How to Repair Your Marriage After Conflict

Conflict is part of the human experience. As fallen creatures interacting with other fallen creatures, there is bound to be conflict and hurt. Even within the intimate ties of a marriage, this reality is true. As Elisabeth Elliot always said, “You marry a sinner. There is nothing else to marry, and your spouse married a sinner, too.”

So, what can two sinful people do to keep their marriage whole despite conflict? While avoiding conflict is a worthy goal, it is also impossible to do so all the time. God’s Word does provide specific guidance on how to deal with conflict in a marriage.

Men are to deal with their wives in an understanding way. Wives are to submit to and respect their husbands. Men are to lay down their lives for their wives. These broad instructions can be applied in specific ways when conflict has occurred.

With those principles in mind, here are some simple, hope-filled tools to help repair your marriage after conflict.

1. Validate:

Be sure to seek to understand your spouse’s experience and feelings. You may not see it the way they do, but their feelings might be very real. Don’t brush them off. Acknowledge their experience and seek to understand it, even if you need to remain firm in a conviction. You care about how the conflict made them feel because you love them. Showing that love can repair the pain that the conflict caused. (James 1:19-20)

2. Pray:

God wants marriages to thrive. Ask for his help in addressing the issue, restoring your relationship, and adopting the right attitude. You may even need to pray that God will help you to forgive your spouse or help you to defer to their opinion in an argument. God will enable you to live out your marriage according to His design.

3. Choose a Change

: Always be willing to look at yourself in each conflict, not only the other person. Seek one way in which you can make a change. Tell your partner about the flaws you saw in yourself and how you plan to work on them. When they realize that you don’t see them as the only problem, it will help to mend wounds. (Romans 12:18)

4. Gently Check-In:

Maybe you get over arguments quickly and can move on easily, but maybe your spouse does not. Don’t assume everything is forgiven and forgotten. Check in to make sure that the situation has been resolved. There may be more to discuss or iron out. When hurts fester, bitterness can spring up, and small conflicts can become large ones. Follow up with gentleness to show that you care more about your spouse than about the issue that caused the conflict. (Matthew 5:9)

Scripture is full of advice on how to handle conflict. Don’t neglect to seek out God’s wisdom on the topic. God wants us to avoid conflict whenever possible by thinking well of others, working to be peacemakers, and considering others more important than ourselves.

God also knows that sometimes we will disagree or even need to confront someone. He reminds us to do so in love, slowly, and without sinful anger.

All of these principles on how to treat our fellow man can be applied to how we treat our spouse. It isn’t always easy, but God’s ways are best. The more we study His plan for handling conflict, the more we can practice it. That practice will eventually give way to habits, which then become characteristics.

Though marriage between two forgiven sinners may produce conflict, it doesn’t have to stay there. After all, we serve a redeemer God. We can trust Him to redeem our conflicts if we seek to follow Him.