DON’T ADD FUEL TO THE FIRE

We often wish we would be in agreement over everything and wouldn’t need to fight. We want a stress free relationship and yes to live happily ever after. But that’s far from the reality. As they say, if wishes were true, beggars would ride. Why is it so difficult to have a conflict free relationship?

We avoid conflict like plague. Of course nobody wants conflict in their relationship. But if you have been married for a while, you must have come to the realization that conflict is inevitable in marriage. In fact I tell many couples who are courting that if they have never disagreed  in their relationship, then they most probably are just pretending and aren’t ready for marriage. For in marriage, where two different and distinct people live together, there is bound to be conflict.

Conflict in and of itself isn’t bad. What is bad is how we handle conflict. The problem in many marriages today is that they do not know how to resolve conflict. We either sweep things under the carpet wishing them away only for them to resurface later in a bigger way, or we confront them head on and allow our emotions to have the better of us. And then after we have exploded, we are left feeling bad and regretting the damage we have caused.  Conflict if not handled well can destroy a marriage.

How then can husband and wife handle conflict in such a way that it enhances rather than destroys their relationship? We all are different and have different needs. When these needs go unmet or are violated, we react. And when we react, our partner attacks our reaction and this sets up a vicious cycle that causes the conflict to escalate. We put on the accelerator instead of the breaks when we attack each other’s reactions.

To put on the breaks, we need to first stop and ask ourselves why it is that our partner is reacting the way they are. Trying to understand where they are coming from instead of attacking where they are is thus important. You must also ask yourself why you are reacting the way you do. Which need of yours is not being met or is being violated?

CLOSING THE GAP-COUPLES RETREAT

Heard of "Rumble in the Jungle"? Well this August 2nd and 3rd will be having "Romance in the Wilderness" as we take couples out to the Olooloitikish Resort in Kitengela for the 'CLOSING THE GAP - COUPLES RETREAT'.

This will be a wonderful time of reconnection and rediscovery as we learn together how we can coach our marriage relationships. We will learn how to bridge and close those gaps in our relationships so that we can have a fulfilling relationship.

There will be lots of prizes to be won, games to be played and lessons to be learned as we come away to this exquisite resort 3kms from Kitengela Town.

Charges are Kshs.10,000/= per couple. Payments can be made via mpesa line 0729-237766. Call Grace on the same number for more details.

See you there!

MONEY MATTERS

The other day in a men’s group I usually attend every week, one of the men was sharing with us his trials and tribulations with a pyramid scheme where he lost kshs.40, 000 and almost lost another Kshs.600,000 but for divine intervention. I was reminded myself how I was saved from a similar predicament because of my wife’s intervention. Amidst a lot of pressure from friends and colleagues to invest in this “ponzi” scheme, I decided to consult with my wife as we always have and because there was no consensus between us I couldn’t go ahead with the deal.

My wife and I have agreed that nothing major financially will be done without the agreement from the other. This can sometimes be painful as there are times I see my wife as a major impediment of my enjoyment and I know she sometimes feels the same way as well. Yet it is this being accountable to each other that not saved me from that ponzi scheme but has also helped us make good financial decisions since two is better than one.

We all need some aspect of accountability in our own lives as when left alone we can end up being like the Kanu regime during those days of “multiparty moja”. We are to keep each other accountable as husband and wife for us to not only avoid financial pitfalls as a family but also to build trust between us. This brings me to another aspect of dealing with finances as a couple and that is transparency.

Being open about my financial dealings helps a lot in building and maintain trust with each other. It is because of my being accountable to my wife that I am transparent with her financially and this leads to more intimacy as trust is built.  

MONEY MATTERS

A recent poll by Roper Starch Worldwide found that in the United States, money is the most common source of conflict between spouses. And research in the Center for Marital and Family Studies Report shows that coming into their marriages; new couples find money to be more of a problem than in-laws, jealousy, or communication. Four years later, they still find money to be the most troublesome aspect of marriage, ahead of communication, sex, and in-laws (in that order).

That is not much different from a research done here locally by infortrack-Harris for Nation media. In this research, they found out that, in quite an interesting twist in marriage and separation trends, money and overly nosy in-laws have overtaken infidelity as the leading cause of broken marriages. Half of all married people who took part in the survey said money was the main cause of marital conflict, followed by interference from members of the extended family at 39 per cent.

Thus money matters especially in marriage. In the next couple of weeks will be discussing how you as a couple can avoid being a part of these stats.

School of Marriage

 This May, we begin our second class of SoMa, (School of Marriage). This is an eight week interactive course for married couples who desire to have a fulfilling relationship. The classes are conducted once a week, with the couple doing their exercises in the course of the week before coming for the next session. We use a coaching approach which we have found to be very useful for married couples like the couple whose testimony is below.

 SoMa is the best thing that has ever happened to our marriage.  It was a very timely intervention by God.  We were going through a difficult time in our marriage, when everything seemed broken.  We could hardly communicate with each other, issues went unresolved, and there was anger, bitterness and mistrust.  There was no “us”, it was “me” against “you”.  With time, we had gotten into a vicious cycle of misunderstandings, anger outbursts, arguments and mistrust that we could not break out of.  We were on the verge of giving up; indeed, we had given up when Barnabas & Grace invited us for SoMa.

It is through awareness gained in SoMa that we stopped fighting each other and sought to understand each other: each others language, each others hurts, each others fears.

A great eye opener during SoMa  was understanding how our individual fears affect the way we relate to each other as well as our reactions to our spouse’s actions.  I came to realize how deeply my family background has affected me and my view of marriage.  I became aware of how I have unconsciously tried to fight anything that would make my marriage turn out like that of my parents, and how these fears made me hypersensitive to anything I perceive as a similarity to the marriage of my parents. 

SoMa also helped us appreciate each others felt needs.  It made us realize how much we had assumed that we knew each others greatest needs and how to meet them.  It was a humbling experience to realize that my idea of meeting my husband’s needs is not necessarily his, and that in many cases, we try to meet our spouse’s needs based on the way in which we would like ours to be met, which may not be effective.

To join our next class, please call Grace on 0729-237766.

A LOOK IS MORE THAN A THOUSAND WORDS

The other day I was having a conversation with my wife as I was trying to catch up with my mail on my laptop. At some point my wife went quite as I was engrossed in my toy oblivious of her having gone quite on me. When I suddenly kicked back to the conversation I noticed from the look on Gracie’s face that she wasn’t amused with me at all. As much as I tried to reassure her that I was actually listening to her, she wasn’t as convinced.

They say a look as worth a thousand words. Eye contact plays a big role in effective communication. You see, your eyes according to author and clinical psychiatrist Dr. Ross Campbell are the visible evidence of the connection between you. They link you together in a moment of shared understanding, the precious communication we all crave. He goes on to state that we even see that God designed the child’s eye to make contact with her mother during-breast feeding. As she feeds physically with her mouth, she feeds emotionally with her eyes.

Remember those days when you were dating and you could spend all that time looking into each other’s eyes, eyes filled with the “look of love”, you didn’t have to say much. Those eyes said it all. This is why it is important as you communicate to maintain eye contact thus listen with not just your ears but your eyes as well.