A power struggle can eat away at a marital relationship, leaving little room for relationship growth and plenty of space for its stagnation. And the example below may make this point clear.
Melinda was an athlete who needed assistance in preparing for an important competition. Although she had to raise a 1-year old child in her marriage, she still had maintained a good functional status and a high rank of her respective sport. Her husband, Michael, is a successful businessman; he also supported her commitment to the sport. However, as the “breadwinner” of the family, he got so busy with his work to support the family; he felt that the family life was impeded by Melinda’s sport commitments; and meanwhile, Melinda wanted him to change his schedule to adjust her training and competition, but he was reluctant to do so; and this conflict led to constant power struggles.
During the counseling session, both sides had their “stories” explaining the conflicted situation. Their explanations fluctuated between one or two aspects. Melinda complained,” He just doesn’t understand how important the competition is to me, and I can’t give it up… He just wants me at home looking after him and our kid. He is too controlling.” On the other hand, Michael complained,” She doesn’t know how much it costs to maintain the family, she is not practical about how to raise a family… this is her problem.” Each of them had a story that was justified by events and observations, but none of them reached particularly desirable destinations.
I bet you also have power struggles with your spouse, just like the example above. And constant power struggles can lead to a series of negative consequences like below:
You may have been caught in a fear/anger cycle:
As you get caught in the constant power struggles, the anger builds over time. Anger is a secondary response to fear – your fear means you are afraid that you can not get what you need; it triggers your primitive responses that include more power struggles, more fear, and more anger.
Maybe you two start to misperceive each other.
Once you and your spouse slipped into the power struggle as well as the anger/fear cycle, you two begin to justify the situation. For example, you just focus on your spouse’s shortcomings or wrongdoings, and you think that your spouse is not on your side all the time, and you may also feel that your spouse becomes more and more emotionally distant. And meanwhile, your spouse may also feel that way about you. You two begin to drift apart after power struggles.
If you are confused about how to resolve the power struggle in marriage, here are some tips:
1 Be aware that your explanation sets the stage:
In a long-term relationship, power struggles are not caused by differences of opinions, but by how a couple views each other’s differences. By considering a different perspective, different options appear and the power struggle is unlocked. In other words, your explanation sets the stage. When a problem occurs, what you focus on predetermines your view on how to deal with it; and it is the same with your spouse.
It is hard for us to take a perfectly rounded view of an issue, and you have to admit that what you focus on may still have some deficiencies. When your spouse thinks your explanation is not strong enough, it is hard for him/her to have enough compassion for you. Especially if you are explaining your solution without full details, probably your statements will be perceived as competition, conflict, or control, then you two will be stuck in a dreaded power struggle.
When you are caught in a power struggle, most likely you assume that you have only two options – win or lose; and even though you choose to throw the game on the halfway, deep inside you may still view it as a loss.
2 View the development of your relationship as a third focus:
In a power struggle, spouses usually stick to their opinions by constructing their explanations from only one or two aspects, and then they repeat their explanations over and over or switch back and forth between those two. If you admit that you also do that way, you might try to widen your lens by including more aspects in your explanation. In doing so, you will find that a new world of alternatives can develop.
In particular, when you are locked in a power struggle with your spouse, you might try to find a common “third focus”. With the broader perspective and common focus, the solutions that you propose are more likely to include options for continuing development and maintaining stability, and your viewpoint is more likely to be understood in terms of evolution and balance; and naturally, the concept of winning in a power struggle becomes meaningless. In a marriage, there is a wide range of things can be a third focus, such as the children, and goals or ideas that you share in common with your spouse.
In a power struggle, your organization of limited information predetermined your explanation and options. In this situation, you should not lock yourself in a box mentally. Looking at how you could help the development of your marriage and family can hold many more options than ones of the power struggle perspective. When the two of you start to think about what to do can contribute most to the development of the long term relationship, compromise and cooperation naturally comes.
Anyway, by widening your lens of perspective, you can have more solutions and alternatives to resolve the power struggle in marriage.
3 Try to empathize with your spouse first:
No doubt, power struggle often snuffs out empathy. And an emotionally safe bridge can be rebuilt between the two of you when you two truly walk in each other shoes: when you let your spouse feel that you are trying to understand what he/she is saying, he/she heaves a sigh of relief; likewise, when your spouse offers empathy during a power struggle, you feel relief too. So don’t be reserved, you might make the first move to show your willingness to empathize with him/her.
And here are 2 tips on how to show empathy to your spouse during a power struggle:
- Seek out the positive:
More often than not, you may get into the habit of focusing on your spouse’s wrong viewpoints during a power struggle. This gets in the way of showing your empathy. Instead, first, you should try to affirm those of his/her viewpoints that you also agree with.
- Be polite:
Even though you completely disagree with what his/her opinion, you should not needle him/her with sarcastic statements; instead, in the midst of talking, you might sincerely say the empathy words like “Can you further explain why you see it that way? I want to exactly understand your meaning.”
4 Enhance team spirit in your marriage:
Remember, your spouse is not just your lover, and he/she is also the most loyal teammate, companion, and co-conspirator. You are on the same boat. So even if you feel undervalued or offended during a power struggle with your spouse, you do not have to overcompensate by acting superior; instead, just try to be courteous, tactful, and nice. Pretend you are talking to your best friend instead of an enemy or rival. And forget about winning, your marriage is never a competition; even if you are stuck in a power struggle, you should be clear about the meaning of marriage life – look for things that you two have in common, not those things that can separate you two.
Whenever you fight with your spouse, you should be aware that you should fight for the marriage, not so much for yourself. While you are taking care of your spouse during a power struggle, you are also taking care of yourself.
For more tips on how to develop teamwork in a marriage, you might go on to read the post below:
How to be a team with your spouse – Develop teamwork in marriage.
5 Don’t blame your spouse:
Couples inevitably feel hurt or upset by the power struggle in marriage; when you have these bad feelings, you should pay particular attention to how to communicate how you feel in front of your spouse; otherwise, probably you will end up blaming your spouse, even though you feel that you have been wronged. Especially when you automatically play the role of the victim in a power struggle, you turn your spouse into the attacker, and this puts him/her on the defensive. Such a power struggle turns away from who is wrong and who is right, and it turns into an unnecessary fight for control of the narrative.
Again, you and your spouse are a team; to deal with a problem in your marriage, what you need to do is to reach a mutually acceptable resolution; fighting is just the byproduct in the process of problem-solving. Anytime, hurting your spouse should not be the purpose of fighting.
Surely, when you have a conflict with your spouse, you should bring it up, but make sure to do it in a respectful manner. Don’t give your spouse an accusing look, don’t talk to your spouse in a high-pitched or accusing tone of voice, and don’t point an accusing finger at him/her. And remember, no one wants to listen to punchy statements. So, when you are tempted to say “I hate you when you…” you might restrain yourself and say something like “When you… I feel upset”.
The final word:
The development of marriage reflects the balance between spouses’ dreams, desires, and viewpoints. You and your spouse must have your own expectations and wishes for married life, and you two also have to learn to adjust to each other’s significant stress. Anyway, power struggles cause a certain extent of damage to a long-term relationship, but they are a part of marriage; the goal of a marriage is to build a “We”. Hence, for married couples, the power struggle in marriage should be viewed as a painful but unavoidable process of further understanding each other. For your marriage to survive and thrive afterward, you need to restart to work on creating the “We” that a long-lasting relationship needs.
In short, a healthy marriage should be about partnership, connecting, and being a team. If your marriage has already been broken by a major power struggle and you have an urgent need to fix your failing marriage, you might go on to read the page below to follow the comprehensive guidance that is offered by Brad Browning, a marriage coach with 12+ years of experience:
Maybe, you are also interested in the related posts below:
How to fight fair with your spouse – Fight in a healthy way.
6 tips on how to make up with your spouse after a fight.
7 basic tips on how to stop keeping score in marriage.
How to defuse conflict in marriage – Calm down a heated argument.
How to reduce arguments in a marriage – Reconnect your spouse.