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iQuestions Faculty, Dr. John Trent 
 
 
Question: 
 
How do I deal with conflict before it reaches an unhealthy level? 
 
Answer: 
 
Because you’ve clicked on this question, I’m convinced you’re serious 
about doing something about this. If conflict is escalating in your 
home, you want to try to pull that down and stop that before it 
reaches unhealthy levels.  
 
How do you do that?  
 
Let me give you one thing that can be very helpful that I’ve done, and 
my wife and I have used this for years, and I’ve taught it to couples. 
Let me teach it to you right now. 
 
Usually when I sit down with a couple I draw three boxes. On the 
bottom box I’ll write the word “issue.”  
 
Who doesn’t have issues? My wife and I have tons of issues. We don’t 
discipline kids the same way. I’m more of a spender; she’s more of a 
saver. I’m a night person; she’s a morning person. So there’s lots of 
issues, but pick any one.  
 
Let’s say, in our case, it’s save/spend. That’s an issue, right? If you’re 
not careful you can move up to level two—and that’s when you begin 
to attack the other person.  
 
So let’s say it’s save/spend, that’s our issue. Now we move up to level 
two, and we start attacking the person. That’s when we start saying 
 
 
things like “why are you being such a skinflint?” “Why don’t you be a 
better steward with our money?” Now we’re attacking each other, and 
we’ve gotten off of the issue.  
 
Guess who comes into my office? People who have moved up to level 
three.  
 
See, level three is the word “relationship.” That is, in other words, “If 
these are the kinds of issues we have, and you’re this kind of person, 
then what in the world am I doing in this relationship?”  
 
If you begin saying that to yourself long enough, either verbally or at 
least in your mind, then all of the sudden every level one issue—
squeezing the toothpaste tube, for example—becomes grounds for 
walking right out of the relationship.  
 
The key is to keep issues at the issue level. Whenever we’d get up to 
level two, my wife and I had an agreement that we’d say, “You know 
what, Sweetheart? We’re at level two.”  
 
And instantly without having to go into details, we know we’re not 
dealing with issues. We’re attacking the person.  
 
We don’t want to go there, because from there it moves up to level 
three, and even worse things from beyond that. So keep that in mind.  
 
One good de-escalation tool is to make the commitment to keep issues 
at the issue level.  
Trent -2- 
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