Responding to Conflict: The Simplest Way to Maintain a Marriage

Sometimes, responding to conflict when in a relationship can be a bit of a challenge. However, relationship experts believe that the way couples respond to conflict can also be the simplest way to maintain a marriage.

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Responding to Conflict: The Simplest Way to Maintain a Marriage

For people who only see married couples and observe their mechanics, it is sometimes unimaginable for them to see a happy couple go through conflict.

Having conflict in a relationship is not something new. Married couples go through arguments and challenges. These arguments may vary from personality differences to matter that would require some intense decision-making. Learning each other's beliefs and responses to different instances can be a never-ending process for married couples.

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Responding to Conflict: The Simplest Way to Maintain a Marriage

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According to experts, having a zero-conflict relationship is never the best way on how to maintain a marriage. It is the way couples respond to conflict that makes all the difference.

The explanation of experts

The kind of relationship that married couples have depends on the kind of communication that they practice within the relationship. Things like marital disagreement can cause positive relational benefits in some ways.

According to experts, when married couples go through disagreements, the way they communicate with each other determines the stability of the relationship.

ALSO READ: 5 Usual Reasons Why Couples Get Divorced

The negative response to conflict

Research conducted by Marcela C. Otero et al. in 2020 explored the connection between positivity resonance and long-term marital satisfaction. In the study, they found out that the negative interaction patterns among married couples led to the negative behaviors in marital satisfaction.

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Responding to Conflict: The Simplest Way to Maintain a Marriage

Some of the ways mentioned that became the response of couples to a conflict that caused marital dissatisfaction include:

• Being stubborn
• defensiveness
• being demanding
• withdrawing from conversation

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Positive response to conflict

The study by Otero et al. also indicated that the positive interaction between married couples does not only note satisfaction in the marriage.

Aside from causing marital satisfaction, the positive response to conflict also led to counteract the effects of responding negatively to conflicts.

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Responding to Conflict: The Simplest Way to Maintain a Marriage

Some of the ways that could positively affect marriage satisfaction are:

• expressing affection
• showing appreciation
• forgiveness
• willingness to work out concerns of differences.

Every couple can have their fair share of disagreements, this can either make or break them in the long run. In Otero et al.'s study, a couple's way of responding to conflict can be the best way on how to maintain a relationship. 

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