No doubt, marriage is difficult. When we first get married, we are so in love that we imagine our partner will bend or lean to agree on everything and anything of importance. Unfortunately, we are blinded by the “dopamine effect” and are not actually living in an altruistic world. A few months or years after marriage, the dust settles, and the dirty remnants of our autonomic selves begin seeping back through the cracks of the relationship. This is when we begin to run into trouble. Many of us wonder what in the world we were thinking when we married this person. Others feel helpless and hopeless. These are the times when standing your ground in a marriage becomes very important.
Disagreements are bound to arise. Whenever two people live together and begin to face life-changing decisions and situations, there will always be a difference of opinions. Sometimes these differences stem from the way we were raised or preconceived notions of what we feel will and won’t work. Other times, one person in a marriage is so dead set on being right all the time that they can’t fathom or work out a problem without winning. No matter the reason, each person must participate wholly or risk losing a part of themselves. Once lost, resentment sets in, and the relationship is forever doomed.
Standing your ground in marriage does not mean that you must insist on being right. It also doesn’t require that every decision in the ebb and flow of life shifts our way. But it does mean that we should always be able to speak our mind and have our thoughts heard. Sometimes, to be heard, you must listen first—and most people don’t react well to being yelled at, intimidated, or belittled for their opinion. There is always a happy medium.
Marriage is wired with elements that are almost guaranteed to spark conflict—things like our children, the state of our finances, our homes, and our free time. These all resonate with the power to make or break our own personal happiness. Having them threatened by someone else can be frustrating and can make people feel like every little thing is a fight for their life. In a way, it is. Once we are married, we have to deal with the culmination of everything that our partner is. This often translates into agreeing to disagree. Giving in or making an agreement based on the ideals of compromise goes both ways and never indicates that one partner is not standing their ground. The trick is laying the feelings on the table, finding the compromise that works best, and moving on—without resentment and without compromising who you are as a person.
Respect, Boundaries, and Communication
If we marry someone that drinks, then we can—or should—expect drinking to be part of our marriage. If we carry a guarded sense that drinking is morally and incomprehensibly wrong, in truth, we shouldn’t marry that person. People do not change much just because they got married. Standing your ground in a marriage would be verbalizing the problem and offering an ultimatum. Fortunately, most marital conflict is not based on issues this serious or earth-shattering. But both partners must be able to verbalize why and what they feel, and which parts of the conflict they are not willing to compromise on. Normally, there is plenty of middle ground to reach amicable solutions, and both partners can at least feel satiated.
Standing your ground in a marriage also entails remaining true to who you were before you got married. Unfortunately, so many of us put on acts and don’t really show the breadth of our true colors during the dating phase. Once married, we feel free to do so—and this can cause problems. Each person in a marriage has the right to set certain expectations and rules, so to speak, about what type of behavior or actions will or won’t be tolerated. These rules have nothing to do with controlling what your spouse does, but rather with communicating things that matter deeply to you.
For instance, if your husband cusses in front of you and it is disheartening or feels mean-spirited, you should be able to verbalize your complaint—explaining why and how it makes you feel—and the cussing (at least in your presence) should stop. This is out of respect and love.
Since each person in this world has their own set of things that make them happy—or bother them—there is no real way to know everyone’s little idiosyncrasies. Marriage brings them out. It is often more about respect than it is about love or sex. Respecting another person means accepting everything about them (whether you agree or not) and allowing them to flourish as a human being. When we feel safe in a marriage, it’s easier to stand our ground and hold onto the things that matter most to us. When we feel threatened or unsafe, standing our ground often comes across as simply a stubborn attempt to be right.
When issues arise, both partners need to take a moment and decide if they are arguing just to win—or if they are arguing because the situation calls for standing up for themselves. Does this argument threaten self-worth, or will the outcome leave one partner resentful? Or is it just about a competitive streak? If you’re disagreeing about where to plant azaleas or how to fold the laundry, chances are the argument is really about something else. These things don’t matter much. But when the disagreements involve who controls the money, how to discipline the kids, or whose family gets the Christmas visit this year—many more emotions are involved. This is when standing your ground truly comes in handy.
The flip side of learning to stand your ground is that it always demonstrates that you are a person who demands to be respected. It asserts intelligence and confidence in the relationship. All of us should be in relationships where we can say whatever is on our minds without fearing that our spouse will leave us or do something terrible in retaliation. Couples who can’t stand their ground out of fear definitely need to seek professional counseling. In a marriage, two equals join together to become a family. When two people are equals, standing your ground in the marriage is just part of a healthy and happy life together.
