Power Struggles Among Married Couples: What Does It Do to Your Marriage?

Power struggles, like wanting to be the right one, have the ability of destroying marriage.

People say that conflict in marriage is normal or unavoidable because marriage consists of two people with different views, priorities, and preferences. Such differences will later on clash, and partners will each campaign for their preferred views and opinions. But they do not see this as being selfish. They see this as something that they believe is best for both of them.

Such power struggles like needing to be the right one, hierarchy, and being valid, can and has the ability of destroying marriage.

However, why do people need to be right? Couples need to prove they are right, and no one wants to budge by saying they are in the wrong. Deep down, neither partner thinks that they are in the wrong. For them, it does not seem fair to admit defeat when they believe that the facts are on their side.

It may even seem that partners can't be close until one of them admits that they are right and the other is wrong. But, one of them may just do that to simply get the other off their back but they do not mean it.

What are power struggles?

Power struggles that consist of wanting the other to concede defeat by saying the other is right and they are wrong is one unrealistic expectation and that it is not going to happen no matter how they express themselves or no matter how they debate it.

To avoid such power struggles in destroying marriage, the best way is to start learning how to live without such power struggles. Couples need to satisfy themselves with the private knowledge that they know they are right even if their partner will now admit it.

How to avoid it?

Another thing to avoid destroying marriage is to think of it in a way that your partner does not exist simply to validate who you are. And maybe, in the end, you might not need that validation if your partner is devoted to your best welfare as they see it, and not as you see it.

In a fair marriage, no one gets to be the boss. If your power struggles like wanting to be correct and wanting your partner to admit it, that is not this fair marriage works. And if you keep on with that, you will only add to the factor in destroying marriage.

The fair marriage

A fair marriage means you need to be a team player. Meaning, no one pulls rank on the other. And if you think that your partner is wrong, you must respect the fact that your partner is allowed to have a mind of their own and that you should treat your partner's opinion as equal to your own.

It is hard to do if you think that you are right and that they are wrong. But if you do not want to participate in destroying a marriage such as this, you have to learn to endure your partner's wrongness if you are going to treat your partner as a true equal.

Learn to agree to disagree. Learn to live with the difference rather than to try to argue it away.

Then, you can figure out how two stubborn persons with free-thinking minds of their own can learn to work as a team without bossing each other around because each of you knows what is best.