by Gregg Krech
There’s a story in which three disciples of St. Francis come to him and ask his blessing to go into the desert and live as devout Christian hermits. He says that he’ll gladly give his blessing provided they live together rather than separately. St. Francis knew that relationships provide the highest level of spiritual training. If you can forge an intimate relationship with a partner and live together in the same home for many years, you have a training ground that surpasses the most rigorous monastery.
Linda and I have been together for nearly twenty years and we are continuously confronted by the need to resolve differences, solve problems and somehow find a way to accept the other person as a complete package rather than trying to engineer modifications according to our own desires and designs. I felt some comfort in discovering that Relationship expert and researcher John Gottman claims that 69 percent of all marital conflicts never go away. So if you feel frustrated because you and your spouse seem to have the same argument over and over again, you have plenty of company. Knowing that so many other couples get stuck in the misery of repeated conflict may give you some comfort, but it doesn’t help you solve the problem.
So over the next few weeks I’d like to offer a few ideas that can help put your relationship on a healthier track. Rudolf Driekers, the parenting expert from the sixties, says that your relationship can either be a catalyst to bring out the best in both of you, or bring out the worst in both of you. If you can . . .
view your relationship as a training ground for spiritual practice, you are already heading in the right direction.
Finding Common Ground
Probably the most common trap we fall into with our partners is getting locked into “positions” that become a concrete wall when we are trying to solve problems or resolve conflict. A couple are planning a vacation this fall. He wants to go somewhere and lay on a beach all day and eat seafood in a 4-star restaurant at night. He read an article in the NY Times about Aruba, so now his “position” is set. She wants to go to Tibet and hike and trek around independently and maybe spend a week in a Buddhist temple. Her position is also formed. When they sit down to talk he begins by giving his glowing description of naps on white sand beaches and she rolls her eyes (which he notices) and counters with the excitement of getting in shape to traverse 15,000 foot plateaus and visit nomadic villages. You can see where this is going.
One of the lessons it took me too long to learn was to start the discussion by finding common ground rather than proposing what I want do.
We have some vacation time coming in October. Let’s talk about what we’re looking for in a vacation that we can agree on.
Now in this situation, there may be very little.
1. They both want to get away from home
2. The both want to travel to a foreign country
3. They both want to get some time together given their hectic professional schedules that often prevent them from devoting much time to their relationship
4. They both want to be in a place without TV, cell phone reception and Internet access.
Even where the common ground is thin, you’re better off starting there rather then with your “position.” One of the problems with positions is that as the other person is trying to convince you how great their position is, you end up defending yours more aggressively. The more you defend your position (and he defends his) the more intractable your positions become. In the beginning, you may have been open to a beach in Thailand instead of Aruba. After an hour of arguing, it’s more like, “I’m going to Aruba, with or without you!”
I suggest that anytime you have a topic that has the potential to create conflict, you do two things:
First, always make an appointment with your partner, asking them if they will sit down with you at an agreed upon time to discuss ________. (This is much better then simply announcing you want to talk and catching them off-guard.) And when you begin, start by looking for common ground. You may still have an idea of what you’d like for a decision -- you can’t control having an idea or a preference. But problem solving is so much easier when there are lots of ideas and possibilities, rather than just two. And when you can get through a difficult conversation having succeeded in agreeing upon a solution, your relationship comes out stronger than it was before. You discover how to use your relationship to bring out the best in one another, rather than allowing arguments to mushroom and bring out the worst in you.
Gregg Krech is a leading expert in Japanese psychology and author of Naikan: Gratitude, Grace and the Japanese Art of Self-reflection (Stone Bridge Press). He will be helping to conduct the upcoming distance learning course Renewing Your Relationship (starts Sept 12th) which is sponsored by the ToDo Institute.