Solvable, Perpetual... Does it Really Matter?

In Dr. John Gottman’s book The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, Dr. Gottman brings up that even though couples fight about a wide range of things, all marital arguments will fall into one of two categories. The two categories are solvable and perpetual. This seems pretty obvious when you take the time to think about what your normal marital disputes are about, they can either be solved or they can’t. That’s it. Those are the only choices. Some conflicts might take a little longer to solve, but if the right kind of communication exists in your marriage, then it should be easier to solve the solvable ones without making any big waves in your marriage.

He also mentions that 69% of marital conflicts fit under the category of a perpetual problem. This means that the majority of our issues in our marriage will be unresolvable. No wonder there is such a high divorce rate, right? Wrong! Even though the majority of our problems will be with us for the long run, if we can learn to effectively communicate we can keep these issues at bay. A couple of the suggestions Dr. Gottman offered were to keep a sense of humor about these topics and to solve the solvable problems. By keeping a sense of humor we help to diffuse the tension when these topics get brought up from time to time. And when we figure out what our solvable problems are and fix those, then we aren’t burdened with the stress of things that are seemingly unimportant.

If you’re having a hard time telling the difference between your solvable and perpetual problems, I would really recommend looking into chapter 8 of this book where he offers some great examples to help us all better understand the difference. He also shared the following to help us decide:

“If you and your spouse are entrenched in conflict, it may not be obvious which of the two types of disagreement you’re having- gridlock or solvable. One way to identify solvable problems is that they seem less painful, gut-wrenching, or intense than perpetual, gridlock ones. That’s because when you argue over solvable problems, your focus is only on one particular dilemma or situation. There is no underlying conflict that’s fueling your dispute.”

I think this is very helpful information. It’s easy to define which kind of argument when it’s broken down in this regard. One of the conflicts my husband and I have frequently is that of how to discipline our children. I feel that we will continue to have this debate until our children are no longer living in the house. I feel that we need to give immediate punishment and not just verbally rebuke them for the wrong doing. Often times this causes an issue because I would like him to put one of our sons in time out and he feels that a simple, “No! No!” will suffice. It’s frustrating at times, but we are getting better at learning to deal with this being a perpetual conflict for us.