How to De-Escalate Conflicts - Marriage Lessons from a Korean Drama

If you are a K-Pop fan like me, you must have been spending a significant amount of time watching Korean dramas. Over the weekend I've stumbled upon a romantic comedy series that shares lessons about the married-life.  So this particular show makes me feel less guilty. I'm talking about "Emergency Couple" which tells the story of a divorced couple. First few minutes into the first episode and I understood why their marriage lasted only for a year.

The story starts with the young couple interrupting a church service to get married. There are no guests except the parishioners who are already there. Parents from both sides are absent too. No grand and elaborate reception. Just the two of them and the burning passion they have for each other.  Fast-forward to months later and both of them are visiting a psychiatrist due to marriage-related stress. 

Let me walk you through what happened next.. 

The husband comes home late from work, soaking wet after getting drenched under some heavy rain. When he enters the house, the wife does not bother to get up from the sofa bed, much less grab a towel for him to get dry. He gets upset and starts attacking and accusing her of being lazy. He checks the aquarium and notices that his pet fish have died. He gets angry at her for not feeding them. She answers that she has almost died earlier that's why she was unable to feed the fish. He doesn't hear her and continues asking why she doesn't care for his babies! She can't understand why he is making such a big fuss about it. 

In order for her to understand how he feels, he takes a big pair of scissors to cut their (the wife's) dog's clothes.  She threatens to kill him if he touches those doggie clothes. But he still cuts them into pieces. The wife then takes a pointed metal and pokes the speakers of his husband's expensive entertainment system. She remains deaf when he mentions that it was a limited edition. 

To get back at her, he takes her one and only Chanel bag and cuts the straps and slashes it.  She is horrified because she has not even paid it in full yet. She then grabs his DSLR camera.  The husband negotiates by asking her to just crush the memory card. But she does not relent and smashes the whole camera onto the floor

The husband then takes out her expensive chinaware and in the same way smashes them onto the floor. In return, she does the same to his CD collection. Then she grabs the TV remote control and throws it at him but it hits and breaks the aquarium glass instead. He then throws his cellphone at her which hit their wedding photo frame, sending it down to the floor broken. And so their marriage was broken after that and they filed for divorce later on.

Wow! What an intense fight that could have been de-escalated to avoid further damages.  Let me share with you, 3 things that we could do to avoid having that same ending to our marriages.

Respond with Grace and Love

In his book "The 7 Habits of Highly-Effective People", Stephen Covey shares that a responsible person means the person is "response-able".  Unlike animals, humans have the ability to decide how to respond to people, things, words and situations. We can't always control what our spouse will do or say but we can control how we react to their words and actions towards us. If we want to, we can respond with grace and love even when they say or do something that angers or hurts us.

1 Thessalonians 5:15 tells us to ensure that no one pays back evil for evil, but always try to do good to each other and to all people.

When our spouse does something that hurts us, refuse the urge to get even and do something equally hurtful.  Wives, let's not try to teach our husbands a lesson by giving them a dose of their own bitter medicine.  Instead, let's choose to do the opposite and counter their hurtful behaviour with an act of love.  Husbands, instead of punishing your wives for her actions that disrespected you, think of what makes her feel valued and do that instead. If she has ignored you and did not serve you because she is stressed then do something that can chase her anxieties and stress away.   

Don't Attack Each Other's Vulnerabilities

In my post about unity in marriage, I have shared that when we spend time with our spouses, we get to know them on a deeper level. We get to know what makes them happy or upset, what makes them feel excited or stressed. We discover who they love and who they dislike. Let us value all these "insider information" that we are so privileged to have and let's never use it a weapon  against them during conflicts.  The moment we use these vulnerabilities against them, we commit a major violation of trust which is very difficult to repair even after reconciling.  Our spouses will become reluctant to share themselves for fear of being exposed and attacked again next time.

Listen

The teacher puts it bluntly in Proverbs 18:13 by saying that answering before listening is both stupid and rude.

When we answer before we have truly listened to the other person, we miss what they are really telling us.  It is rude because by talking over them, we tell them that what they are saying is not important to us at all. That what we are trying to tell them has more value. And we become deaf and blind to their true feelings and real situations. 

In this Korean drama, the husband asked his wife how she forgot to feed the fish.  The wife mentioned that she almost died earlier that day. But the husband did not hear what she said because he was more focused of his complaints. It seems that he more worried about the welfare of his pet fish that his wife.  Had he stopped and probed further, he could have discovered that she experienced shortness of breathing earlier that day.  He would have realized that it was more serious than his pet fish dying. 

Here is a link to the first episode of that drama. Forward to 19:03 to watch their fight.  You will find it outrageously funny. But take the lessons seriously. And let us take care of our marriages seriously.

  

If this happened to you, how would you have reacted differently? Share your answers in the comments box below.