Last month Grace and I had the privilege of speaking at a
Married Couples breakfast at the International Christian Center. We spoke on
the topic “No grudges”, and it was amazing to hear the response from some of
the married couples who attended. Grace and I were equally amazed at how many
grudges we hold against each other in marriage and some of those grudges are
buried so deep within us that we don’t even know about it. These grudges if not
dealt with can metamorphose into resentment and bitterness towards each other.
But why do we keep grudges in marriage? The only reason we
believe is because we are unable to resolve conflict in marriage. We either
lack the necessary skills to do so or don’t want to and because of that we tend
to sweep things under the carpet and not talk about it again. What we don’t
realize is that deep down a grudge is stored in us. This continues to build up
and give birth to resentment and bitterness towards our spouse. When we resent
our spouse we hurt them because we ourselves are hurting.
According to Marriage and Family Coaches Greg and Barb Rosberg, in their book “Healing The Hurt
in Your Marriage”(we highly recommend this book for every married couple), from
their experience as Family coaches, most marriage surveys reveal that resolving
conflict and hurt is right up there with communication as the biggest problem
facing couples. We know what to do when we have an accident on the highway with
another car. As drivers we exchange numbers and insurance information, we get
estimates of the repairs from our mechanic, and off we go back on the road
again yet so many of us are clueless about how to resolve marital breakdowns.
Why? Because no one taught us how to do it. Healthy conflict
resolution was not modeled in many of our homes as we grew up. Culturally as
Kenyans we are even poor at resolving conflict. We are good peace keepers; we
love the word peace but what we have come to realize is that as a Nation we
have wished away many of our hurts no wonder every election cycle we keep our
fingers crossed and pray ceaselessly that our Nation doesn’t fall apart. So how
do you resolve conflict and ensure that indeed there are “No Grudges” between
you? Will discuss that on our next blog you don’t want to miss that!
