By Greg Vaughn

Rule 1: Satan is the Enemy,  Not Your Spouse!

In Ephesians 6, Paul talks about getting angry and not sinning. Is this possible? Surely when I get angry I sin. 2

5So put away all falsehood and “tell your neighbor the truth” because we belong to each other. 26And “don’t sin by letting anger gain control over you.” Don’t let the sun go down while you are still angry, 27for anger gives a mighty foothold to the Devil. (New Living Translation)

I like this translation because it offered me a couple of insights not found in the NIV. The first says tell the truth because your spouse belongs to you. I find this hard when it comes to my desires, because I would rather get my own way, then to ask my wife for a compromise. James writes about this.

“1Where do you think all these appalling wars and quarrels come from? Do you think they just happen? Think again. They come about because you want your own way, and fight for it deep inside yourselves.” James 4:1 The Message.

Satan wants us to fight with each other. His goal is to destroy the bonds that tie you together. A house divided cannot stand, and a marriage that is divided will fail. Satan uses anger, desire and selfishness as tools to cause us to fight with each other.   By staying together you can focus on the common enemy and not each other. By telling the truth to each other you can take away a powerful tool of Satan’s.

This means that you cannot recruit people to your side. As Christians, we have people in our lives to help us. It can be very easy to dump on them your problems or disparage your spouse in an attempt to get them on your side. The goals is not gang up on each other, or have them fight for you by proxy. If you need to get others involved, please check your motives. You want to grow not prove your right.

Rule 2: Slow to anger/ Get a grip

And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness,
Exodus 34:5-7

My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry…
James 1:18-20

The second insight I get from the passage in Ephesians, is that anger can be controlled. Over and over there are examples of God being slow to anger. He has set the example for us to follow and commands us. It is understandable to be upset at your spouse for things, they have done or about a situation that has disturbed you. The key is not to take it out on your spouse. One way to put this into practice is to recognize what patterns that you or your spouse can fall into.

It is important to recognize how your spouse responds when they are upset. Some will need time to themselves, some will need to vent and some do not know why they are upset. When in the middle of fight, it may be necessary to ask for a time out. This serves a few different purposes. One is that give both of you some time to calm down and collect your thoughts. Also one of you may need to process what you are feeling. This is called by some going to your cave. It is an idea that is found in the book “Men are Mars, Women are from Venus” It is the idea that we do not always know what we are feeling, and that we may need some time to process what is going on. It may be going for a walk, playing a video game or indulging in your favorite hobby. If you feel like this is you, then you need to assure your spouse that you are willing to work things out but you need some time to yourself.

If you are someone who is known to fly of the handle, then you may say something in heat of the moment that you regret. It is better to take break, tell your spouse that you need a few moments to collect yourself. For me, I do not always understand why I am mad, just the fact that I am upset. Often my wife will leave me alone for an hour to let me sort out my thoughts and process my feelings. In guy talk this is called “going to the cave”. You may need to go out and expend some energy. Two things to keep in mind. One, let your spouse know of intentions, (ex,” I cant talk about it now, I will be at the batting cages and when I return in an hour, we can talk”) This tells the spouse of your intentions, and what time you are returning. Two, make sure you come back when you say. You do not want to go to the bar just to avoid your spouse and try to wait the situation out. It is never a good idea.

Some spouses will need to vent. They may not want you to solve the problem, but just to listen. Their anger may not be directed at you. Here, you have to be quick to listen and not take things so personally. Your spouse may have had a bad day or is upset at something else. If you find yourself in this situation, you need to tell yourself that it is not you they are mad at. Spouses need to assure the other one, that you are not upset at them, and clearly indicate what you are upset at. This will go a long way in reassuring them, and making them more receptive to listening to you. After your spouse vents, they will be willing to talk and resolve things. If you cannot handle the venting, suggest that they talk to a good friend.

For my wife, she does not always know how to process her emotions, so I ask here questions, in a non patronizing manner, to help her eliminate possibilities and narrow her thoughts. If you have a spouse like this you must be patient and not to take things personally, though the temptation will be great. An example of a fight we had early on was about my cooking, my wife could not tell me what is was though, so I asked the following:

Wife: “You don’t know how to cook”

Me: “Is there something specific about my cooking you do not like?”

Wife: “I don’t know”

Me: “Is it something I do?”

Wife: “I don’t like your chicken”

Me: “What specifically about the chicken you do not like?

Wife: “It is too salty”

There have been times when none of these options work. There is something on our hearts that we are out of touch with. In these cases you must call a time out and pray.

If you do not know why you are upset or a hard heart, pray separately. Ask God to help you indentify the issue, or to soften you your heart. Then come together and pray. When you pray, one needs to watch the motive in you pray.   Praying  “God, help Bill see why he is wrong” is not a great heart.  This will only serve to antagonize Bill and retaliate in his prayers. Instead be sincere, and pray about revealing your heart, your spouses heart, and what you can both work on. The goal here is reconciliation not revenge.

We all have heard the axiom, “Do not go to bed angry” from our parents and grandparents. This is based on scriptures and should be followed. This is difficult at times. If it is 3 am and you have to get up early, do you keep working on finding a solution? I suggest you get to a point where you can agree to disagree and feel good about it. Make sure you set a time and place when you are more rested to discuss the issue that was brought up. The goal here is to feel good about each other when you are in bed together.

Bedtime is not a good time to bring up issues you want to discuss. Often your spouse will sleepy and may not be in the right head. They can feel ambushed and defenseless. Pick a time during the day when your spouse is not distracted and can focus.

By Greg Vaughn

Ask any married couple, what they need to work on, and most if not all will say communication. Ask how they are working on it, and they become dumbfounded as to what you mean. Most people have this idea that communication is a panacea for what ails their marriage. There is not one solution when it comes to improving your communication. There are many facets to communication, and this article will focus on one of the bigger items. Fighting, that is how to express your opinions and disagreements in a spiritual and non destructive way.

The question then becomes can you be upset and not in sin? Or is it a sin to fight?  Blaine Smith has this to say:

“But how, then, does Paul’s counsel to be angry but not sin reconcile with Jesus’ teaching on anger in the Sermon on the Mount? Here it’s important to note what Jesus says and what he doesn’t. He doesn’t say that the person who is angry is being judged as sinning, but that he is “liable to judgment.” Liable. He or she is at a highly vulnerable point–a hair’s breadth, perhaps, from doing something rash. But this is different from saying that this person is sinning simply by feeling angry. This point is well-captured by Vernon Grounds in his Emotional Problems and the Gospel:

Does our Lord mean that a mere feeling of anger is no different from the actual crime of murder? He can scarcely mean . . . that. No, He is reminding us, rather, of what can happen if an angry feeling is allowed to fester in our minds.

Jesus’ point, then, isn’t that anger is a sinful emotion but a dangerous one. When we examine the New Testament thoroughly on the point, in fact, we never find it condemning any emotion as sinful in itself. It’s always the action which proceeds from an emotion that is judged sinful. Again, “Be angry but do not sin.

Growing up in my family, the only way to be heard was to be loudest, or throw something to get someone’s attention. I saw firsthand how this destroyed my parent’s marriage of thirty years. For most of those years, they were miserable, sleeping in different rooms, not having a way to effectively communicate what they needed from each other or even how express a difference of opinion. Now you may not be to this point yet in your marriage, yet you might be able to empathize here. Do you feel you cannot share an opinion without the other one “jumping on you”, do you feel you cannot communicate your needs effectively, Do small things escalate quickly into big things, quickly? I do not have a magic pill for you, only what I have learned over the last ten years with my wife and the scriptures.

This way of communicating will not happen overnight, and each of you will become frustrated at times. The goal is to replace the destructive ways you communicate in your marriage and replace them with a more mature spiritual way.   The scriptures say “Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and your plans will succeed.” Prov. 16:3. God wants us to have better marriages and wants to bless it.

There is a common analogy of the husband and wife when they married. It goes that a woman is like the missing rib in relation to a man. Eve was formed out of Adam so in a way, she completes him. Whether or not you agree with this, you could definitely say that men and women are vastly different.  This is based on the scripture

But for Adam no suitable helper was found. ²¹ So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the place with flesh. ²² Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

²³ The man said,
“This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called ‘woman,’
for she was taken out of man.”

I have a different take on the rib thing. If you read the next verse.

²⁴ For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh

It describes how Adam and Eve become one. Personally, I think that they became something better than each one by themselves. They become a “we,” that is a new creation. With each one contributing strengths and weaknesses. This is something to keep in mind when talking with your spouse. It is not “You” versus “Them,” It is you versus the issue. It is the new team versus Satan.

In metal working, if you want to make a sword, you first sit down and write out what attributes you want for it, strength, heft, sharpness and so on.   There is no one metal that has all these qualities. So the Forger, will take two or metals and melt them down, remove the impurities and forge a new piece. The sword may not look like the original materials, but it takes on the qualities of both without losing its identity.

If you can simply take this view that you are a team, you will have already solved many of the issues that married couples face. Each of you have a different view, and experience. Maybe you grew up with out money, so you want to save for the future Your spouse grew up with a lot, a spends a lot or does not care about saving but living life in the now. This is common scenario. If you see yourselves as a team, you can bring those experiences together and share them with each other. Together you can learn to live a little while saving for the future.

Many of us have learned our communications skills when it comes to marriage from our own parents. Either we embrace their style or say to ourselves, “I will never be like that” only to swing to the complete opposite. The key to this issue is identifying how you and how your spouse each fights.

I remember a huge fight we had when we were first married. We were at a fabric store looking for a couch cover. She had asked me a simple question “She held up a bed sheet and asked me if I liked the color. I responded that it was the wrong application of the product and that it would never work for our couch. If I had stopped and listened to her, all she wanted to know was did I like the color? This little incident ended with the words “You never listen to me” It was a long silent ride home. The thing I learned that day is every one communicates in different ways. Both of our parents were screamers, they would yell and throw things at each other. We each have told ourselves we will never to be like that. So instead we become quite and let things stew. To us, we were not fighting, because we wanted to avid yelling at each other. It took another couple to show us, that by being silent we were still hurting each other, and not expressing our true feelings.

As married we must identify how we express anger. Some of us tend to explode in huge fits of rage then we are ok. Some like to stuff things inside and hope it goes away. Others let things stew only to reappear weeks or months later. Think of an old fashion cartoon bomb, Now ask yourself how long is your fuse ( that is how much does it take to push you over the edge)? How fast does your fuse burn (quick to anger, slow)? And how big is the explosion, (fit of rage, little explosions for a long time)?

For my wife, she has a really long fuse, that is she is very patient with me, but she can get very upset. For me, I am not as patient as her, but I get over things quicker. Not that one is better, that is just how we were made.

Once you identify how you deal with anger and identify how each of you fight you can then begin to address issues you have and begin to focus on having a fight that is both fair and not end in anger. My wife and I have come up with rule for us when we need to discuss an issue, hurt, or difference of opinion. In the weeks to follow we will share them with you. So come back next week!