Why Don't I Ever Feel Reconciled with My Spouse after Conflict?

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All right, Tim, the question for today's episode is, why don't I ever feel reconciled with my spouse after conflict?

Yeah, that's a topic that many Christians haven't been sufficiently taught how to handle, and so essentially what you have is you have problems at every stage that you can imagine as it relates to conflict and how it comes about.

And so you have individuals who sin against their spouse. So imagine the husband is sinning against his wife, so he sins against his wife.

His wife doesn't know really whether or not she should confront it, when she should confront it, how she should confront it.

And for the most part, most people aren't really confronting the things they should be confronting. They're mostly confronting preference issues or things like that.

So basically, in every single way possible, we have no idea how to forgive.

Well, we don't. At every single step, we mess it up. Basically, so what's normally happening is you don't know what you're supposed to be confronting or if you should be confronting.

And most people end up confronting all the toilet paper going the wrong direction kind of issues.

Well, yeah, because those are definitely confrontable offenses. Yeah, those are the big things, right?

And then when someone actually sins against you, what's happening is then you get all nervous and you think, well,

I don't even know if I should confront this or not. And then you have to pray about it for days. And most people just ignore all that kind of stuff.

I mean, when you're in the context of marriage, you can get more actively confronting a lot more things than you would with just strangers.

But then you get really weird about the sin issues, the preference issues. You go all in on.

Yeah, you do. But then what happens is if you catch someone in something, they're either going to deny they did anything wrong or if they do acknowledge that perhaps maybe there could possibly be something they could have done slightly better, then they're going to flip out an apology, right?

So instead of asking forgiveness, they'll flip out an apology. And then the other person doesn't really know what to do with that apology, right?

So it's just kind of like, I don't know if that was sincere. I don't know if you're just telling me, like, shut up. Can we please quit talking about this now, right?

And then they don't know what to do with that. And no one is asking forgiveness in those moments. And then what ends up happening is no one knows how to forgive.

So the two basic problems, and we've done a lot of episodes on the first elements of these things.

But the two basic problems that are happening at the level of execution, let's say that there's a confrontation that happens and it happens over sin, then the two basic problems generally are that the person doesn't know how to ask forgiveness well, and then the other person doesn't know what it means to say,

I will forgive you. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah. So what it may be helpful to do is just think through what the

Peacemaker Ministries describes as the seven A's of confession. And I think this is a pretty good summary of what the

Bible says about these kind of things. But I'll just run through them, and I'll give a few comments on how to ask forgiveness.

So what you need to be doing is you need to stop saying, I'm sorry. You need to stop saying, I'm sorry, and you need to ask forgiveness.

And you don't need to just flip it out, right? You don't need to just flip out, ask forgiveness. What you need to do is make your asking forgiveness lengthy enough to know, for the other person to know that you're sincere, you understand what you did, right?

So you're saying avoid the teenager approach where it's just like, will you forgive me, please?

Will you forgive me? Yeah. So essentially, that's what's happening when people are saying, sorry, hey, sorry,

I said sorry. All right, fine, sorry. Fine, sorry. And then let's move on, let's move on.

But what you need is you need to put more thought into what that actually looks like. And Peacemaker Ministries has the seven

A's of confession, I think, that are pretty good, give or take. So the first one is address everyone involved.

Address everyone involved. And what that means is if you're a husband in the house and you start screaming at everyone, you may be screaming at your wife or whatever, but the kids are there.

There's other people affected beyond just your wife in that moment. And so everyone who's affected by that, you need to address.

So forgiveness generally needs to be as broad as who was offended in those moments.

And this is important to point out because there could be plenty of situations where you're the wife or whatever who has a negative thought about your husband.

You think in your mind, that idiot, he did this again, right? But you don't necessarily need to ask his forgiveness in that moment because he wasn't actually involved in that.

That was something that you shouldn't have thought in your brain, but you don't have to share everything that happens within your brain.

And in fact, there might be plenty of situations where you don't share everything that you're thinking in your mind.

Hey, wife, I'm sorry. I had another angry thought about you.

Please forgive me. Wait, what? How many angry thoughts are you having?

Yeah, I mean, at some point that just becomes destructive to everything that's going on. And so the first principle here is just address everyone involved.

And this is just kind of a natural corollary to, if you know your brother has something against you, you leave your gift at the altar and you go and you'd be reconciled with him.

Well, if you know that a bunch of people have something against you because they all witnessed what happened, then you leave your gift at the altar and you address everyone who has something against you in that moment that's legitimate.

So you address everyone involved. A second one. So address everyone involved. A second one is avoid if, but, and maybe.

And this is just an extrapolation of the idea of taking responsibility for what you're saying.

So David says, Lord, against you and you alone have I sinned and done this evil thing.

That would be a statement saying I'm taking responsibility for what I've done. So against you and you alone,

I have done this wickedness. Me. So in that way, often what's happening is when people try to flip out an apology in particular,

I'll say something like, hey, I'm sorry if you were offended. Or I'm sorry if you were hurt. Or I'm sorry if you misunderstood what

I was saying, but that isn't what I meant. So if, but, and maybe.

Maybe I could have done this a little better. So saying I'm sorry if you're too stupid to understand what

I actually meant. You're telling me that's not a good apology? That's not a good apology. Now I know.

So you want to avoid if, but, and maybe. You want to figure out, and this is why it's important to figure out in what way you sinned.

Against you and you alone have I sinned in this moment. Define the sin. So in your mind, you should be confronting sin issues.

You need to be defining, primarily, you need to define that sin, right? Sin, what did

I do wrong? And then you need to avoid it, but, and maybe, right?

Like in other words, what you're doing is you're not trying to shift the blame in some subtle way to someone else or something else, right?

Right, yeah. Like. If only the circumstances had been different, maybe

I wouldn't have done something like that. That's going to neuter the whole apology. It is. And then the person who's on the receiving end of that is not going to feel like reconciled in this moment, because they don't know whether or not what just happened was sincere, right?

Right. Because it feels like you're blame shifting right now. So address everyone involved. Avoid if, but, and maybe.

Admit specifically. Admit specifically. So, you know, against you and you alone have I, you know, done this evil?

Like, well, what was it? What did you do? What was the evil? Yeah. Yeah. What did you do? Like, what did you do wrong?

And, you know, often like in the context of a marriage relationship, like, let's say, you know, it's the husband.

He was yelling at his wife. He was yelling at the kids. He was slamming doors. He punched a hole in the wall. Right. And, you know, he got up in his wife's face and started screaming at her.

And then, you know, he called her a bunch of names. And then he was really out of control. Right. And then he like literally ate her food, you know.

Okay. I mean, you say, like, now imagine at that point, you know, he were to say, you know, honey,

I need you to forgive me. I, you know, I got a little angry with you and that was wrong.

Sorry about all that. Sorry about all that. I mean, now, do you need to go into agonizing detail and remember, you know, all the hundred things that just happened in that 10 minute span of, you know, out of control temper or whatever?

You know, I mean, hopefully most people are growing in their sanctification where there's not just a list. But I mean, you know, things can happen.

But do you need to? No. But I mean, it would do well to say, look, you know,

I need you to forgive me. I, you know, I was simply angry.

Right. I was simply angry. There's no one. No one's fault but mine. Right. It was my fault. Right. There's no excuse for it.

Right. I was simply angry. You know, I so out of control that, you know, punched a hole in the wall, started screaming at you and started calling you names.

And, you know, and those, I mean, that's just, there's no, there's no excuse for it. It's completely out of control.

Like that would at least be a lot better than saying, hey, you know, I, I know I lost my temper.

Right. Sorry about all that. Yeah. It's so often like what's happening in that, like when you're in those kind of conflict moments is there's a lot of people who like a lot of times you don't feel reconciled because it's just like flipping out.

Yeah. I got a little out of control. It's just like a little out of control. What are you talking about? That wasn't a little out of control.

Right. And then what's happened then in that moment, you're supposed to forgive this person, but you don't even know that you are seeing this event in the same way.

Does that make sense? A little out of control. You literally ate my lunch. Who even does that?

So it specifically, right? So the more specific you can be, the better. And I mean, you don't necessarily have to write an essay about it, but I mean, like if you're looking at a person and they don't feel like you're taking very seriously what they're talking about, like what you need to be doing is getting to a point where you can admit the way that you send in a way that the other person feels satisfied with.

Does that make sense? Like another way where they say, I think you understand the situation that just happened in the same way that I do.

Right. And so a lot of times there's just fundamental disagreements about the nature of what even just happened.

And you can flip it out again. And this is often a check just if you want to actually be reconciled, like whatever you're asking forgiveness for, it needs to be, you need to be on the same page about that.

I mean, you can imagine like scenarios where like, let's say it's the wife now and she, you know, against her husband's wishes, you know, she spent, you know, a thousand dollars on the bank account on random stuff or something.

Right. So imagine that kind of scenario. And then she says, you know what? I think I, you know, you know,

I need you to forgive me. I spent a little bit too much. And it's like, honey, I didn't. The issue is not you spending a little too much.

The issue is I literally told you the other day that we have bills coming due and I need you to not spend anything.

Right. So the issue isn't you spent too much. The issue is you spent anything. Right. And then you spent an exorbitant amount above and beyond that.

Right. So like just like this is a good exercise that can help you get on the same page.

Like that's not what the issue is. Right. The issue is not you spent a little too much. Like the issue is like you shouldn't have been spending anything.

And I literally talked to you about this multiple times. Right. Right. So anyways, that's just an example.

But so admit specifically. So address everyone involved. Avoid it. But maybe admit specifically, you know, it says acknowledge the hurt.

I don't necessarily like this way of phrasing it because I think it's kind of wimpy. Okay. Okay.

How would you say it then? I don't know a better way of saying it, but it gets at the point. So acknowledge.

I think you need to acknowledge the impact of what you've done. Acknowledge the damage you made.

Acknowledge the damage. Yeah. I don't like the term hurt in general because it's a, you know, wimpy way to say it.

But acknowledge the damage. So, I mean, I think in that moment, that's where you say, you know, I can imagine that how frustrating it could be to be, you know, the wife, to be you in this situation.

I'm supposed to love you as a husband. And I just keep on losing my temper against you.

And it's happening over and over and over again. And I can, like, and I know that that's tough.

And I know that there's no excuse for it. Right. I think saying something like that to say, hey,

I get that what I did was a betrayal of your trust. Right.

Like if you're the wife who just went, I get that. I keep on doing this. And this is a betrayal of your trust.

And I want you to trust me as a wife that I'm going to be responsible with our resources. But this doesn't go a long way to help you to do that, particularly when

I just keep on doing this, you know. And I get how that can cause you to feel very betrayed in these moments.

Right. Anything like that where you're just acknowledging kind of the impact of what your words or your actions have done to show that you're not just trivializing it or sweeping it under the rug.

Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. All right. Address everyone involved. Void if, but, maybe, admit specifically.

Acknowledge the hurt. And then accept the consequences. So that's number five. Accept the consequences.

And, you know, I mean, that just, like, in general, you know,

I just killed someone. So accepting the consequence, I may have to go to jail.

I accept that. Right. You know, I mean, if you're the wife in that kind of scenario, and this is the fourth shopping spree that you've been on in a few months, right, or something along those lines, then accepting the consequences of your behavior might mean that you need to have your credit card taken away from you for a little bit.

Yeah. And you can earn it back, you know. And a person who's actually, like, legitimately, like, you know, 2

Corinthians 7 talks about eagerness to clear yourself, right? And, you know, so what vindication, what punishment, like, eagerness to clear yourself, all these kind of phrases.

But all that's kind of the language of accepting the consequences. I know that I've broken trust, and we need to acknowledge that.

And this is a pattern. And we need to deal with that. And I'm not just going to fight you in whatever the plan is to deal with this.

Does that make sense? Yeah. And, you know, in the same way with the husband, you know, or, you know, whoever has sinned in this kind of relationship.

Hey, look, if you keep putting holes in the drywall, we're going to have to take your hands away. We're going to have to chop.

You can have them back when I can trust you. When I can trust you, right? Yeah. I mean, there are certain consequences to this.

And that doesn't necessarily mean that, okay, well, you know, you yelled at me again. So you're going to be sleeping on the couch for three weeks or something like that.

That isn't what, that isn't appropriate. That's not very constructive. Yeah. So the person who sinned against doesn't just get like a blank check to live in bitterness towards that person forever.

To vindicate themselves. Yeah. And to make them, you know, grovel and pay it all back.

But you do have to figure out how do you manage what's happening here in these moments. And, you know, there may be certain consequences like meaning like you just yelled and screamed again.

This is the 10th time. The consequences are we're going to need to talk to the church about this so that you can take this seriously.

And you're not going to, you don't need to fight this. Right. So consequences typically need to look like something that is going to help stop the issue that keeps coming up.

Yeah. They're restorative. They're restorative. They're not just punishment. Right. Right. So address everyone involved avoid if but maybe admit specifically, you know, acknowledge the hurt, accept the consequences, alter your behavior.

So in that way, what you're, it's very good to say, hey, I'm committed to do what it takes to not keep on sinning in this way.

And I want to have a conversation about what that looks like. Okay. And so a lot of people are just like, hey, sorry.

I said, I'm sorry. That means don't talk to me about it anymore. And we're moving on. Right. Yeah. It's a demand.

It's a demand. Move on. Not talking about it anymore. But what really needs to happen in that moment is you need to be having a conversation.

How can we stop this from happening? Right. And that's done in the context of forgiveness.

Like we're, you know, you need to forgive, but then it, you know, and cast this debt into the depths of the sea and remember it no more.

But, you know, this isn't just like, like a scenario where your neighbor, you know, walks to your front yard and has a knife in his hand, a sadistic look in his eye, and he stabs one of your tires.

Right. And then he, then, you know, he snaps to and says, I don't know what came over me.

I just, you know, sliced your tire. I'm sorry about it. Right. But then, you know, you get the tire fixed and you get it changed.

And he comes out there again, stabs the thing again. Right. It's like, I don't know what came over me, man.

It's just crazy. You know, it's like, yeah. I see a tire and it all goes red. It all goes red. It's like, that's great, man.

But, you know, you have to, I'm happy to forgive you, but you have to alter your behavior. What do we need to do to keep this from happening again?

Right. I can't afford to keep on putting new tires on here. So part of that might be accepting consequences.

You're paying for it. Right. But then part of it might be, like, how are you going to, like, do you need to chain yourself into your house at certain times of the day in order to keep this from happening?

You know, like, what do we need to do? So is it the cycle of the moon that's turning you into a werewolf?

What's going on? Remove every knife from your kitchen. Yeah. What does altering your behavior look like?

And then finally, ask for forgiveness. Like, when you go through all that, you're addressing everyone involved.

You're avoiding if, but maybe you're admitting specifically. You're acknowledging, like, the ramifications of what you've done.

You're accepting consequences. You're altering your behavior. Then you're getting more of a full picture of, like,

I understand what I did. I'm accepting it. I'm owning it very specifically to everyone involved.

And I'm committed to change. And I'm committed to deal with the consequences of this. And so in that context,

I'm asking, will you forgive me? If people would do that and they were to think through that kind of checklist, they would feel a lot more.

If they're a person who understands forgiveness, they'd be put in a lot better position to say, you know, you're not just flipping out.

I'm sorry here. You understand what's going on, and we have a plan to fix this.

Does that make sense? Yeah. So I think, you know, mostly if people would think through how they're asking forgiveness, then

I think they'd be in a lot better place to on the end of that, then they're making the promises necessary for forgiveness.

They feel a lot better, more reconciled. Okay. Fair enough. This has been another episode of Bible Bashed.

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