How To Stop Your Family Life Becoming A Battle Ground
When I chose my marriage over separation, I knew that getting myself and Jimmy back on track was going to be a rocky road. We’d been wallowing in resentment, unspoken anger and lonely sadness to varying extents, on and off, for five years. Fixing that wasn’t going to be easy. What I didn’t anticipate - probably because you get so pre-occupied with your relationship with your partner and the things that are wrong - is how we’d also have to simultaneously work on our relationships with our kids.
They’d seen us fight. They’s heard us shout and scream. They’d seen us cry and they’d sure as hell existed amidst awkward silences and clipped, one word answers, ricocheting around the house like emotional bullets. There’d been no violence or extreme behaviour but, just like the little things had grown and grown between Jimmy and I, so too had the little snipes, fights, arguments hovered never quite disappearing.
When the Good Things Foundation got in touch to talk about their See It Differently campaign, I was shocked. Not because they’d come to me - I bang on a lot about my relationships and having kids, so that made perfect sense. No, I was shocked that a social change charity funded by the Department of Work and Pensions had created a campaign dedicated to the daily conflicts that every family to a greater or lesser extent deal with. This wasn’t a campaign about domestic violence or any of those big, terrifying, scary situations that are so real and so important but also (fortunately) not relevant to everyone. This was a campaign about the small and seemingly innocuous issues that many people don’t even challenge but accept as part of having a relationship, part of marriage. What we learned, thankfully not too late, was that those constant, conflicts were way more toxic and damaging than we realised, not just to us, but to our kids as well.
The See It Differently campaign is four videos each representing a different, every day conflict that we all find ourselves in at some point. I don’t know whether it’s because we’re so comfortable or complacent with our partner but I found that I would be my worst self with him. If I was dealing with conflict with a friend or another relative, I didn’t behave in the same way, but with my husband? Man, I could be a piece of work. What these videos suggest is that maybe we can make different choices in the heat of the moment. That perhaps, instead of focussing on all the things you see them doing wrong, focus on the one thing you can actually do anything about which is how you act and react.
Lord knows that’s not easy. It takes practice and you’ll get it wrong at times, but if these videos get you thinking about what you can do within conflict, especially when your kids are around, then that’s a great thing.
Watch the videos as part of the See It Differently campaign now.
This blog is part of a paid partnership with Good Things Foundation, a social change charity funded by The Deparment for Work & Pensions.