotional sore spots.” You’re saying, “You are pushing on that emotional sore spot”; that happens to so many of us.

Debra: And we don’t even realize it’s happening; and we are thinking, “My spouse is terrible.

Ann: Yes.

Debra: “He’s awful; he’s not prioritizing me.”

That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t have a conversation with your spouse, and say, “Hey, I’m feeling unappreciated. When you come home, it would mean a lot to me if you would look me in the eyes for five minutes and just give me your first few minutes to make me think that I’m a priority.” It’s your responsibility to communicate that.

Ann: I like that you gave a specific thing to do, too; because our husbands, or our wives, don’t know what we need unless we tell them.

Debra: They have no clue; they have no clue what is triggering us. They don’t know our sore spots. I think of a time when [John and I] were leaving the house. He came over to put his arm around me, just to say, “I love you”; and he pushed on a sore spot. Earlier that day, I was going on an errand with the kids. You know how long it takes to get four kids out of the house? [Laughter] It’s like an Olympic event.

Ann: We’ve watched our son and his wife do this with four kids.

Debra: You get them out of the house—it’s so much work—so many things. I was in a rush. I slammed my shoulder on a coat rack. I thought, “Oh, that’s painful; that’s going to leave a bruise.” Later, when John came to put his arm around me—he didn’t know there was a sore spot there; he didn’t cause it—he pushed on it; and I reacted, “Ouch! You just hurt me.” “Oh, sorry; I didn’t know there was a sore spot there.”

Think about that, emotionally. We could call those “emotional sore spots”; we can call them “triggers.” But there is something there, when you find yourself reacting in a big way or feeling a big feeling: “I feel so unloved,” “I feel so unappreciated.” But when you actually look at the situation—it’s not like he had an affair; it’s not like he’s sitting there, doing cocaine—he’s not neglecting you to that level: “Why do you have such a strong response?” It’s usually coming from something else—a sore spot—that was caused before you even got married.

If we could do some sort of a scan to figure out where all our sore spots were, wouldn’t that be amazing? But guess what the scan is?—our spouse. [Laughter] Because they push on them. And when they push on them, you have two options.

Option number one is to pull away and blame them.

Ann: Yes, that’s what most of us do.

Debra: Option number two is to heal: “What’s this? Why does this hurt so much? Where does this come from? God, how do You want me to heal from this feeling of being unseen?”

Because only He can replace our trauma with truth: “No, you are seen; you are loved. I saw you even when you were a kid, and your parents weren’t aware of you, and they were so busy and distracted. I saw you; I was there with you.” When you can live out of a place of healing, it changes everything.

Ann: —everything.

Dave: This describes, literally, our marriage for 30 years.

Ann: Oh, absolutely.

Dave: And we did not know—

Ann: —any of this.

Dave: —what was happening. It was Ann blaming me for being gone all the time. Of course, I don’t even know why I’m gone all the time.

Debra: Right, right.

Dave: Now, I do; we even talked about it yesterday. It wasn’t until we sat with a counselor—and he sort of did what you talked about: thoughts, feelings, behaviors—he said, “Ann, isn’t this interesting? In your life, you were never seen.”

Debra: Wow!

Dave: I’m sitting there, literally, beside her, thinking, “That’s our story. She’s mad at me/upset with me, because I’m rushing around;—

Ann: —that’s my sore spot/my trigger.

Dave: —"and she’s not seen again.” It was the same issue for us, often. It came back, always: “I’m rushing around doing this; she’s home and not feeling seen.”

I just wonder how many other couples, right now, are listening to you, and thinking—it may be the same issue we have in our marriage or a different one—but it’s a sore spot they didn’t realize was there.

Debra: Right.

Dave: The big question is: “How do you get to the root of that?”

Debra: Yes.

Dave: You even said off-air—and I think it’s a really interesting discussion—Romans 7 [v.15-20]: Paul, talking about his spiritual walk, says, “I don’t do the things I want to do. I do the things I don’t want to do. I don’t understand why.”

Debra: Yes.

Dave: Talk about that a little bit.

Debra: Yes, “I don’t understand why.” So many Christians use that passage—

Dave: Right.

Debra: —to excuse their addiction.

Ann: We did at church.

Dave: Yes.

Ann: I’m not excusing it.

Dave: Oh, no, no, no; not us—we never did, Ann—not me.

Ann: But it explains it.

Debra: Yes; never Dave.

Dave: Never me; some other pastor did.

Debra: Not to excuse; but explain: “Hey, we all struggle again, and again, and again, and again.

Dave: So it’s normal.

Ann: Right; it’s normal.

Debra: Our sin nature; exactly. Even Paul struggled. But did you notice? He said, “Why? I don’t understand.” Why?—maybe, if we could actually understand, things would begin to change.

God wants us to have understanding—Proverbs 20, verse 5, says: “The purposes of a person’s heart are like deep waters, but a person of insight draws them out,”—if you want to be a wise person of insight, you go deep into that well. You draw up the waters. It’s not easy. In ancient times, drawing up the deep waters wasn’t like turning on a spigot.

Ann: Yes. [Laughter]

Debra: At our house, it’s automatic; because my husband’s a germaphobe, and he doesn’t like to touch the spigot. You just put your hands underneath; and it just flows, like a laser beam.

Dave: You’ve got one of those?

Debra: Yes, we’ve got one of those.

Dave: Oh, really? Wow!

Debra: But that’s not what it was like to draw out water in ancient days; this took work.

Ann: —cranking.

Debra: And the same for us—to draw out that stuff—it takes work; it takes time; it takes intentionality.

Dave: You would know better than anybody: “Aren’t a lot of us afraid of doing the work?”

Ann: Yes.

Debra: Yes, of course.

Dave: It’s as if to say, “I’m stuck in some ways.” I’m speaking for all of us in some ways: “I’m just afraid; I don’t want to go in there.”

Debra: We don’t know what’s going to come out of that well.

Dave: It’s so dark; yes.

Ann: I think, too—speaking for me, with sexual abuse in my background—it feels better, sometimes, that the Band-Aid® is on there.

Debra: Right.

Ann: But to take off the Band-Aid—and start digging into the infection and the wound that’s underneath—it hurts.

Debra: It does hurt.

Ann: You don’t want to feel those feelings again—and feel the betrayal and feel so many things—I think people wonder, “Can I handle it?”

Debra: You're right. Going with that analogy: if that wound is left untended to, it could cause some serious problems. You’ve heard of wounds getting so infected that someone has to get amputated. This is the same thing in our life; we have to deal with it. It feels better for a while—but like we said last time—eventually, something will break down; and the cost of that is so much greater.

I like to be practical. So for the couples listening, it’s like, “Where do I even begin?”

Step number one would be: “To identify your conflict cycle.”

Every couple has a prominent conflict cycle. For you guts, it would be: “He keeps leaving. I keep feeling unprioritized; and then, we fight about it. He’s so busy. I feel—I’m home; I’m by myself—he doesn’t want to be here with me.” And he is thinking, “No, I have so much going on.”

Dave: “I’m providing for the family.”

Debra: “I’m providing for the family; I’m working hard.” That’s the conflict cycle.

Every couple has a conflict cycle. Once you can map out the conflict cycle, you can start digging a little bit deeper and a little bit deeper. For some couples, they are going to listen to this, and they are going to be able to sit down, and say, “What’s our conflict cycle? Let’s talk through it.”

“Oh, our conflict cycle is: every time I give you feedback, you freak out; that’s our conflict cycle. And then, you feel offended; and then, I feel hurt that you are offended.”

It could be so many different things for different couples. Once you map it out, it can help you. Some couples are going to be able to map out their conflict cycle, and see:

“Oh, maybe, it’s rooted in that I was always criticized, as a kid; so I have a hard time receiving feedback from anybody.”

“Or maybe it was rooted in the fact I was never criticized as a kid, and everybody loved me all the time, and my life was amazing. I was the star athlete, so I have a hard time handling feedback.”

You start mapping it out. But for other couples, they're going to need help. They are going to need a trained counselor, to say, “Okay; let’s figure this out. I’m here to help you. Let’s do the work: let’s come up with your conflict cycle and get healed.”

Ann: People are listening. A wife is thinking, “Okay, we are going to do this tonight; let’s talk about our conflict cycle.” How would she even bring it up?

Debra: The best time to bring it up is not during a fight. [Laughter]

Dave: Yes.

Debra: Let’s just start there. Bring it up when you are both calm: “I just heard this radio program. They were talking about conflict cycles and how every couple has their go-to conflict cycle—something that causes them to fight; something that causes tension—I’m curious what you think ours is.” Let them start—

Ann: Good; that’s good.

Debra: —instead of saying: “Here’s what I think ours is…” and “Here’s what I think you're doing...”

Ann: Let’s say he says, “I know what ours is: you are always on me. I can never do anything right, and you are always on me. And then, I get mad; and I leave,” or “…I yell back.” If he says that, what’s her next step?

Debra: To listen: “That’s a really great start. Okay; you feel like I’m always on you. When—when does that come up?—when I ask you to do something around the house?” Let him continue to talk, and you listen. And then, you can share your perspective: “Here’s what I think our conflict cycle looks like; here’s when I feel the most hurt…”

You talk about it in a place when you are not both triggered. If you can’t do that, that means you are not ready to do this. If you can’t do that, that means you need a counselor—

Dave: Yes.

Ann: That’s good.

Debra: —to help you walk through it.

If you are thinking, “Oh, yes; that is not going to go well,” then that’s all the evidence you need to sign up to work with a counselor; because, honestly, it shouldn’t be that hard. If it is, that means there are things on both sides of the equation that we need an objective party to help you work through; there are too many sore spots in that case.

Ann: Yes, yes.

Dave: Do people change before they have enough pain? I remember preaching this, years ago: “People don’t really change until the pain gets great enough.” You don’t change your diet until you look in the mirror, and think, “I’m done with this.” Or you go to the heart doctor, and he says, “You have to stop eating this, because you are about to have a heart attack.” Or you do have a heart attack—and bam!—change starts. Is that how it sort of works?

Debra: In Reset, I talk about the five stages of change. That’s something we refer to a lot, as counselors; it’s the idea of: “Where is that point where the scale tips in the direction of healing?”

The first stage is precontemplation: “I don’t know. What’s the point of change?”

Contemplation is the second stage: “I’m starting to see more reasons why I should change.”

Once you get there, that’s when people start changing and coming up with a plan.

And taking action.

And then, you have to maintain the change.

There are five different stages; but the question is: “What’s it going to take to tip that scale?” And for each person, it’s different. I’ll tell you why, Dave: some people have a higher pain tolerance.

Ann: Oh, yes.

Debra: Right? You strike me as that kind of a guy.

Ann: I was just going to say, “This is Dave.”

Debra: You’re running, running: “I don’t want to deal with that.” You have a higher pain tolerance; so maybe, for someone like you, it would take something to break—like you and Ann talk about—“It got so bad.” But maybe, for somebody else, it’s: “Ooh; I feel that pain quickly,” and “I don’t like how it feels, and I want this out of my life.”

I think people have different levels of emotional pain tolerance, [which] also comes from trauma.

Ann: Debra, as we close, how would you bring Jesus into this? Because in all that you do, He is always a part of it. And, as a couple, why is that so important?

Debra: I would say we can’t keep Him out of it. Even if we are trying to keep Him out of it, He is the great Healer. When we acknowledge our brokenness, we’re acknowledging a need for a healer. He’s offering us this invitation. I think, sometimes, we feel shame at all our sore spots when really we should hear Him saying, “I’m inviting you to heal. I am trusting you to heal, because I know what I have for you. I know the plans I have for you, and the purposes I have for you, and you need to be healed.” When we see that God is bringing things up, we need to be grateful that He is inviting us into a deeper level with Him as well as a deeper level with our spouse.

Shelby: Okay; we’ll hear a really helpful response from Dave Wilson, here, in just a second. But first, I’m Shelby Abbott; and you’ve been listening to Dave and Ann Wilson, with Debra Fileta, on FamilyLife Today. Debra has written a book called Reset: Powerful Habits to Own Your Thoughts, Understand Your Feelings, and Change Your Life. You can get your copy, right now, by going online to FamilyLifeToday.com; or you can check I out in the show notes. Or feel free to give us a call at 800-358-6329; again, the number is 800-“F” as in family, “L” as in life, and then the word, “TODAY.”

I know it’s early August right now, but fall is coming up really soon. As you’re getting ready for small groups that might be happening in your church, or wherever you might be leading a ministry, we wanted to let you know that all of our FamilyLife® workbooks are now 25 percent off through the end of this month. You can go to the show notes, at FamilyLifeToday.com, look around and pick out what might be best for you. Again, all our FamilyLife workbooks are going to be 25 percent off through the end of August.

Okay, here’s some reflections from Dave Wilson on what we’ve heard today.

Dave: You said, earlier, I thought was so profound: “When your spouse says something, like a truth comment, it’s”—like you just said—"an invitation.” We see it as: “You’re meddling in my life; you’re critiquing me.”

If we could twist our perspective, it would be: “Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait; God just entered. He said, ‘Hey, Dave. I want you to look at something—I said it through Ann—but I want you to look at something. By the way, I said this to three of your buddies in the last six months. There’s a pattern here—it’s Me; I’m in this—I want to draw you into something deeper and better. You are going to change if you go there.’”

Rather than: “I don’t want to hear this. I don’t want you speaking this again to me. I’m good; we’re good. We should be happy.” I’ve said that: “I’m a good husband; you should be happy. I’ve seen husbands that aren’t good; I’m better,”—rather than—“Oh, my goodness; God is inviting me to a journey, which could be awesome.”

Debra: Yes, our pain points are just an invitation.

Shelby: Now, coming up tomorrow, Debra Fileta is back to talk about emotional recovery. She’s going to specifically dive into healing from childhood trauma and how that trauma impacts our daily relationships. That’s tomorrow; we hope you’ll join us. On behalf of Dave and Ann Wilson, I’m Shelby Abbott. We will see you back next time for another edition of FamilyLife Today.

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