When you’re a marriage therapist, you tend to hear the same things from struggling couples, over and over again.
The number one complaint I hear first when answering the phone is, “My partner and I can’t communicate,” followed by, “All we do is argue.” Have you ever asked yourself what the difference is between a productive and an unproductive conversation? Most people haven’t.
How to Share Negative Feelings or Criticism with your Partner (or Anyone)
If I asked you the difference between a productive and unproductive meeting at work, you’d know the answer immediately. We have all experienced unproductive meetings at work (more than we probably care to admit)!
A productive meeting starts with an agenda. What time are we meeting, for how long, where, and what are the topics to discuss? One way to filter meetings at work is to ask for the meeting agenda ahead of time. If the person calling the meeting doesn’t have one, you probably won’t be missing much. During those kinds of meetings, everyone talks, but without a note-taker to repeat back what happened and clarify action items and takeaways, not much will change moving forward.
Having a productive conversation with your spouse follows many of the same rules that you need for a productive meeting at work. Here are the steps to have a productive conversation with your partner to discuss a difficult situation without it devolving into an argument:
1. Safe Port
The first mistake a partner will make is to ambush their partner with a difficult conversation, catching them off guard. The second is holding everything inside until the straw breaks the camel’s back, resulting in everything pouring out of you in a word-vomit. In both of these scenarios, your partner will not be able to pick up all the pieces to reconstruct what the problem is from a half-processed emotional mess.
Safe porting is a strategy where you set an emotional container around the conversation. It is treating your partner with respect by asking them for time, then moving to an environment conducive to listening. For example, jumping your partner with a conversation when they are walking in the door from work is not going to work. Neither is trying to talk while you’re in different rooms or over your partner’s shoulder during bath time.
Here are some sample “scripts”:
“Honey, I have something important to discuss with you. Would tonight be a good time?”
“After we put the kids to bed tonight, could we pour a glass of wine and discuss something that is bothering me?
The first couple of times, you want to explain your entire agenda upfront. Your partner must know that they will have a chance to ask questions are respond once you have shared your feelings.
Think about it this way: when safely contained, uranium can power an entire city in a reactor, but it could kill you slowly if exposed without protection. If you are angry with your partner, your frustrations can be as dangerous as uncontained uranium. So, put it into a container where you can set your intentions with the conversation.
2. Set Goal or Intention of Conversation
Before starting a conversation with your partner, ask yourself the desired outcome. What do you want them to do during the meeting? How do you want them to show up?
Here are some examples of how you can set conversational goals:
“I fought with my boss at work, and I need you to listen to me so I can process my feelings.”
“I’m concerned about the behavior of the children, and I want to discuss our parenting style, rules, and discipline.”
“I did not enjoy my last visit with your family, and I want to share how I felt.”
“We have a lot of work to do in the house, so I want to prioritize the projects and set a budget.”
In each case, the trick to opening your partner is asking them, “Would it be ok if I shared this with you now?”
When they respond with a “yes,” you have a green light. Anytime they say “no,” you need to take a step back and ask, “Ok, when would be a good time?” This strategy fixes the safe porting. If a partner never wants to discuss a topic, no matter how cautiously it is address, that is called “Stonewalling,” and is a signal that professional help is needed.
3. Discuss Your Feelings About the Situation
With a container and intention in place, you and your partner are now ready to discuss the situation. Remember, feelings can be volatile. Do your best to own all your feelings and not project them on your partner. Saying, “I felt ignored at the family dinner,” is owning your emotions. Saying, “Your parents were rude to me,” is projecting and provocative. That approach will raise your partner’s defenses and close off their ears to your concerns before the conversation even gets started.
Be super clear about how you feel. For example:
“My boss criticized my work and made me what to cry. I need some emotional support from you in the form of a hug.”
When you feel that you’ve expressed everything you need to your partner, say, “That’s it; I am complete.” That way, they will know you have gotten everything out. If they try to interrupt before that point, remind them that you will listen to their reaction once you are finished.
4. Make the Ask
After sharing your feelings, make the ask of your partner for the action or behavior that you would like to change. For example:
“I would like to feel like we are a team at the next family event by you sitting next to me and defending me if I feel attacked by your parents.”
“I’d like to start looking for a different job.”
“I could use some emotional support and would like a hug, some words of appreciation, a date night, or a night off from cooking and childcare.”
One way to maximize success here is to communicate your ask in your partner’s love language.
5. Invite Questions
A conversation works both ways. By asking for your partner’s questions first, you can keep their ears open and focused on listening to you, rather than defending themselves or calculating their response.
Before the conversation, remind your partner that you want to answer their questions BEFORE listening to their response. Get all the questions upfront, or deal with them one at a time. There are a lot of ways to sabotage this process or get distracted, which is why I am breaking it down into so many small steps.
6. Genuinely Listen to Your Partner’s Reaction
After you’ve expressed your feelings, it’s your turn to listen to your partner’s reaction to what was shared. Give them the same non-judgment that you expected from them. This can be easier said than done.
When they start speaking, there are going to be all kinds of triggers that you will want to respond to, so you have to deal with them one at a time.
“But, you do this…” It is a common logical fallacy to point out when your partner has done the same thing or is hypocritical. But when you look at the reason you are saying this, it’s usually to nullify any accountability to change. Make a note of these things before instantly responding. Then, invite your partner to schedule a discussion with you over that or any other topic if it is that important to them.
7. Discuss Commitments to Change Moving Forward
After both of you have had your say, it’s time to take action.
Moving forward, ask yourself, what is one thing you agree to do differently to make this situation better?
One thing may not seem like much, but it’s an excellent start. Overwhelming your partner with five things will make sure nothing changes. One to three changes may be reasonable, but any more than that and your commitments will get watered down. Instead, choose one thing that you feel will make the biggest impact and create the most momentum. You can affect great change if you can distill everything down to a single action.
The more specific, measurable, and accountable the action, the more you will increase the power, intensity, and stickiness of the change.
8. Agree to Deadlines
When are you going to follow up on this discussion and evaluate the change you put into place?
Having a deadline also helps the containment. Are you going to experiment with something new for a week or two? Do you want to circle back on parenting of the kids in a month or next quarter?
Debriefing after making a change is the key to making a new habit that sticks. We will all go back to the previous default if anything goes wrong. It is important to see what worked and what could have gone better. That way, your commitments can flow into future commitments, keeping what works while losing what doesn’t.
9. Celebrate!
After dating for my wife for three months, I gave her a friendly ultimatum. Either you will learn to scuba dive, or you won’t be seeing me on the weekends! I moved from South Dakota to Florida to scuba dive, but after six months, I had yet to book a single dive. I finally stopped everything and committed to going. My wife signed up for classes, and it became a new adventure for us both.
A good scuba dive requires a good dive plan. Just like a flight plan for a pilot or a float plan for a boat, a good dive plan makes for the best dive. We would discuss who would lead the dive and navigate. The depth, bottom time, and how far we would swim around the wreck or down the reef. Finally, we would discuss how long we would take to ascend and how much gas we wanted to keep in reserve for our tanks.
The first time we did this, I took fifteen minutes to go through all the steps. After fifty dives together, it would only take minutes. By that time, we had dived so often that we could repeat the plans from memory. That said, not every dive goes as planned. We would have to adjust the dive while underwater, using three forms of communication that didn’t involve talking.
We would single each other with crude signals using very bright flashlights. A flashing light quickly gets attention. Hand signals solved the most common issues. When those both failed, we would get out waterproof paper and write it out. Writing it out was time-consuming, but the most effective for being understood when there was a significant deviation from the plan.
Looking back, I never would have guessed how scuba diving as a hobby was also an excellent tool from building critical marriage skills that would serve me for years to come.
If you want to learn communication skills that can help you have the hard conversations with your significant other, contact me today. The difference between a production and an unproductive conversation only boils down to a few simple steps. I can help both you and your partner learn these steps, so you can address your future relationship issues without fighting or feeling attacked!
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