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September 6 - September 14, 2022
“They choose happiness over righteousness.”
Practicing is necessary to accomplish anything worthwhile, and speaking up in a difficult relationship is no exception. We can start with small steps or easy issues. Then we can practice asking clear questions about the very subjects we most want to ignore. Next, we can define where we stand and address the differences.
Speaking to the differences is not the same as trying to convince or change the other person. It doesn’t imply that the other person is wrong and that truth is on our side, although we may be convinced that’s so. Instead, it requires us to clarify and refine our differences with as much respect for the other person’s different perspective as we can muster. This respect, and our willingness to listen, can be contagious.
we should stay focused on what we want to say about ourselves, rather than on eliciting a particular response from the other person.
If we’re needing (as opposed to hoping for) a particular response from the other person, that’s a good indication we’re not yet ready to broach a difficult conversation.
First, ask questions and listen. Second, speak to the differences.
you’ll need to think and plan. Find a clear-thinking friend to help you walk through the process, because it’s almost impossible to apply your best thinking to your own family.
There is more than one way to put a family member on the hot seat, and more than one way to use our voice with love.
Is there a sense of safety, ease, and comfort in the relationship that makes authenticity and self-disclosure possible? Does the person we love enlarge (rather than diminish) our sense of our self and our capacity to speak our own truths? Is the connection based on mutuality, including mutual respect, mutual empathy, mutual nurturance and caretaking? Are we able to voice our differences to bring conflict out in the open and resolve it?
Humans don’t tend to do well with differences. We learn to hate a difference, glorify a difference, exaggerate a difference, deny, minimize, or eradicate a difference.
Differences don’t just threaten and divide us. They also inform, enrich, and enliven us. Indeed, differences are the only way we learn. If our intimate relationships were composed only of people identical to ourselves, our personal growth would come to an abrupt halt.
Whether you’ve been part of a couple for four—or forty—years, you will still have to face the challenge of differences. Long-term relationships suffer when we don’t face differences with tolerance, humor, and respect. They also suffer if we become so tolerant of differences that we expect too little from the other person, or settle for unfair and compromising arrangements that erode our sense of self.
First, we need to clarify a bottom-line position and stand behind it. Second, we need to speak to the positive in the other person and the relationship and to warm things up.
We may start out clearheaded in the conversation, only to find our brain turning to mush when the other person ups the ante and puts us to the test—which will inevitably occur. And if it’s hard to say, “This is what I need to do for myself,” it’s all the more difficult to say, “This is what I expect from you,” and then, if we’re ignored, to decide what to say next and how to say it.
Moving forward in a couple relationship requires one thing above all else. We need to stop focusing on how impossible our partner is, and instead focus relentlessly on the clarity of our own voice—the conversations we have or avoid, the positions we take or fail to take, the places where we stand firm or cave in.
“Look, as I see it, your behavior is hurting our marriage. I can’t continue this way and still feel good about myself, or you and our life together.”
No one will listen or speak well if the overriding sentiment of the relationship is hostile, critical, or distant. Nor will you get anywhere taking a position about a hot issue if you’re coming from a place of angry reactivity, self-righteousness, or criticism. Instead, you need to be a model of the kind of behavior you want from your partner, not a critic. You need to treat your partner the way you’d like to feel about him, in order to evoke the positive feelings you’ve lost touch with.
If you can’t find much positive to speak to in the other person (whether it’s your mother or your partner), you’ve lost perspective.
The longer you’re with someone, the more vulnerable you are to selective attention. You automatically register and give voice to what bothers you, and you automatically fail to give praise and to voice your appreciation.
It’s easy to appreciate both perspectives. We do feel pain when we’re the target of constant criticism, just as we feel pain when our words fail to move our partner and our legitimate complaints are ignored. It’s easy for two people to reach an impasse where closeness, conversation, and collaboration have broken down.
When this happens, nothing will change until one partner makes an effort to calm down, or better yet, to warm things up.
she should make a 100 percent commitment to being the very best partner she can be. She should be the partner that she wants her spouse to be for her. She should also work on herself, including her relationships with her family of origin. If she’s still thinking about divorce after that, she probably should go ahead.”
Sometimes we have to deliberately refrain from excessive criticism and negativity and, instead, experiment with such virtues as kindness and generosity of spirit. We have to stop waiting for the other person to change first. If you’re feeling madder than hell right now, the thought of warming up the relationship may feel impossible. Actually, it’s not impossible. It’s just extremely difficult.
The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work,
HORSEMAN 1: CRITICISM A “criticism” is a personal attack that includes some negative words about your mate’s character or personality. For example, “Why do you keep putting your friends ahead of me? I always come last on your list. We were supposed to have dinner tonight.” This sort of criticism differs from a constructive complaint that addresses a specific action or behavior at which a spouse has failed. (“You were supposed to check with me before inviting anyone to dinner. I wanted to spend time alone with you tonight.”) To turn a constructive complaint into a corrosive criticism, Gottman
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HORSEMAN 2: CONTEMPT Contempt can be conveyed in many forms, including name-calling, sneering, eye-rolling, mockery, hostile humor, sarcasm, cynicism—any nasty or mean-spirited attempt to put the other person down. For example, she complains that he’s late for dinner, and he says, “What are you going to do, sue me?”
HORSEMAN 3: DEFENSIVENESS Defensiveness is a way of saying. “The problem isn’t me, it’s you.” We fail to really listen, to consider our part in a problem, and to apologize and change our behavior. When our partner complains, we argue, attack back, bring ...
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HORSEMAN 4: STONEWALLING Stonewalling occurs when one partner tunes out the other and disengages from the relationship. We turn away, sit there like an impassive stone wall, leave the room, or somehow communicate that we couldn’t care less what the other person says or does. We won’t let our partner’s words influence or affect us. Gottman states that peop...
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What is a repair attempt? Gottman uses the term to refer “to any statement or action—silly or otherwise—that prevents negativity from escalating out of control.”
Gottman also claims that if a couple can keep up a five-to-one ratio of positive to negative statements or interactions, then the four horsemen aren’t lethal.
We naturally become defensive when a family member begins to criticize us. We listen to refute or correct what is unfair or wrong in their comments. Sometimes we need to decide in advance that we will try to listen differently—that all we will do is listen and ask questions that will allow us to better understand where the other person is coming from. We can save our defense for a future conversation.
Not everyone can do this. It’s difficult to listen to someone’s pain when that someone is accusing us of causing it. We automatically listen for the inaccuracies, exaggerations, and distortions.
I’ve done things in the past that contributed to your problems. But I don’t take responsibility for the decisions you make as an adult.
Ten Do’s and Don’ts A woman’s magazine recently interviewed me on the subject of coping with criticism. I offered the following tips to remember when you’re on the receiving end: Listen attentively to the person who is criticizing you without planning your reply. Ask questions about whatever you don’t understand. Avoid getting defensive. Don’t listen in order to argue or refute. Instead, listen for the piece of criticism you can agree with, even if it’s embedded in exaggerations and inaccuracies. Apologize for that piece first. Never criticize a person who is criticizing you. There may be a
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many people can’t apologize even when—or especially when—they are culpable. They may desperately need to keep guilty feelings at bay, or to hold to a stance of innocence and goodness, to convince others and to reassure themselves. They may feel that admitting error and wrongdoing will open the floodgates and leave them vulnerable to bearing the pain and hearing the accusations of others till the end of time.
Children who are badly shamed, blamed, and criticized while growing up may have a difficult time apologizing as adults. Or, if the adults in our life didn’t apologize when we needed them to, we can find it hard to forge a new pattern for ourselves.
Some people are so hard on themselves for the mistakes they make that they don’t have the emotional room to apologize to others. “I feel badly enough about what I did, and I want to move on,”
cut right through the nonproductive “whodunit” or “who started it” mentality.
many folks have a harder time apologizing if they feel “overaccused” or pushed to assume more than their fair share of the blame.
the human capacity for self-deception is extraordinary, sometimes also adaptive and life-preserving when the facts are experienced as unmanageable. Whether the context is personal or political, all of us can create layers of defensiveness and denial when we have done harm. One tells oneself, “It wasn’t my fault,” or “I couldn’t help myself,” or “It was necessary,” or “It’s not that big a deal.” The more serious the harm, the deeper the levels of self-deception that come into play, and one tells oneself, “She really asked for it,” or “I didn’t do it,” and even “It never happened.”
For people to look squarely at their harmful actions and to become genuinely accountable, they must have a platform of self-worth to stand on. Only from the vantage point of higher ground can people who commit harm gain perspective. Only from there can they apologize.
To refuse to take on an identity defined by one’s worst deeds is a healthy act of resistance.
Even if you speak with love and respect—recognizing the wrongdoer’s full humanity beyond the bad deeds—he may still never hear you. So don’t speak because you need an apology or validation. Rather, speak to focus on what you want to say about yourself, for yourself. Longing for a genuine apology or an affirming response is totally understandable, but unrealistic when you enter a conversation with someone who has betrayed you. The only reason to speak is because you need to speak.
No individual will feel accountable and able to apologize—no matter how we communicate—if doing so threatens to define her in an unacceptable or intolerable way.
The other person’s willingness to own up to harmful deeds has nothing to do with how much she does or doesn’t love you. Rather, the capacity to take responsibility and feel remorse is related to how much self-love and self-respect that person has available to draw on.
Maybe you need to talk, but the other person needs not to. The more history you’ve shared and the higher your expectations for the relationship, the more painful is the silence.
This challenge is hardest if we feel silenced and shut out through no fault of our own, and if we feel the depressed or angry emotions that normally accompany a terrible rejection. Finding a voice requires us to consider how we will speak and act (or not) in a relationship, based on our core values and beliefs—not simply in reaction to the other person’s behavior or our own intense emotionality.
Painful events happen to all of us, and we can become attached to our pain. We also get attached to the idea that if we stay angry long enough, and keep thinking about it hard enough, the person who wronged us will realize how terribly they’ve treated us—which won’t ever happen, of course.
The fact that you’re the only one suffering may be the best argument for stepping back from a negative attachment.
But she did need to make Bob less of a force in her life. Her anger kept her attached to Bob, even though her conscious intention was to get over him. Negative intensity preserves our sense of togetherness with the other person as surely as does positive intensity. Mary’s anger was the glue that kept her stuck to Bob,
