Collaborating and Compromising in Conflict

A verbal conflict that I was a part of occurred recently between my husband and I. The conflict arose as a part of our business discussion. We are still in the process of merging our business with our friend’s business. There are accounts on both sides that still need to be closed out and merged into one account. While this is happening, things get crossed. I am just short of being considered the accountant. I handle all financial matters for our business.

The conflict occurred because payments were clearing the accounts that are in the process of closing that I was unaware of. This of course meant that I had to shift money between accounts to prevent anything from causing an overdraft on any of the accounts. I transferred money without mentioning it to my husband or his partner. I saw an issue and I handled it. My husband, unaware of my transfer, made a purchase on the new business account. When the accounts no longer balanced according to my husband’s information, he turned to me, frustrated because it was incorrect.

This conflict was really very short and simple. I explained the problem and that we still needed to close out the extra accounts, but I do not have the authority to do this without my husband and our business partner present. I also need a little extra help balancing my responsibilities. My husband and I collaborated and developed a new method of accounting for money in the accounts and how to better communicate financial information between 3 individual parties with very different schedules (I am rarely in the office when our partner is there). My husband and Larry (our business partner) work second jobs at the same place on the same shift. By collaborating, we realized the best way to communicate this information would be if I simply passed the book I keep account of our finances in to my husband for him and Larry to review when they are at work together. We also decided that I really do need help in balancing my responsibilities, so we decided to have one of our employees move into more of an assistant’s role for me. Hopefully, by our collaborating and coming up with new ways to accomplish these tasks, we will avoid future miscommunication and conflict in these areas.

My husband and I have a very good, strong relationship and we communicate well already, so conflict rarely escalates between us. We tend to either compromise or collaborate early on to resolve issues quickly and as they arise. These things, I think, make our marriage happier and our business roles easier. I have so many friends who say “how can you work with your husband and live with him?” However, this doesn’t harm either relationship and I credit that, in large part, to our communication styles with each other.