Relationship Basics – Starting Conversations
Relationship Basics – Starting Conversations
How do you start a conversation with a partner or friend when you have a concern or issue to raise? A common pattern we often fall into is opening with something like “You did this, which I’m unhappy about” or “You never do this, and it makes me angry”. Of course the natural response to an opener like this is to become defensive and/or upset, with the fight/flight instinct often kicking in and resulting in the other person ‘fighting back’ or wanting to escape. Conversations starting in this way quickly go downhill and most often don’t recover, leading to escalated arguments or coldness and distance between us. Some simple adjustments to how we start these discussions can create very powerful differences in how they unfold.
An alternative, and more assertive, way of opening these types of conversations is to utilise ‘I’ statements – “I have a concern about what happened the other day” or “I feel upset about how chores never gets done”. These types of statements are more about our own feelings and perceptions rather than attacking or blaming the other person, which leads to less defensiveness or upset for them. Sure, there will still be some level of emotional response as we are still raising some type of concern or grievance, however the emotional level of this is usually reduced.
We can then take this further by taking some time to acknowledge these emotional responses of the other person non-judgementally through active listening – “I can hear that you see this very differently to me” or “I can see that you feel quite upset about what I just said” – in order to help them feel heard and understood as much as we want to feel the same. Spending a little time in this way can lead to less escalated emotional responses and, if appropriate, more effective problem solving together around the original concern.
More next time!