Three Other Ways to Make a Decision in Marriage

As a follow up to last month’s post on how couples make decisions in marriage, I wanted to add another layer to the conversation.

In a previous blog post I discussed three ways in which couples tend to make decisions in marriage (see blog post). As you very well know, life brings to us all sort of different types of decisions and marriages are often paired with very different types of decision makers. So what happens when a couple has two different styles in which they go about carrying out their decision? Well, the answer to that is actually a great question to ask….”Honey, would you prefer me to do this one your way, my way, or our way?”

Let me explain. If my wife were to ask me to vacuum the living room…which she just so happens to do so on occasionJ… I’ve learned that it is most effective if I clarify what type of vacuuming she has in mind. For instance, my way would be to simply plug the vacuum in, push it around any available floor space that doesn’t require too much furniture movement, and be done in time before the football game is back on. However, more times than not, her way is to clear out the majority of objects that reside in our living room…including our kidsJ, thoroughly clean nearly every square inch of the carpet, then put the finishing touches by spraying a “freshly vacuumed fragrance” throughout the area.

As you can tell, our preferred styles are totally two different legitimate approaches and if neither of us are clear on what the level of expectation is, or the level of willingness is to meet that expectation, we will likely find ourselves in a “your way vs. my way” version of spousal tug of war. Thankfully, we have developed an ability to verbalize a third option…“our way”. For the vacuuming scenario, “our way” is simply to rotate the different approaches unless it is otherwise noted by both of us based on the current situation.

Can you relate to this example? How about other areas of decisions in your married life? For instance, when you go shopping with your spouse…are you more of a “browser” or a “hunter”. Or when you go to a restaurant…do you pre-plan exactly everything you will order before you get there…or do you order at the very last moment using the eenie meenie miny moe approach?

Although these seem like trite examples, the reality is that marriage satisfaction and stability is greatly increased when couples learn to:

1.      Acknowledge their own preferred styles

2.      Accept their spouses style as a legitimate way of doing things

3.      Collaboratively work together on finding a “common ground” solution

4.      Purposely practice using each of the above three steps in a variety of areas in their marriage

What’s important is that no matter how many differences the two of you may have in your ways of navigating through life, that by God’s grace, He always provides you with an opportunity to move away from the “me versus you” mentality and more towards the “us versus it” approach.

Justin