Guest blogger Jeff Garson from Radical Decency Group shares with us a very common example of a partner or spouse interaction. A husband and wife are about to leave for work and his wife, looking at a sink filled with breakfast dishes, says, “Why can’t you do the dishes?” His response: “Look, I have a really busy morning. I usually do them. Give me a break.”
What happens next?
A disagreement and argument.
Jeff asks “Is our approach to living – are our habits of thinking, doing or saying allowing us, in every interaction, to express our needs in constructive ways and, equally, to hear the needs of others?” Jeff, a therapist and attorney from Philadelphia states we are innately, empathic beings, however, we need some skills that will allow us to more easily and instinctively move toward some more empathetic choices in our interactions.
In this week’s post, Jeff helps us out with some new choices:
The formulation sounds simple. But as I have discovered in my work as a psychotherapist and coach, and in my own relationships, its application is frustratingly difficult. The reason? Because, when disagreements arise, we are culturally wired to lapse into the fight or flight ways of being, or the culture’s “compete and win, dominate and control” mindset that has so deeply engrained in our habitual ways of being in the world.
In this post, I work through one very common example of this phenomenon. A husband is about to leave for work and his wife, looking at a sink filled with breakfast dishes, says, “Why can’t you do the dishes?”
Even assuming a relatively restrained tone in the “music” of these communications, their fight/flight motivation is unmistakable. Both partners remember the past hurts and will mix it with what just happened, the dirty dishes. Now they are locked into judgment mode; a hallmark of fight or flight mindsets.
The wife, thinking her words were relatively neutral words, doesn’t realize they are words of judgment and attack: You didn’t do something – something you were supposed to do – and (by reasonable inference) something you all too frequently fail to do.
nAnd how does the husband respond? Equally focused on the past, he counterattacks. Instead of dealing with the merits of the issue – who should do the dishes and when – a response that would invite further dialogue – he seeks to disqualify his wife’s position: You are wrong on the facts AND emotionally out of line in even raising the issue (“give me a break”).
What very often happens next is – each person, being subtly attacked, feels disconnected and sore. But the interaction is, in their minds, too minor to be worthy of further discussion. Better to absorb the pain and head to work.
What could have happened is an honest, problem solving discussion; that is, mutual and authentic exchange. Instead, the couple chooses to get into it, and the far more typical outcome is a cycle of escalating attacks and counter-attacks.
Her: “You’re always have an excuse!”
Him: “You never stop complaining, get off my back!!”
And round and round it goes, until one or both of them goes cold and withdraws; that is, retreats into the flight part of fight or flight. They both go to work; mad.
When it comes to our romantic partner, most of us have some sense of how to charm and seduce; an unsurprising fact given the endless stream of books, movies, and ads that promote and teach these ways of interacting. And yet, at the same time, we have little guidance in the art of lovingly engaging with our partner at our points of sensitive difference – even though much of the hard work of relationship needs to be done in precisely these small moments.
So why does this strange dichotomy exist? Why do we, as a culture, neglect this vital relational skill even as we celebrate and promote romantic seduction? Because “charm and seduce” – a wonderful gift, when done with judgment and respect – is also entirely consistent with our culture’s predominant values. In this all too typical version, seduction is an effort, through a series of manipulative moves, to get our partner to feel and act in specific ways; ways that very much suit our purposes – but not necessarily theirs.
By contrast, a loving engagement with our partner in tense times is the antithesis of this competitive/manipulative mindset. For this reason, the predominant culture has an unacknowledged but powerful interest in minimizing this skill; an interest unerringly reflected in the marginal attention it receives in popular culture.
Thus, one of the key challenges, implicit in my approach to living is to learn to fight well, weaning ourselves from our current fight or flight ways, replacing them with more mutual and authentic ways of interacting.
What would that look like? Check out my next post next week.
Jeff Garson, a psycho -therapist and attorney, is the originator of Radical Decency and his weekly blog called Reflections.
You can contact Jeff at: wjgarson@thedecencygroup.com or the Decency Group, if you want to be added to the Reflections e-mailing list, at info@thedecencygroup.com.
The Reflections, published weekly by The Decency Group, explore the philosophy’s application in all areas of living — from the most private and personal to the most public and political. Earlier Reflections blogs are available at www.radcialdecency.com.
