Mastering the art of communication can be difficult and time consuming. Our clinician shares the top 3 reasons your conversations become a conflict.
When working with couples, probably the number one complaint I hear is, “we just need help communicating”. It makes sense. It can be extremely frustrating when one (or both) partners don’t feel like they are being heard. So, how do you bring up something you would like to see changed in your relationship without meeting defensiveness? While mastering the art of communication can be difficult and time consuming, here are 3 reasons your conversations become a conflict.
You don’t know what you are talking about: Imagine that you would like to talk to your partner about your “finances”. You approach your partner and schedule a time to sit down and discuss “finances”. You meet at the kitchen table at the selected time, prepared to discuss your 5-year plan for how you are going to pay for your child’s college. Now imagine your partner. They were approached with the idea to sit down and discuss “finances”. They meet at the kitchen table at the selected time and are fully prepared to discuss the extra money spent this month on birthday gifts and how they had to dip into savings. These two people have no idea what they are talking about. While approaching a partner and scheduling a time to discuss important matters can lead to a more effective conversation (both people being prepared for a conversation helps combat defensiveness), they needed to be more clear on what the conversation would be about. For the first partner, “finances” means a long-term plan for the future. For the second, “finances” is a discussion about past spending and immediate consequences the pair is facing. These two people are not talking about the same thing which is setting the conversation up for failure and conflict. A more specific request is key. “Hey, can we sit down and talk about what needs to happen financially in the next 5-years for us to afford to pay for college”.
You don’t know who you are talking to: We all wear different hats in life and you approach problem-solving and decision-making differently based on which hat you are wearing at the time the problem arises. A conversation can easily become a conflict if you think you are talking to a compassionate listener, but end up talking to the CEO of a major business programmed to solve the problems that arise on a daily basis. Sometimes knowing who you are talking to is easier if the partner requesting the conversation asks for who they want to talk to. Do you want someone to simply listen without attempting to solve your problem? Do you want a problem-solver? Do you want a co-parent? Do you want a friend? Do you want a teacher? If you can identify what type of person you want to talk about this problem with, you can set your partner up for success. “Hey, I really need to vent about what happened today. Can I just talk to you as a listener to get this off my chest?”
You don’t know why you are talking: How will you know your conversation is over? What is the goal you want to get out of the conversation. Sometimes it helps to work a conversation backwards and look at the end first. If this conversation is successful, at the end of it will you have a 5-year budget and a college savings account? Will you have a week selected for you to go visit your mother without the kids? Will you take a deep breath because you were able to unload about the situation you had with your boss? Start with thinking about why you are having the conversation. Once you figure out what you’d like the end result to be, often the “who” and the “what” will be easy to identify.
When something is important to us, it can be extremely frustrating to have a conversation turn into a conflict. Often it is not intentional, the two participants simply are not on the same page when it comes to what they are talking about, who they are talking to, and why they are talking in the first place. Next time you want to bring something up with your partner to explore these questions before saying, “Can I talk to you for a minute?”.
Photo credit: Christina on Unsplash
Your partner in restoring inner peace,
Tracy Weathers
Supervisee in Social Work