Choon Siew (CS): We have an agreement in our family: avoid the use of the words ‘never’ and ‘always’ when voices are raised, and tempers escalate. In addition, in times of conflict, we have to reconcile before ‘the sun sets’. In other words, we will not allow negative feelings to spill over to the next day. We may not be able to come to an agreement on how to resolve the conflict, but we need to put aside our anger and be at peace with each other. What prompted us to write this agreement? In the midst of preparing for our wedding, we witnessed a recurring quarrel between my relatives. It involved a couple who had been married for about 30 years. The recurring quarrel was over a loan that the wife had given to her brother without seeking her husband’s approval. Mind you, this loan had been made about ten years earlier, but the issue would be brought up whenever a conflict arose. Words like ‘always’ and ‘never’ were frequently heard throughout the heated arguments. We saw with our own eyes (and heard with our own ears) how burdensome unresolved conflicts can be. We also witnessed how anger, when accumulated over the years, can hurt a relationship with long term effects.
Posted on: Wed, 03 Jul 2013 12:21:57 +0000
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