How we have difficult conversations
A reflection on how to handle difficult conversations in romantic relationships, informed by my experience and the research of John Gottman and Julie Schwartz Gottman.
I am in a wonderful relationship and my partner and I are gradually creating a life together, including working towards living together. While we have many similarities, shared values and interests, my partner and I are not completely aligned on everything. No couple is.
A couple is made up of two people and every person is unique, so there will be differences within any couple. That’s an unavoidable reality. So, what matters is how we navigate those differences. What do we do when our values, opinions and ways of doing things differ?
The answer is that we talk about them, we communicate, we have what can be difficult conversations. We’d been doing this already when I picked up Fight Right: How Successful Couples Turn Conflict into Connection by Dr Julie Schwartz Gottman and Dr John Gottman. This book gives lots of great advice on how to navigate difficult conversations well – how to ‘fight right’. As I’m not a big fan of the word fight, I’m going to use the term difficult conversations instead throughout this post.
Happily, a lot of the advice in Fight Right resonated with how my partner and I were approaching difficult conversations and the lessons we were learning by trial and error. I’ve been reflecting over the last week or two on some of the core lessons from the book which resonated and those gleaned from experience. This post summarises my reflections.
(In case anyone’s wondering, he read this before publication!)
Understanding each other’s conflict styles
One of the first things Fight Right looks at is three common conflict styles: avoiders, validators and volatiles. It also touches on two other dynamics: hostile and hostile-detached. Knowing where both parties in a couple sit in terms of conflict style can be a really helpful starting place. Some couples will share a conflict style, others will have different styles and both dynamics can work. You can read more about these conflict styles online (https://www.gottman.com/blog/the-5-couple-types/).
Interestingly for my partner and I, while we had quite different childhood experiences, they led both of us to be validators. We both really value having difficult conversations. We don’t enjoy conflict and can get stressed out when there are big emotions in the mix, but we want to understand each other’s point of view and find ways to navigate our differences that work for both of us. I’ve found having an understanding of our shared conflict style to be a good foundational piece in how we approach our lives together.
Raising issues constructively
According to Fight Right, the first three minute of a difficult conversation can set the tone for the rest of it. So, starting off on the right foot is super important. I know when I have wrongfooted my partner with the way I’ve raised an issue, it’s taken up far more of our time and energy to work through and process this than it otherwise would have and it hasn’t felt good for anyone involved.
A good rule of thumb when raising an issue, something I’m really trying to embed as a habit, is to start with an ‘I’ statement rather than a ‘you’ statement. For example, starting with something like ‘I feel x about what you said,’ instead of ‘Did you just say x? That’s so y’ which makes the other person immediately defensive. The ‘I’ statement can then be followed by a suggestion: ‘In future, I would appreciate you doing y.’ This gives our partner somewhere to go.
Making use of shared reference points
We are not always going to raise issues as constructively as we’d like to. All sorts of things can contribute to this: time pressures, external stressors, tiredness to name a few. If this happens, and it absolutely does, that’s okay. It’s what we do with these experiences that matters, which is what this point and the next are about.
The first thing I want to say about conversations that didn’t go to plan is that we can turn these into shared reference points. My partner and I have named some of ours, all something-gate, a la Watergate, just to add some humour, and they’ve become a shorthand we use if it feels like a conversation is veering off track.
‘This is feeling a bit like ice cream-gate’ is a more powerful intervention than simply saying it feels like the conversation is getting off track, because it reminds us immediately of the impact the conversation going south could have and the shared commitment we’ve made to trying not to fall into that trap again.
Processing and learning from the times we don’t get it right
In addition to becoming shared reference points, the other use of the ice cream-gates of our world is that they are a chance to learn and grow. After any conversation that hasn’t gone quite how we’d hoped or expected, we’ve spent time talking it over: how we felt, how we perceived the conversation, what it triggered in us, where we know we personally went wrong and how we can do better next time.
Processing and learning together is how we came up with the shared reference point thing. It also helped us to identify what is often beneath the surface when a conversation takes a turn. For example, my partner now knows that I can get quite stressed by any scenario where I feel like my time and therefore my energy are being wasted, given I live with a disability/chronic illness that impacts my energy levels. Similarly, I am learning what’s often beneath the surface for him.
Listening deeply
The authors of Fight Right talk about how any difficult conversation is a chance to understand our partner more deeply. So, if a partner raises an issue, we should see this as an opportunity to build understanding. My partner and I have had several difficult conversations where the result has been feeling closer and better understanding where the other is coming from. For me, the idea that difficult conversations can be connecting and worthwhile has been well and truly proven. I have a couple of things I want to say on this which I’ll address in this and the next point.
Firstly, a big part of getting the result of feeling closer and better understanding the other person through a difficult conversation is our ability to listen closely, ask clarifying questions, check what we’re hearing (‘So, what I’m hearing is that you feel really uncomfortable about y. Is that right?’) and empathise (‘I can see how much this is impacting you.’) This allows our partner to share more fully and vulnerably.
These listening skills are not just applicable in our romantic relationships. They’re the same skills I use with family, friends and colleagues and which have been emphasised in mental health first aid and other communication-focused training. Honing these skills is an investment in every aspect of our lives.
Not jumping to solutions
The other thing I want to say on making our difficult conversations a chance to get to know each other more deeply is that we need to spend time exploring the issues at play rather than rushing straight to solutions. This is another skill which applies not just to our romantic relationships, so again it’s well worth honing.
As humans, we’re pretty much wired to look for solutions when confronted with an issue. This urge will be particularly strong if that issue is causing the partner we love emotional distress. Staying with the issues and exploring them fully is not comfortable. But if we rush to the solutions part, the result may in fact be ongoing emotional distress because we haven’t explored the underlying issues and our partner hasn’t felt heard.
We need to get comfortable sitting with the distress and exploring it gently but with intent. If you find you’re wanting to jump to solutions, you can acknowledge that aloud. Lean into those open questions as much as you can.
Assuming best intent
For some reason, I seem to have very high expectations about the behaviour and speech of people closest to me. I can accept all sorts from colleagues, acquaintances and more distant relatives; I allow them to be human. But I have an unfortunate tendency to jump on the people I love the most for small errors (sorry to those who I’ve done this to – I love you). Jumping on them could otherwise be described as NOT raising issues constructively. It’s not helpful.
Assuming this is not just a me thing, I thought I’d include in this post a reminder to assume the best intent in those we love. It’s completely illogical to assume the worst of people who we know well and who have our best interests at heart. We have to allow our loved ones the grace to make mistakes. They’re imperfect humans just like us and they will sometimes err.
Injecting the positive
The authors of Fight Right talk about their relationship research which showed that in conflict, we need five positive interactions for every one negative interaction to keep things on the right track. When the two people in the relationship can be anxious souls, which is how I’d describe my partner and me, you probably need even more positive just to keep the other person calm and reassured.
Injecting the positive can be as simple as a smile, a hug, including a term of endearment in what you’re saying or injecting some humour with a joke (which is the purpose our Watergate-style reference points serve). They may feel simple or small, but these actions can play an important part in keeping a difficult conversation collaborative rather than combative.
Something else we’ve personally found incredibly helpful when one of us is feeling particularly anxious in a conversation is to remind each other that the relationship is solid and the conversation occurring within the safety of the relationship. This helps to assuage any rejection anxiety or sensitivity which is prompted by being vulnerable and showing our messier parts.
Having flexibility and accepting influence
We don’t get anywhere in a difficult conversation if we’re unwilling to budge at all from our position. We need to be willing to accept our partner’s influence to some extent. To do that, we have to understand where our boundaries are, what is and isn’t negotiable for us, and then put some of our areas of flexibility on the table. If we don’t do this, collaboration becomes impossible.
As an example, let’s look at how my partner and I grocery shop. My partner’s driver is value, mine is a combination of value and values (minimising waste, supporting local etc). As a result, this is a space where we’ve been challenged to be flexible and accept each other’s influence: I’ve recognised that sometimes it is okay to buy a bag of pre-packaged bag of onions when they’re half the price of the loose ones; my partner has taste-tested carrots from the big supermarket alongside carrots I bought at the local store and acknowledged the latter are superior in flavour. In this way, we’ve shown each other that we acknowledge the logic of the other person’s way of doing things and are willing to make changes to our behaviour as a result.
I hope you’ve found these reflections interesting and potentially helpful. I do not claim to be any sort of expert, I’m just learning by doing and reading resources like Fight Right to supplement my experience with the evidence.
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Thanks for being here!
Let’s make the best of it,
Emma