When one is working on a long term relationship there are always those moments of tension and conflict. We all have the ability to find ways to hurt each other, but often this is especially harmful when it is from your partner and best friend. We all will need to say things that at times will require a courageous conversation with our partner. This gets even more difficult when one person in the relationship is conflict avoidant. Avoiding conflict will have the reverse effect ultimately because the tension builds and finally the resentment sets in as a barrier in the relationship. This interaction pattern will over time chip away at the friendship and eventually become a major point of frustration and disappointment. Your partner will not read your thoughts, so at some point a courageous conversation will need to occur. I wanted to pass along some tips that might make this conversation easier and more productive. The first step is to calm yourself by knowing what you want to say and you have spent the time thinking about how what you are going to say will be heard. Remember to stay focused on a single issue; this is not the time to go over your whole list of complaints. We all have trigger words that when spoken to us will guarantee a defensive response. What are those words for you and what are those words for your partner? Timing and delivery are everything! A conversation like this especially if it is your first attempt is not a late night topic! These sorts of conversations are best left to the weekends when both of you will have time to talk when you are rested and not distracted. If you are especially concerned about how the conversation may go; say it at the beginning. It could be something like this, “I am having a hard time talking to you about this because I think it could turn into an argument and that is not my intention.” You are letting your partner know that you don’t want to argue about the issue only discuss it so an agreement can be reached.
You should expect your partner to be defensive, perhaps even feeling that they are being blamed or victimized. These are natural defenses that we all use from time to time. The most common defense to a courageous conversation will be one of self justification. Remember we all have a perfect capability to justify whatever we have said or done at any given time. This stage of the conversation is where you need to stay focused on the single issue and not be carried away with the moment and get into a blaming session that will end without a result. The best results will be if both of you feel listened to and heard. Some issues won’t ever be completely resolved which I will talk about in later blogs and that is to be expected so not to worry. What you would like to see as the end result is a strengthening of the relationship and a deepening of the partnership. In order to achieve that result both people need to feel a sense of recognition and then to come to an agreement. The agreements are the result of both people feeling that they have won something in the interaction. These types of agreements will last because neither person feels resentful of the outcome nor it is an agreement that has been made with regret or anger. The best agreements are the ones that you both can support at the end of the day. I think it is helpful to write down the agreement that you have made because in two weeks neither of you will remember exactly what you have agreed to do. The one ongoing issue that will be difficult for most couples is that usually one partner wishes to have more influence over the other. This is one of those issues that usually don’t ever get fully resolved. Influence and power can be difficult issues for any partnership to manage. We can talk more about these two components of a long term relationship in our next entry as we all need to arrive at an agreement about influence and power in any relationship that we are engaged in everyday.
-JERRY
