How to Have That Difficult Conversation: Gaining the Skills for Honest and Meaningful Communication

by Henry Cloud

The person who has the problem in a relationship often isn’t taking responsibility for his problem.

Simply put, a boundary is your personal “property line.” It defines who you are, where you end, and where others begin. It refers to the truth, to reality, to what is. When you confront someone about a problem, you are setting a boundary. You can set a boundary with your words when you are honest and when you establish a consequence for another’s hurtful actions.

People without clear boundaries are unsure of their opinions, feelings, and beliefs. They find themselves easily controlled by the demands of others because they feel unsure of themselves when they need to take a stand.

where truth and love coexist as allies, not adversaries. Our connections

Losing the relationship:

Being the object of anger:

Being hurtful:

Being perceived as bad:

most important benefit of a good confrontation is that it preserves love in a relationship.

But confrontation was not designed to make someone angry or chase him or her away. In fact, it was designed to do the opposite.

“to turn your face toward, to look at frontally.”

you are turning toward the relationship and the person.

In confrontation, people simply face the relationship and deal with an aspect of the connection that needs to be addressed. The intent is to make the relationship better, to deepen the intimacy, an...

confrontation works best when it serves love.

Boundary

conversations are motivated and driven by love. They promote the purposes of love. They enhance...

How can confrontation preserve love? Basically by protecting the relationship from elements that would harm it. Love needs protection. It is like tending a garden. If you want your plants to survive and thrive, you need to do more than water and feed them. ...

In the same way, things like disconnection, defensiveness, control, immaturity, and selfishness have the power to infect an entire relationship and contaminate it. Unch...

“Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses” (Prov. 27:6).

The extent to which two people in a relationship can bring up and resolve issues is a critical marker of the soundness of the relationship.

Our hearts are to be open to each other. Where there is some unspoken, unaddressed, and unresolved area of conflict, our hearts can become closed.

Nothing is more miserable than to be in a relationship with someone, yet disconnected from her at the same time. It doesn’t feel right, because it isn’t right.

Within days, I saw this depressed, burdened, stoop-shouldered man begin standing taller, becoming more creative and energetic, and reaching out to others. The conversation helped him own and integrate his personal power.

Boundary conversations are geared toward addressing and resolving an issue that is keeping two people apart or is hurtful to someone.

Problems don’t tend to go away by themselves over time. They often get worse.

We change when the pain of remaining the same is greater than the pain of changing.

Confrontation can help solve a problem; avoiding confrontation can make a problem worse.

Part of the uniqueness of a boundary conversation is that it has a focus and an agenda. It is not generalized dissatisfaction with a person; rather, it points out some s...

“Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms” (1 Peter 4:10).

without caring confrontation, there is little real growth. When a relationship has love but no truth, it either keeps the people too comfortable or even makes them more immature.

when you are afraid to tell the truth to someone, you avoid or withdraw from them. The lack of real, face-to-face confrontation increases the distortions in your mind about the negative qualities of that person. The distortions grow when they are not modified and corrected by reality. You perceive that person as more dangerous, out of control, and powerful than he or she really is. It then becomes a vicious circle: You were afraid to confront anyway, and the more you avoid the talk, the scarier the person becomes, which increases your avoidance.

When people learn to confront the right way, reality comes back into the picture, and they see themselves and the other person in a much clearer light. They realize that they themselves are grownups with choices and freedom and that the other person is just another person. It takes the power out of the fear of the other person’s responses.

If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.

you will still know that you have done what you could and that you have not participated in that person’s self-destruction.

when you are present and connected to the other person, you are doing something very important for the relationship: You

are providing what you are requesting. You want the other person to be “there” with you. This is why you are confronting a problem in the first place; the issue has caused a rift in emotional presence.

As much as you are able, be warm and available to him.

Staying present means being “there” not only when you agree with each other, but also when you disagree, when there is tension, and when you are confronting.

Discomfort versus Injury

When you are aware of yourself, you have more choices and options available.

Often, a person who avoids clearly saying “I need” and “I want” has a problem with experiencing herself as a separate person, with her own set of values, desires, dreams, and feelings.

Saying “I want” and “I need” is a way of letting the other person know that he is important to you, that you do need him, and that you are aware he might see things differently.

Speak from your own experience, your own heart, and your own needs. This increases the likelihood that your side will be heard, because it has been clearly identified as your side. No one likes to be told who he is or what he should think.

Include not only the facts and realities about the problem, but also what it does to you and the relationship.

Avoid the mistake of stopping with the negative aspects of the problem. Doing that can make the person feel as though she just got dumped on, with no way to resolve the problem, or feel that there is no way to please you, that you are insatiably critical. Instead, let her know what you would like to see that would change the situation and solve the problem. This gives her hope, a structure, and a chance to do something to make the relationship better.

Grace is your being on the side of, or “for,” the other person as well as the relationship. Truth is the reality of whatever you need to say about the problem. This balancing combination is referred to as being neutralized.

Your intent is not to fix, straighten out, or punish. It is to provide enough amounts of truth and grace to reconcile and solve the problem.

“Before we get into the topic, I want you to know I really care about you and about us. I want us to be better, and I want us to be on the same team. I hope I can convey that to you even when we talk about the problem.”

Keep grace and truth integrated and woven together in your talk. As much as possible, avoid the tendency to have a “grace” part and then a “truth” part of the talk; otherwise, it could seem like two different, and even inconsistent, talks. When you are confronting, sprinkle in your care. When you are caring, sprinkle in the truth. For example, you might say, “While I want us to be close again, this problem is getting in the way, and I need to resolve it between us. I can’t dance around it or ignore it. But it’s hard, because I don’t want this talk to distance us even more.”

Work on developing whichever part of grace and truth you are weak on, so that you can stay neutralized in the boundary conversation.