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Hello everyone, Neil here.
To make things more interesting, and to see how this first week’s lessons can be applied, let us consider a hypothetical case and see how we can analyse the situation using what we have learned.
Linda wrote recently:
“I have spent a lot of time yelling at my husband, trying to make him understand what I want. Crying, shouting and in general, all my strategies aimed at getting what I want from him have failed me. The more I demand, the less I get from him…”
In Chapter One of this week’s PDF, “How To Understand And Frame Your Conflicts,” we learned that “we need to learn other ways to manage conflict in such a way that we can come out of it enriched, with a sense of satisfaction and an experience of relationship strengthening. In short, we need to learn how to fight in a fair way, showing the partner that we have needs to solve, but also that we care for the relationship.”
Using that information, we can re-frame this interaction as:
1. She is looking for mutual nurturance and reciprocal confirmation that she is accepted and loved.
2. He fails to understand the need for confirmation that is beneath her communication strategies.
3. Both parties have a communication failure because neither realizes that a negative relationship environment means communication needs to change. Instead, he continues to deny her, when she obviously has an emotional need; she continues to demand satisfaction in the same way, although she has been given no reason to think it will garner a reaction.
Remember the PDF: “At times, out of fear and resistance, we decide that, no matter what, we will stick to the old rules of engagement. We’ll continue to think and see things in the same way, because they fit within the limits of our comfort zone.”
Here is a question for you:
In a range of 1 to 10, how good are her chances that will make him understand what she wants if she continues using this same communication style?
What she should try instead? Framing the conflict by starting small and constructive.
From the PDF:
“Dear, we both know how much we love each other, but now, precisely, I need to hear that again. My day at work has been especially rough. Can you stop whatever you are doing and give a big hug to this partner of yours, even if she doesn’t deserve it? It will be doubly appreciated because it is totally undeserved, but badly needed.”
She needs to frame the conflict as a mode of communication and growth, not an opportunity to attack the relationship or win a battle.
Remember, conflict is constructive when it:
Results in clarification of important problems and issues
Results in solutions to individual or common problems
Brings people together in resolving important issues
Creates authentic communication
Aids in working through emotion, anxiety, and stress
Builds cooperation between couples as they learn more about each other and their reciprocal limits
Helps individuals develop interpersonal skills while gaining a better understanding of other’s positions, interests, and needs.
Provides recognition of each other’s humanity.That’s it for now. Thank you for reading!
Neil
Please leave your comments below:
After reading this, I am realizing more that the way we feel we enter a conflict also affects how we treat the other person. I’ve been fighting more than usual with my spouse when I come home from work (timely little example you used!). I think maybe because I don’t have my own emotions of the stressful day sorted out yet, I can’t “frame” my conversation properly, as you say. So I end up saying something rude or snapping at him instead of separating my anger (at work) from my need for a hug (at home). All the wrong things get all mixed up in the blender, and it tastes bad when it served up! I’m going to try a little harder to be clear with my husband about the kind of support and conversation I’m looking for when I come home…
Jocelyn, One of the things that I personally need when I arrive home, is to have some quiet time for my self. But this often conflicts with my wife’s need to talk about all the things she worries about.
As a consequence we use to have arguments, almost every day.
Now we have a kind of routine, when I arrive home we go for a walk, that gives us some time to decompress and talk about our days, but in a less stressed way. May be it’s the fresh air or the exercise, or that we do something together, but this works for us.I can relate to the banging your head against a wall style of communication – the same approach over and over that never gets my need to heard and appreciated met. I appreciate the reframing, somehow our communication has become more about “attack(ing) the relationship or win a battle” instead of being a positive opportunity for growth and loving interaction. I started out my month by taking your challenge Neal to not criticize or say negative things to him. I have been really trying to see only the good in him and say a few nice loving things everyday. I cannot believe the difference it has made in my marriage and in my heart! I feel myself opening up again and so it he. thanks!
I used to have conflicts like the one above but do not any more since I realized that my partner got satisfaction from my reactions, it was like a form of control when he could get me that stirred up about things. Not any more I choose my conflicts very carefully now and they are worked on slowly and over time, as in if he thinks it was his idea to resolve some thing then it gets resolved. I am trying hard to keep my negative comments to my self this week and even the ones that are veiled as humour. its better for both of us if I do this.
Well, Donna, looks like you are finding your way managing a risky situations, where mostly you are in the losing end…How hurtful can it be when you discover that your distress is what your partner is trying to produce? I can’t accept that attitude because it goes again the marriage deal: I’ll support you and you will support me.
On the other hand, sometimes I reflect that so many children got a lousy childhood that they carry serious wounds with them; getting to grow up, they have to marry someone and I bet that then, the hope of healing those wounds reappear. And is acted against the other side, who can be thinking that is dealing “only” with another grown up….We should tell people in the verge of marriage to disclose pathological wounds from their childhood, list the needs that got unsolved or worst, ridiculed and denied, and prepare a plan to clean that baggage before seriously dealing with the present relationship.
Oh, well, I’m always imagining better solutions…I so agree, its a shame that its not until you get into these relationships that you learn about these personnality disorders. If the person is in denial though they arnt going to disclose any thing. I told my partner about the issues I have and have worked on/continue to work on and all that did was gave him some thing to be able to blame for what goes on with us. I say study the family dynamics before you get to deep into the relationship and understand what your seeing because there is a lot to be learned about your partner from how he relates to his mother/father. A relationship school would be great to go to after high school, then you could learn about future partners/bossess/co workers etc.
Very nice teaching. It works for me for a little bit. He talks to me a bit, then gets sarcastic and cuts communication. He encloses himself in the off. room the whole day and comes out when needs something or to “give me orders”. He is a little nicer when needs sex, or when he feels I am leaving for good. I feel trapped.
I am planning to leave him again, but if he gets a bit nice I stay, I know it is bad .Hi, I’m reading your post and what comes through is your deep need for a bit of recognition from him…he knows that, by being only a bit “nicer” you get hooked and yield to his needs. Works like putting a carrot in front of a starved beast….
Here is where you feel trapped, not so much by his enticement, but by the strong pull of your needs.
What if we could determine that his “carrot” is not enough for you? that he is only giving you a little bit of what you are entitled to? perhaps it could change your perception and then, you could say to yourself:
“I deserve much more than this carrot, so I will not accept it, because I know that this carrot is the only piece of attention he will give me….accepting it will leave me more starved afterwards, so by refusing this bit now, I’m telling myself I need to search and find the whole appreciation that would make me happy”
What are your other sources of appreciation? have you read the paper on his/her needs already?
Please, do this reading, write your conclusions, and post here back, will you?
Sending you love,
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