What should we do when there are disputes between the husband and the wife? How do we solve family disputes? It is inevitable for husbands and wives to encounter problems and enter into arguments. However, since both are adults and are children of God, they must learn to know what the other person’s problem is, and where they differ. Before they can solve any disputes, they must know where the problem lies.
Any settlement must be fair. If it is not fair, it will not last. Do not expect one party to endure to the end. One out of ten Christians may endure to the end. But the other nine will not able to endure to the end. If a solution is not fair, sooner or later the problem will come back again. When I was in Shanghai, I arbitrated in some family disputes. Many people wondered why tiny matters could be blown up to such a big scale. You must realize that when small matters are blown up, they are not blown up because of the matters themselves but because of history. It is the accumulation of a series of things that leads to the explosion. The explosion may be ignited by small matters, but the underlying cause may have been an accumulation of grudges over the years. Do not consider any matter to be trivial. Problems surface today because they were not dealt with in a fair way in the first place, and patience ran out in the meantime.
It is best for outsiders to stay out of family disputes. Let the couple hold their own conference. Let them settle their own disputes when they get into an argument. Do not allow news to leak out of the family, while the family itself is left in the dark. Sometimes, news regarding the husband is heard twenty miles away and yet he does not know about it himself. Sometimes news about the wife travels the same way. Let the wife tell her own husband about their own affairs, and let the husband tell his own wife about their affairs. In this way both are clear. Our experience tells us that husbands seldom know what their wives are thinking about and vice versa. Everyone else knows what they are thinking about, but they themselves do not know what each other is thinking about. Therefore, allow both to have the opportunity to speak to each other, and each should wait for the other to finish before he or she speaks. Do not allow the talkative side to dominate the talk. The husband must listen to the wife, and the wife must listen to the husband.
Many times, problems are solved as soon as the husband hears a word from the mouth of his wife, or the wife hears a word from the mouth of her husband. Many wives will only speak but will not listen to their husbands. If they would just listen, their problems would go away.
Both husband and wife should sit down and discuss the matter in an objective way, not in a subjective way. Once they become subjective, the discussion will fall apart. While they are talking, they should try to find the right judgment and the right feeling. They may not know who is right, but they should try to find out what is right. They should try to understand what each one is saying. Both must do this objectively, not subjectively. Both should speak, and after speaking, they should pray together. Always seek settlement through prayer. Ask the Lord to clearly show them where the problem lies. If they can follow this advice, the problem will be more or less settled by the time they pray together a second time. Many problems arise because they have not sat down to listen to each other and to listen objectively. As soon as they sit down and listen objectively, half of the problem is solved. As they sit and listen some more, they will discover where the problem lies.
During the first few years of a marriage life, a family should have this type of meeting two or three times a year. Each side will then learn where problems lie and how to deal with them. Many families need to learn this lesson. It will surely solve many problems within the family.