5 Lessons Your Kids Learn Every Time You and Your Spouse DISAGREE

1. We show our kids an authentic marriage.

My friend had NEVER seen her parents disagree about ANYTHING, and then all of a sudden, they were divorced one day. How confusing! She realized that she had witnessed a “Stepford Wife” marriage…a “house of cards” romance…an inauthentic partnership.
She never witnessed her parents discussing real issues or concerns.  Her mom and dad had evidently been building up resentment towards each other for years while disagreements were being dodged, issues were kept inside, and true intimacy was quickly becoming something of the distant past.

My friend said it took her a long time to cope with her parents’ divorce and an even longer time trying to figure out how to effectively communicate, especially during disagreements in her own marriage.

All to often, we pause our spousal communication…especially our disagreements…”because of the kids”.  We use our kids as an excuse to stop our line of communication.  But, the truth is there are times that we simply don’t want to hash out an issue with our spouse, so we say we can’t discuss something “because the kids are in the house” and “they might know we are mad at each other”. And, we do more harm than good not only to our marriage, but also to our children.

What we fail to realize is that our kids need to understand that married couples argue sometimes.  We get mad at each other.  We disagree. If we don’t ever let our kids see us working through disagreements, then they form unrealistic expectations of how a healthy marriage is supposed to work.