Compromise vs. Consensus

Every family at some point has important decisions they need to make. There are big questions that need to be answered such as where you’re going to live, how many kids you’ll have, how you’ll raise them, how you’ll maintain a budget, will both of you work or will one stay home and rear the kids and many more. There are also questions that can be unique to a specific family for example, I know a family who faced a really difficult decision, and keep in my mind that it doesn’t just have to be decisions made between husband and wife, extended family can be involved as well, in which the mother of the parents was very old and had Alzheimer’s. What should they do about her, which of the children she had should she live with or should they put her in a home? A decision that big can result in some tender or bitter feelings. What about another scenario in which a relative is in critical condition and on life support, there doesn’t seem to be any chance of them making it, what do you do? Those are obviously extreme scenarios, but maybe you in your family have some very important decision that is unique to your family that you feel is really challenging. Maybe you haven’t come up with a solution and are still trying to figure out a way to make it work. I hope to provide some principles that will help coming up with solutions easier. My goal is to highlight the difference between compromise and consensus.

Now there are a number of families I have seen that compromise on most, if not all, major issues. When it comes to compromise, you usually come together with two different opinions or ideas, or two different ways of thinking, they don’t always have to be disagreeing. From what I understand about compromise, you come up with an agreement in which both or all parties sacrifices something to come to a decision. What usually ends up happening in someone ends up sacrificing more than another which can result in someone feeling they were treated unfairly. Let’s say a couple was deciding on where to move, one wanted to live in California, the other in let’s say the other wants to live in Utah. It then becomes either one person gets their way or no one at all in the event they say, “Well let’s meet in the middle and move to Nevada.” Marriage just can’t be about winning and losing battles. Compromising may work for smaller decisions, but it isn’t a good recipe for all your decision making, especially those extreme scenarios I mentioned in the first paragraph.

Many families may feel that compromising is the best they can do, but coming to a consensus is very possible as well as ideal for any family. When you come to a consensus, yes you may have to sacrifice, you may even have to sacrifice something you feel very strongly about, but you ultimately do what is best for the unit as a whole. It’s not a matter of being right, it is a matter of what is right, not just for one, but for all. It is my personal belief that every family should come together and counsel when there are important decisions to be made. I caution against inviting collusion into your family by recruiting allies for your ideas or against someone else’s ideas. Families should pray together before and after having these counsels and if you don’t pray, invite peace and love into your counsels by expressing affection towards each other before so it is easier to not simply focus on yourself and your own wants. It’s important to also involve your children in the decision making so that they learn. Of course they don’t get the final say, but it’s crucial that they’re included because they are also a part of the family and your decisions affect them too. Ultimately, it can be a much more powerful experience when you’re able to reach a mutual agreement as a family. There is just this understanding when everyone has the family’s best interest in mind. It’s a lot easier said than done, but it can be done.