SM Letter #14 - hearing

LESSONS LEARNED

I said, “Do you feel like we need to talk about what happened the other day? Is there more to say?”

“Yes,” she said.

It feels risky. Once the incident and emotions are behind you, you don’t want to risk getting anything fired up again.

But you also don’t want to move on with one or both of you missing or misunderstanding how the other person feels or what their attitude toward you is.

You don’t want something untrue contributing to a bad attitude and then it comes up again later as if it’s true.

That’s just one reason to have a conversation after a regrettable disagreement.

Talking about it when emotions have died down can help.

It can help both to know how each other felt, what each other heard, what each other meant by what they said. It can end up making things better.

For us, we don’t usually talk about “incidents” after the fact. Years ago I think we definitely should have.

So when she said “yes,” we agreed to try to distance ourselves from being us, meaning instead of saying "when you did this, I felt this," we'd say instead, "hearing this made it feel like this."

We wanted to make sure we each saw reality as defined by the other person.

And we agreed to not re-enter the disagreement and emotions and repeat our case.

It went well.

Just bringing it up and being willing to talk about it has value.

In the end, she wanted one main thing: to make sure I understood and agreed about how part of our “incident” looked and felt to her.

And I wanted to make sure she was aware that there are feelings inside me that are important that she might not be aware of.

Neither one of us needed the other to hear more than that. We talked less than 10 minutes.

————

We’re past the stage where a bad argument can have any deep impact on our relationship.

We’re at the stage where the strength of our relationship dilutes any argument we have, instead of an argument diluting our relationship.

So how do you get to that stage?

A lot of it is in what happens in the “everyday,” in between the big stuff.

For us, we try to have a lifestyle of kindness and caring. Not constantly, but multiple times daily during the emotionally neutral times. Small positive things that add up.

Which reminds me, John and Julie Gottman studied married couples for decades and learned what helps make strong marriages . . .

You know what they named their podcast? “Small Things Often.”

WORTH REPEATING

“A great marriage is when an imperfect couple learns to enjoy their differences.” - Dave Meurer

WORTH TRYING

I’ve realized there’s a prayer that seems to almost automatically come out of me when emotions are high and I’m upset and overwhelmed -

“Lord, insert yourself, insert your spirit . . .

Lord, control your enemy (his enemy) . . .

Lord, don’t let me make it worse.”

WORTH REPLYING

What’s a recent nice, or even wonderful, little moment you’ve had with your spouse?

Mine was yesterday sitting at the kitchen table eating a Qdoba chicken bowl and talking about little things like starting to read “The Hobbit.”

I’d love to hear yours - just hit reply.

Gary