By Francis Ewherido

“Marriage may alleviate the problem of loneliness, but it presents the challenge of getting along with another person. It teaches you that you can’t always avoid conflict, but you can make it work for you. The truth is, unless there are two winners in a marriage, there are none at all.” Excerpt from a man on his 50th wedding anniversary.

One of the biggest challenges married people face is that only one spouse cannot make a marriage work. Just as it takes two to become husband and wife and the two to beget children, so also it takes two to make the marriage work. This makes it imperative to come up with a working formula. One of such formulae is the win/win paradigm. Let me state ab initio that I got this formula for managing interpersonal relationships from Stephen Covey’s book, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. All we are doing here is to apply it specifically to marriage.

To paraphrase Covey, win/win is a total philosophy of human interaction, a frame of mind and heart that constantly seeks mutual benefits in all human interaction, this case marriage. Life is cooperative in win/win, not competitive. Win/win is based on the mindset that there is plenty for everybody and each person’s success is not achieved at the expense or exclusion of the other.

Win/win is also a belief in the third alternative. “It’s not your way or my way; it’s better way, a higher way.” This is very crucial in husband/wife and adult children/parents relationships during conflict situations. About 30 years ago in our political science class, we were taught this concept of thesis, antithesis and synthesis. Applying this to marriage, the husband comes up with a suggestion (thesis), the wife brings a counter suggestion (antithesis) and they rub minds and come up with a common ground (synthesis). Synthesis is the “better way” and “higher way” that Covey is talking about (Pardon me for referring to Covey in present tense. He might be late, but his works are very much alive).

But one common challenge with win/win is that sometimes either one or both spouses do not have the capacity to come up with good theses and antitheses from where well thought out syntheses flow. This takes us back to what Covey said earlier in the book: “self-mastery and self-discipline are the foundation of good relationships with others.” In other words, building good interpersonal relationships start with a well-balanced and confident self, that in turn make you independent and “interdependence is a choice only independent people can make.” So the problem in some marriages is not irreconcilable differences, but lack of capacity from one or both spouses. That is why mutual capacity building is very important in marriages. One party should not be building capacity while the other is stagnant; it can create disconnect which will make spouses grow apart and operate on different wavelengths. This hurts the marriage.

Covey talks about other paradigms of interpersonal relationships like lose/win, win/lose, win, Lose/lose and win/win or no deal. Some spouses prefer to keep the peace by giving in or giving up on germane issues rather than discussing them and “disturbing” the marriage. This is lose/win situation. Such spouses can build-up resentment over time and the situation can easily boil over and destroy the marriage they kept quiet to protect. Lose/win easily ends up being a lose/lose situation. Long ago, after a conflict, I told my wife that “two things will happen if I stopped talking: Either the marriage will die or I will die (of frustration), so just allow me talk even when you want to have your way. I promise you, however, that I will continue learning how to talk until what I say stops hurting or annoying you.”Sweeping issues under the carpet or keeping quiet over what hurts, solves no problem on the long run.

Unfortunately, some of what we say that hurt or annoy our spouses is the bitter truth. The challenge now is how to sweeten the truth to make it palatable, as pharmacists did with bitter malaria drugs, without tampering with its potency. Truth is very important because it builds trust and helps to create healthier marriages on the long run, and marriage is a marathon, not a sprint. I would rather quarrel because of the truth than have “peace” in falsehood.

We learn everyday and I have learnt that unless you ignore some truths in marriage, you will never have peace of mind. The challenge here how do you determine the truth to ignore? I suggest your core values should guide you. I have also learned “that being kind is more important than being right.” The challenge is how to wear a coat of kindness over truth before delivery. Truth might be ignored or sweetened, but it should not be swept under the carpet.

Competitive sports strives on win/lose paradigm; thankfully, marriage is not a competitive sport. It is a cooperative sport and one spouse’s triumph should not be to the detriment of his/her spouse. We need to pause here and ask ourselves how our successes were achieved. Where they achieved at the expense or exclusion of our spouses? Where our spouses part of the success? Where our spouses part of it, but we undermined or denied their contributions?

When marriages become competitive, it is not just competition but local derbies, for example: Arsenal/ Tottenham (North London) and Milan/ Inter Milan (Milan). These football rivalries have survived over time because they follow the systems and processes of competitive sports. Marriage is cooperative and not wired that way. It cannot survive the ensuing acrimony, bitterness and agony of competitive sports over time. The end product of win/lose is lose/lose because “when two determined, stubborn, ego-invested individuals interact, the result will be lose/lose.” The win paradigm, on the other hand, is self-centred and should not apply to marriage.

Some of these other paradigms might work in other kinds of relationships, but not marriage, except occasionally. Marriage is a tag-team and both spouses are either winners or losers; scarcely do you have a middle ground.