Build An Intimate Marriage – How to Handle Conflict with Forgiveness

God made husbands and wives different so that He may make us one in marriage. Because of our innate differences, arguments are inevitable. In this message, Adrian Rogers teaches us how to handle conflict in marriage.

God is saying to you today:
“l know it’s hard. The challenges you’ve been facing have been overwhelming. I am with you through it all. I’ve heard your prayer. I am working on your behalf. I’m always in your corner.”

Some folks don’t do a very good job of settling their conflicts, I believe, rather than being married by the Justice of Peace, they were married by the Secretary of War and that war just goes on right on through the marriage.
So I want to talk to today about how to fight fair or how to handle conflicts, especially how to deal with anger, profound truth.
Simply stated. This is love worth finding with pastor teacher and author, Adrian Rogers.
Would you take your Bibles and open your Bibles to James chapter one?
And um we’re going to begin reading in just a moment in verse 19.
Now we’ve been talking about uh intimacy in marriage and how to achieve it.
And we’ve been saying that we have to work at it because we’re so different.
We’ve been talking about the differences in the sexes and men and women are just wired differently, uh physically, emotionally, psychologically, we’re different then not only are we different that way, but as individuals, we are different, we have different temperaments and often opposites attract.
And then on top of that, we come from different family backgrounds and we bring different traditions and different thoughts, different habits to the marriage.
We’re very different. Now, the real problem is not whether or not we’re going to get into conflicts.
But the real question is how do we settle them?
Now, some folks don’t do a very good job of settling their conflicts, I believe, rather than being married by the Justice of Peace, they were married by the Secretary of War and that war just goes on right on through the marriage.
So I want to talk to today about how to fight fair or how to handle conflicts, especially how to deal with anger.
Look in verse 19, where for my beloved brethren, where for my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath.
Another word for wrath is anger for the wrath of man, worketh not the righteousness of God.
Now, in this passage, very brief, there are some of the most incredible wonderful words for husbands and wives to resolve conflicts, but of course, not only husbands and wives for anybody uh to resolve conflicts if we will learn to do these three things.
Now, first of all, he tells us here, uh to be quick to listen.
Look, if you will uh in uh this verse again in, in uh verse 19 where for my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear.
Now, what he’s saying is this, that we need first of all to tune in.
Do you know why God gave us two ears and only one mouth.
Uh, we ought to listen a whole lot more than we do.
And we special need to learn to listen to what the other person is saying.
Now, I have an occupational hazard and that is that I am a preacher and I like to talk.
And as a result, I’m not necessarily a good listener, but I am learning notice I said I am learning not that I have learned.
I am learning to listen and I would say a word to all of us, wives or husbands learn to listen.
Now, let me tell you why you need to do what God’s word says here to be swift to hear.
Number one, when you do listen, you encourage your spouse to talk.
Now, if he or she has the idea that you’re not listening, they’re not going to want to talk.
And so when you listen, you encourage them to talk. Well, what good does that do?
It helps you to understand. You cannot understand somebody that you’re not listening to.
And when you understand your mate, it follows as night follows day, that understanding is going to bring you closer together.
You’re going to achieve intimacy. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to understand that.
Now, the reason that many of us don’t listen is number one, we’re so defensive, our ego is there.
We don’t want to hear. We don’t want anybody to tell us anything.
Number two, we assume we already know what they’re going to say and we finish their sentence for them before they ever get to the end to finish it.
And number three, while they’re talking, we’re thinking about what we’re going to say and how we’re going to answer what they’re going to say.
So we’re not really even hearing what they’re saying. We’re preparing our own little speech at this time.
The Bible says we need to learn to listen folks. It is hard to communicate.
You’d have to be a preacher to know just how hard it is to communicate.
I want you to listen to this sentence.
I just listen to it and see if you know what I’m saying after I have finished it.
Here’s what one mate says to another.
I know that you believe that you understand what you think I said, but I’m not sure you realize what you heard is not what I meant.
Do you understand that? Listen to it again?
I know you believe that you understand what you think I said, but I’m not sure you realize what you heard is not what I meant.
Now, a sentence like that helps you to understand just how hard communication is.
So, here’s rule number one, here’s rule number one, listen to it. Tune in, husbands.
Tune in to her lady, tune in to him.
If you would learn how to resolve conflicts, you ready for rule number two, number one tune in rule number two.
Tone down. Listen to it again. Where for my beloved brethren? Let every man be swift to hear.
Let’s tune in, slow to speak. Tone down your words are gonna get you into trouble. I’ve learned that.
Proverbs 19. Proverbs chapter 10 verse 19 in the multitude of words there wante not sin but he that refrain.
His lips is wise. Proverbs 17 verse 27. He that hath knowledge spath his words.
If you’re smart, you’re not gonna talk so much.
Now, I just want you to put your bookmark there in James.
And I want you to turn to first Corinthians chapter 13 verses four through seven.
Love suffer long and is kind love and Beth not love Vaeth, not itself.
It’s not puffed up, does not behave itself unseemly, seeth not her own is not easily provoked.
Thinketh no evil rejoice, not in iniquity but rejoice in the truth.
Now, with that in mind, remember that all of First Corinthians 13 is actually talking about the tongue.
By the way, the tongue is a subject that’s in everybody’s mouth.
Did you know that uh he’s talking about the tongue, he’s talking about the tongue and he gives us some rules for using our tongue.
Now, this would apply everywhere, but it certainly applies in marriage. With these verses in mind.
I want you to think of some, some uh destructive games that we play between husbands and wives.
Sometimes we want to play the judge.
Uh We want to, we want to be the judge, the jury and the executioner and we want to play the blame game and blame our mate.
It goes all the way back to the garden of Eden. When Adam wanted to blame, Eve, we assign guilt.
We say it’s all your fault. You should be ashamed.
Listen, if you in your marriage find yourself talking to your mate saying words like this.
You always are. You never that’s so destructive.
Don’t ever begin the sentence with you this or you that because what you’re doing, you’re playing the judge and that’s not kind.
The Bible says love is kind rather than saying you always or you never, why don’t you say I feel or I need or it seems to me if those are words that come into your conversations, here’s the game that you’re playing, you’re playing the judge, sometimes the jury and sometimes the executioner.
But the Bible says love is kind. Now there’s some folks who don’t play the judge.
Here’s another game they wanna play, they wanna play the professor. You know who the professor is.
He’s the one who always acts superior.
He’s the one who always talks down to the other person and his conversations or her conversations are filled with constant put downs things like that’s stupid or that doesn’t make sense.
Uh Why don’t you just think and listen to me for just a little bit.
Are you wouldn’t understand that because after all, you’re a woman.
Uh you wouldn’t understand that because you’re a man and men are so stupid.
Sometimes women just put it in one sentence. Men just one word.
And that means uh men just don’t have the capability to understand.
And you, and you assume that you as the professor are the one who knows everything.
One man said, his wife said, I can’t understand how God made you so beautiful and so stupid.
At the same time, she said, that’s easy. God made me beautiful.
So you would be attracted to me. He made me stupid.
So I’d be attracted to you playing the professor talking down.
You see, when you talk down to somebody, what you do is you’re attacking their self worth, their self esteem and they’re gonna get defensive and an argument is going to begin.
Now, here’s another but, but the Bible says, love vaunted, not itself.
Do you see that you can’t play the professor and be full of love?
And then here’s another game you want to play the psychologist and that’s another destructive game.
You’re puffed up and love is not puffed up.
But you, you assume that you understand everything about the other individual.
And you say, let me tell you why you said that.
Well, let me tell you what you were thinking. Do you know why you think that way?
Now folks, the Bible says we’re not to judge somebody else’s heart.
You’re not a, you’re not a psychologist, a psychoanalyze another person and to assign motives to another person, only God can do that.
Don’t play the judge, don’t play the professor, don’t play the psychologists.
Here’s another game that a lot of folks love to play.
Uh, they, they love to play the historian. But the Bible says that love thinketh no evil.
That is, it doesn’t keep a record of wrongs.
But some folks when they get into this thing, they, they are the historian and they wanna correct every detail.
I know that’s wrong. It was on a Tuesday.
It was not on a Thursday or I, you said this or you said that they go back into the past sometimes and bring up reruns of old arguments.
They have never disconnected the past many times. That’s a diversionary smoke screen.
As the historian keeps very careful records, they have their little book of rights and wrongs that are done.
But the Bible says that love thinketh no evil. It does not keep account of evil.
Here’s another game that people play when they speak and ought not to play.
Not the historian, not the psychologists, not the professor, not the judge, but there’s some people who want to be the dictator and I pity you if you’re married to one of these and the dictator can be the man or the woman.
Uh This is the individual who, who wants to rule by a sure force and when you get into an argument with these individuals, they will say something like this.
I demand that you do this or I will not allow that in my house.
Sometimes men who think because they’re the head of the house that they’re little Lord or something like that and they play the dictator.
Now another game that’s an unproductive game.
If you don’t play the, the dictator, you may want to play the critic.
And God knows there’s some of those out here. You compare your mate with other people.
You ask this question. Well, why can’t you be like she is?
Or why can’t you be like uh Susan’s husband? Why can’t you are?
On the other hand, you’re just like your mother or you’re just like your father and you compare, but the Bible says that love does not behave itself unseemly and that’s one of the most unseemly things you can do.
And why is it so unseemly?
Especially when you compare your mate with somebody else about traits that they have that uh that uh your mate can never have, your mate may have no control over these things.
Physical traits, parents, upbringing, how cruel it is to compare your mate to somebody else, especially over something over which they have no control.
Here’s the last one that you need not to play. Don’t play the preacher.
Uh Don’t try to get Adrian sermons and rep preach them to your mate.
Love rejoices, not in iniquity. It rejoices in the truth.
It does not use the Bible as a club.
Don’t appear holier than thou don’t say to your mate.
Well, if you were Godly, you would forgive me. Let God tell her, tell him to forgive.
But now come to the final of these three things and look very carefully.
What he says is this. He says, tune in what he says is this.
He says tone down and then what he says is this lighten up, lighten up, go back to our text again.
He says, we are to be slow to wrath.
That is don’t have a hair trigger, don’t get upset so easily, don’t get disturbed so quickly, be slow to wrath.
Uh One translation, the amplified version rather gives it this way, be slow to take offense and to get angry.
Now notice he doesn’t say that that you should never get angry. Now that’s impossible.
As a matter of fact, it would be sinful for you not to get angry. You wouldn’t be like Jesus.
If you never got angry, Jesus got angry.
The Bible says in Ephesians chapter four and verse 26 we to be angry and sin not now you can be angry and not sin because Jesus was angry and he never sinned.
Mark chapter three verse five speaks of Jesus and said, and when he had looked round about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their heart, how can you be angry and sin not.
Well, number one, you have to be angry for the right reason. Jesus was angry at sin.
And the way to be angry and to sin not is to be angry only at sin and to be angry, not only for the right reason, but at the right things not at the center but at the sin.
And to be angry in the right uh for the right uh way that your anger is to move you to do something about a situation that is wrong.
But what our Lord is talking about and warning about here is an uncontrolled temper.
Now, suppose your mate is an angry mate. Suppose your mate gets angry with you.
What should you do? Let me tell you some things not to do. Don’t practice avoidance.
What I mean by that is, don’t act, uh, I, I don’t try to, uh, get away and, uh, or act like, um, my mate is really not angry at all or are you just simply take that anger of your mate and you just stuff it and, and, and you have the idea.
Well, if I retreat, if I, if I back away, maybe it will go away and you’re not helping your mate.
When you do that, you can only stuff it so long.
Uh, you, you, you say, well, I’ll, I’ll put it down in the basement.
Well, I’ll tell you what it’ll do.
It’ll come out of the basement window and come around back into the front door. Uh, don’t, don’t stuff.
It don’t let that, uh, because of a fear of confrontation and your mate gets angry.
Uh, don’t, don’t avoid the conflict by just simply backing off your stomach will keep the score.
Don’t practice avoidance. Don’t practice appeasement. Now, listen carefully. Don’t practice avoidant avoidance and don’t practice appeasement.
It’s a very unhealthy marriage when one mate always gives in, in order to have peace and to appease the other.
When one mate always gets his or her way or gets his or her way, most of the time seems to dominate your marriage is in serious trouble.
Appeasement. One man said I like to go to the sea shore.
My wife likes to go to the mountains so we compromise and go to the mountains.
Well, now if, if that, if that’s the kind of a marriage that you have ultimately is going to end up on the rocks and if he gets violent and you get silent, your marriage is headed for trouble because one of these days those smoldering rags that are down in your heart are going to burst into an open flame and your home is going to be engulfed in those flames.
Or else if it doesn’t open and erupt in, into, into a raging fire, if you keep it stuff down there, your, your mate’s anger, you just keep it stuff down there in your heart and in your life, you’re going to develop a martyr complex.
You’re going to be a, a self pitying person and you’re gonna be living even though you may not separate with an emotional divorce.
Don’t practice avoidance, don’t practice appeasement and don’t practice aggression.
Don’t give anger for anger, speak the truth, speak it in love. Never sarcastically.
If your mate is angry with you or you’re angry with your mate, not avoidance, not appeasement and not aggression, I’m going to tell you how when you define these times, we all find ourselves in them.
What to do. The Bible says you have to be slow to wrath.
Now, let me give you some very practical things before I get into these other things.
Make sure that you, if you, if you’re going to have an argument, make sure if you can, that you have it at the right time.
Do you know when most arguments take place just before we eat?
Psychologists have told us this marriage counselors, why is that your, your blood sugar is down and uh and, and you are a little more nervous uh for goodness sakes.
If you’re gonna have an argument, don’t have it just before meals, 90% of the arguments take place.
Then secondly, on the way to some social event, have you, you and your wife ever got in an argument going to a party?
Isn’t that the weirdest thing going to some social event for some reason?
I don’t know why we tend to want to get in arguments.
But if we do that, then we can’t talk it out and we’re trying to act nice around other people.
So make certain it’s the right time.
Number two, the right tone when you talk, keep your words soft and sweet.
You may have to eat them. Number three, the right turf, the right time.
The right tone, the right turf.
Uh don’t ever discuss problems with your mate when other people are around.
Have you ever noticed that sometimes a wife will criticize her husband in front of the husband’s best friends or the husband will criticize the wife.
You know why they do that?
The cowards, they figure he can’t answer back when bus and such a person is there and it’s really a cheap shot.
Now, now, what do you do? What do you do?
Uh, when you’ve got the right time, you’re speaking in the right tone. You’re on the right turf.
What do you do? Well, let me give you just three things and, and I’ll be finished. Number one.
Practice accommodation. Accommodate yourself to the other person. I’m not talking, I’m not talking about uh compromise but accommodation.
If you and your mate are so different, why don’t you accommodate yourself to him or to her?
Learn something about his sport, learn something about her hobby. Practice. Number two, acceptance.
Now, folks, I am different from Joyce. I have accepted Joyce. Joyce is different from me. She has accepted me.
I have given up trying to change Joyce. I am not gonna change her. I can’t change her.
I wouldn’t if I could.
Most of the time you do not change a person so you can love them.
If you do want to change them.
The best way to do is to love them so you can change them.
You can’t change the other individual Joyce is different from me. Uh temperamentally, she’s different from me psychologically.
She’s different from me physically and I am different from her.
And uh so we just simply have to accept the other individual.
Never marry a person to make the move.
Quit trying to change your mate, practice friend, accommodation, practice, acceptance and practice adjustment change.
Be willing to change if she wants to go to bed earlier, go to bed earlier.
If, if uh if you want to uh uh stay up later, let her sometimes stay up later with you rather than having a war where both lose, have a compromise where both can gain.
Now, listen, listen to me folks, listen to a man who is happily married.
Not because I am so wonderful, very frankly.
If you knew some of the dark recesses of my heart, you wouldn’t even let me be the pastor of this church.
I am a bad hombre. Only thing good about me is the grace of God.
And were it not for the grace of God? Our marriage would not have lasted.
I’m telling you, but I’m gonna tell you, on the other hand, we have a wonderfully happy home and the reason for it, listen very carefully.
The reason for it is Jesus.
I told you the introduction to this message that everybody needs three homes.
He needs a family home, he needs a church home, he needs a heavenly home.
And Jesus Christ is the key all three.