Top Marriage Advice for Newlyweds (and Everyone Else) About Conflict – Part 1

 Action #1: In the moment of conflict, the happiest spouses try to defer and let it go 

 During a conflict on day-to-day issues that they care about (not major life choices), those in the happiest marriages are far more likely to let things go or defer to the other person, instead of trying to win the argument, getting things just the way they want them, or insisting “this is the way it should be done.” 

 We independently surveyed each spouse about these day-to-day conflicts and asked, “If the two of you are at odds and cannot resolve it fairly soon, how likely are you as a couple to let it go for the sake of peace?” The Highly Happy spouses were twice as likely as struggling spouses to say they would be “very likely” to let things go that they cared about.  

 I interviewed one couple that had come very close to divorce and had clawed their way back to a much better place. The wife told me, “We went through a terrible, terrible period in our marriage, and a lot of it was that I felt like there was just a way things should be done. I thought my way was always ‘the’ way to do it, which of course is crazy now that I look back. I broke the habit because a counselor advised us to ask each other ‘on a scale of 1 to 10 how important is this issue to you?’ And I realized that I was insisting on ‘my way’ on things that were only a three to me, but were an eight to him! So now, anything five or below I let go. I’m trying to work my way up to a seven. And he’s doing the same for me.”