Managing Conflict: Level Five - Solve Your Solvable Problems, Part 3

In this subchapter, we’ll look at chapter nine – Solving Your Solvable Problems. The endgame to solvable problems is for couples to compromise. Some solvable problems can be resolved through compromise but it may take some work to get there.

Compromise
“Compromise involves developing a common way of thinking: creating a third solution out of two positions.”   Penner, p.58
 
Scriptures: Genesis 18:22-23; Genesis 21:22-34
 
“Like it or not, compromise is the only way to solve marital problems. In an intimate, loving relationship, it just doesn’t work for either of you to get things all your way, even if you’ve convinced that you’re right. This approach would create such inequity and unfairness that the marriage would suffer.”
 
“Often when couples don’t succeed at compromising, it isn’t through lack of trying but because they’ve gone about it the wrong way. Negotiation is possible only after you’ve followed the steps for resolving conflicts – softening start-up, repairing your discussion, and keeping calm.”  Gottman, p. 184
 
 
Level Five - Solve Your Solvable Problems
“It stands to reason that when a husband and wife respect each other and are open to each other's point of view, they have a good basis for resolving any differences that arise. And yet too often couples lose their way when trying to persuade each other or settle disagreements. A conversation that could have been productive instead ends in a screaming match or angry silence. If this sounds like you, and you're certain the problem you want to tackle is indeed solvable (see Chapter 7), then the key to resolving this difficulty is to learn a new approach to settling conflict. (The advice offered here will also be somewhat helpful in coping with gridlock problems, but it won’t be enough. To break the stronghold a perpetual problem has on your marriage, be sure to read about Principle 6, overcoming gridlock, in chapter 11.)”
“The popular approach to conflict resolution, advocated by many marital therapists, is to attempt to put yourself in your partner's shoes while listening intently to what he or she says, and then to communicate empathetically that you see the dilemma from his or her perspective. It's not a bad method--if you can do it. But, as I've said, many couples can't- including many very happily married couples. Plenty of the people we studied who had enviable, loving relationships did not follow the experts' rules of communication when they argued. But they were still able to resolve their conflicts.”
“By studying intently what these couples did do, I have come up with a new model for resolving conflict in a loving relationship. My fifth principle entails the following steps: 

1. Soften your startup
2. Learn to make and receive repair attempts
3. Soothe yourself and each other
4. Compromise
5. Process any grievances so that they don't linger” 
Gottman, pp.160,161

​Step 1: Soften Your Start-up
“Gottman’s research revealed that the way a conflict discussion starts determines what happens for the entire discussion. A gentle or softened start-up is basically the way we treat guests – respectfully and courteously. The research shows that if one person brings up an issue in a harsh way, 98% of the time the discussion ends in a harsh way, setting that conversation up for failure from the very beginning.”  Penner, p.50
 
Scriptures: Genesis 32:3-11; Colossians 4:6; Proverbs 13:3; Proverbs 14:29; Proverbs 15:1; Proverbs 15:4; Proverbs 15:23; Galatians 6:1; Ephesians 4:1,2; Ephesians 4:15; Ephesians 4:29; Philippians 4:5
 
“If there’s one similarity between happy and unhappy heterosexual marriages, it’s that the wife is far more likely than the husband to bring up a touchy issue and push to resolve it. Husbands are more likely to try to distance themselves from hard-to-face concerns. Again, there are physiological reasons for this gender gap. Men tend to experience flooding (feeling psychologically and physically overwhelmed) much more easily because their bodies are more reactive to emotional stress than their wives’. So they are more inclined to avoid confrontation.” 
“But there can be dramatic differences in how a wife initiates touchy discussions with her husband. Remember Dara, who lit into her husband, Oliver, as soon as they began discussing housework? Within a minute she was being sarcastic and batting down every suggestion he made: “Do you think you really work well with lists?” and “I think you do a pretty good job of coming home and lying around and disappearing into the bathroom.”  Gottman, p. 162
 
“The best soft start-up has four parts: (1) “I share some responsibility for this …” (2) Here’s how I feel … (3) about a specific situation … (4) here’s what I need … (positive need, not what you don’t need). Instead of pointing your finger at your partner, you are pointing your finger at yourself. To convert a negative need to a positive one, focus on your negative emotions and look for the longing behind those feelings. If you could wave a magic wand, what would you wish for? What is your recipe for your partner to be successful with you right now?”
“In order to be effective, a soft start-up doesn’t have to be very diplomatic. But it must be devoid of criticism or contempt. In a healthy but volatile marriage, which can be very confrontational, the wife may say something like, “Hey, I know I can be a slob sometimes myself, but I’m really angry that you walked by the laundry basket last night without stopping to fold any sheets. I didn’t like having to fold them all myself.” Or: “I feel really strongly that we need to go to church together more often. This is very important to me.” These are soft start-ups because they are direct complaints rather than criticisms or contemptuous accusations.”  Gottman 165
 
Exercise Review
Starting on page 165 to 172, you may want to review the exercises for soft start-ups that we saw in Part 1.
 
 
Step 2: Learn to Make and Receive Repair Attempts
“Despite the fact that we will all learn the suggested “guidelines” for how to have great communication, no one is perfect and there will always be times when we miscommunicate. We all mess up. A Repair Attempt is for when a discussion is turning negative. They are attempts to make things better.”
“A repair is a verbal or nonverbal gesture of staying on, or getting back on, a healthy track in a discussion. It can be a communication about one’s feelings, about needing or wanting to calm down, or about appreciation. It can be moving toward one’s partner’s position, stopping action, apologizing or accepting responsibility. It’s a communication that essentially states to your partner, “You, and what you think and feel are important to me. We’ll get through this.”  Penner, p. 52
 
Scriptures: Proverbs 13:1; Proverbs 14:9; Proverbs 15:18; 1 Corinthians 13:6; Ephesians 4:31-32
 
“When you take driving lessons, the first thing you're taught is how to stop the car. Putting on the brakes is an important skill in a marriage, too. You can prevent plenty of disasters by terminating discussions that get off on the wrong foot and by shutting down those seemingly endless cycles of recriminations. How do you do this? By using repair attempts.”
“When Michael gets defensive and says, "I definitely clean off the counters in the kitchen and the table whenever we do stuff," Justine doesn't immediately discount his point. "Hm-hmm, you do," she says. This is a repair attempt. It de-escalates the tension so that Michael is more receptive to finding a compromise. What separates stable, emotionally intelligent marriages from others is not that their repair attempts are necessarily more skillful or better thought out, but that their repair attempts get through to their spouse. This is because the air between them hasn't been clouded by a lot of negativity.”  Gottman, pp. 172,173
 
Exercises
Starting on page 173, complete the exercises for making repair attempt.
                Repair Attempts Questionnaire
                Getting the Message Through
 

Step 3: Soothe Yourself and Each Other
“While Justine is in the middle of discussing laundry with Michael, he does something that seems incidental but really has great significance for their chances of a happy future: He yawns. Cleaning house is not the most fascinating subject, but Michael doesn’t yawn because Justine is boring him. He yawns because he is relaxed. When you’re feeling angry or anxious, yawning is just about the least likely physiological reaction you’re going to have. Michael’s yawn is like an announcement that he’s feeling soothed by Justine, even though she’s discussing an area of conflict. Because no alarms are going off in his body (or mind), he is able to discuss housework and reach a compromise with Justine easily.”
“It is harder for a man’s body to calm down after an argument than a woman’s.” 
“In less stable marriages, however, conflict discussions can lead to the opposite reaction—they can trigger flooding. When this occurs, you feel overwhelmed both emotionally and physically. Most likely you think thoughts of righteous indignation (“I don’t have to take this anymore”) or innocent victim hood (“Why is she always picking on me?”). Meanwhile, your body is in distress. Usually your heart is pounding, you’re sweating, you’re holding your breath. “
“I have found that in the vast majority of cases, when one spouse does not “get” the other’s repair attempt, it’s because the listener is flooded and therefore can’t really hear what the spouse is saying. When you’re in this condition, the most thoughtful repair attempt in the world won’t benefit your marriage.”  Gottman, p.179
 
“…Drs. Gottman and Levinson discovered that the physiology of partners during conflict discussions predicts what will happen to their relationships. In ailing relationships there is often heightened physiological arousal for both men and women. This creates a feeling of unmanageable stress and of being overwhelmed.”
“When we look physiology we can also predict what will happen to a relationship. People in chronic heightened physiological arousal are more likely to break up, compared to couples who practice self-soothing. When the heart speeds up to beyond 100 bpm – the “intrinsic” pacemaker rhythm of the heart – the body starts secreting adrenaline where one is flooded with adrenaline, which is referred to as flooding or being flooded.”  Penner, p. 47
 
“When one is flooded, he or she cannot listen. We only hear and see signals of danger, nothing else. Then we’re likely to attack or become defensive verbally. Empathy and creative thinking fly out the window, along with our positive communications skills. For this reason, the ability to self-soothe is critical for relationships to be able to survive.”  Penner, p. 48
 
Scriptures: Genesis 4:6-7; Exodus 32:9-14; Exodus 33:1-3; Proverbs 25:28; James 1:19
 
Exercises
Starting on page 180, complete the exercises for flooding and soothing.
                Flooding Questionnaire
                Exercise 2: Self-Soothing
                Exercise 3: Soothing Each Other
 

Step 4: Compromise
“Compromise involves developing a common way of thinking: creating a third solution out of two positions”
“To make compromise work, we have to feel emotionally safe. To do that, we need to first decide what we can’t compromise on. We identify our CORE needs in our problem area, the parts that we are inflexible on, that which we just cannot negotiate away because it’s too central to what we value, believe or need. By identifying this in the beginning, we won’t inadvertently accept compromise that gives away something essential to us. Then, we can identify our more flexible areas and work towards finding a compromise solution.”  Penner, p. 58
 
Scriptures: Genesis 18:22,23; Genesis 21:22-34; Genesis 23:3-18; Matthew 5:25,26; Luke 12:58,59
 
“Like it or not, compromise is the only way to solve marital problems. In an intimate, loving relationship it just doesn't work for either of you to get things all your way, even if you're convinced that you're right. This approach would create such inequity and unfairness that the marriage would suffer.”
“Often when couples don’t succeed at compromising, it isn’t through lack of trying but because they’ve gone about it the wrong way. Negotiation is possible only after you've followed the steps above--softening startup, repairing your discussion, and keeping calm. Together, these will create a positive atmosphere. Remember: Compromise is not about just one person changing. It’s about negotiating and finding ways to accommodate each other. You will not be able to compromise successfully if you don’t accept your partner’s flaws and foibles. Instead, you will be on a relentless campaign to alter your spouse. Too often a marriage gets bogged down in “if only.” If only your spouse were taller, richer, smarter, neater, or sexier, all of your problems would vanish. Unlike cherishing, which nurtures gratitude for what you have, “if only” nurtures resentment for what you don’t have. As long as this attitude prevails, conflicts will be very difficult to resolve.”
“Before you try to resolve a conflict, remember that the corner stone of any compromise is the fourth principle of marriage – accepting influence. This means that for a compromise to work, you can’t have a closed mind to your spouse’s opinions and desires. You don’t have to agree with everything your spouse says or believes, but you have to be open to considering his or her position. That’s what accepting influence is really all about. If you find yourself sitting with your arms folded and shaking your head no (or just thinking it) when your spouse is trying to talk out a problem, your discussion will never get anywhere.”  Gottman, pp. 184-185
 
Exercises
Starting on page 185, complete the exercises for finding compromise.
                Exercise 4: Finding Common Ground
 
​
Step 5: Dealing with Emotional Injuries
“The basic message is the goal should not be to never fight. Arguments happen in the best of marriages. Instead, the goal is to be able to recover from a fight, to process what happened and to make it better.”
“Where couples get into trouble is thinking that their way is the right way and their partner is wrong. They try to persuade their partner that their view is the only correct one.”
“Instead, the goal is to find out your partner’s perspective about the miscommunication or the fight. Then see if any part of your partner’s perspective makes at least some sense and convey that.”
“People often say, “If only I had a videotape of what happened, you’d see how wrong you are.” Well, when couples are shown videotapes of their argument, there are still two perspectives about what they just saw on the tape.”
“The goal … is to understand and validate (find some truth) in some part of their partner’s perspective.”  Penner, p. 61
 
Scriptures: Leviticus 19:18; Psalm 19:12; Proverbs 17:9: Matthew 5:23,24; Matthew 6:14,15; Acts 13:38; Galatians 6:1; Ephesians 4:32; Colossians 3:13; 1 Peter 3:9; 1 John 1:9
 
“When you are able to compromise on a solvable problem in a way that leaves you both satisfied, you prevent the issue from turning into a damaging, gridlocked conflict. But these arguments can still leave scars, even if you get past the issues that triggered them. I call this residual damage an “emotional injury.” William Faulker said it best in Requiem for a Nun: “The past is never dead. In fact, it’s not even past.” We can revisit the past because it still lives in our bodies in the present. If emotional injuries aren’t addressed, they tend to become constant irritants – like a stone in your shoe that you keep walking on. People tend to ruminate about these incidents, and emotional distance can build up over time. It is perfectly normal to have past emotional injuries that need talking about, or processing.”
                “If this has happened to you when you disagreed or hurt each other, the culprit is not what you were fighting about but how you were fighting. The following in-depth exercise gets to the bottom of this by examining what tends to go on between you during a disagreement. Analyzing this together will afford you a deeper understanding of how you are each experiencing your arguments. This knowledge will help make our future conflicts less emotionally bruising.”  Gottman, pp.187,188
 
 
Exercises
Starting on page 188, complete the exercises for dealing with emotional injuries.
                Exercise 5: Processing a Previous Emotional Injury
 

Coping with Typical Solvable Problems
“Work stress, in-laws, money, sex, housework, internet-fueled distraction (including pornography), a new baby: these are the most typical areas of marital conflict, so there’s a good chance at least some of them are hot buttons in your relationship. Even in very happy and stable marriages, these issues are perennials. Although every relationship is different, there’s a reason why these particular conflicts are so common: they touch upon some of the marriage’s most important tasks.”  Gottman, Chapter 10, p. 195
 
Exercises
Read Chapter 10 and complete the exercises.