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You want to have children; he doesn’t. She wants you to attend church with her; you’re an atheist. He’s a homebody; you’re ready for a party every night. All couples have some irreconcilable differences. But when partners can’t find a way to accommodate these perpetual disagreements, the result is gridlock. When couples gridlock over issues, the image that comes to my mind is of two opposing fists. Neither can make any headway in getting the other to understand and respect their perspective, much less agree with it. As a result, they eventually view the partner as just plain selfish. Each becomes more deeply entrenched in his or her position, making compromise impossible.
While couples can gridlock over momentous issues, like deciding if they will pass a particular religion on to their children, it’s not uncommon to reach loggerheads over differences that would seem ridiculously trivial to anyone outside of the relationship, like punctuality or even which way to fold napkins. Usually these issues reflect basic differences in personality or lifestyle preferences. Whether they seem important or petty to outsiders, all gridlocked disagreements share four characteristics. You’ll know you’ve reached gridlock if:
1.
You’ve had the same argument again and again with no resolution.
2. Neither of you can address the issue with humor, empathy, or affection.
3. The issue is becoming increasingly polarizing as time goes on.
4.
Compromise seems impossible because it would mean selling out—giving up something important and core to your beliefs, values, or sense of self.
As with most difficulties, the best approach to coping with gridlock is to avoid it in the first place. Fortunately, the more adept you become at following the other six principles, the less likely you are to gridlock over intractable differences. As you come to know and trust each other, you will find that disagreements that once would have overwhelmed you are more easily handled, especially if you make use of the exercises in this chapter concerning
hidden dreams. A significant key to preventing gridlock is also to be on the lookout for those small moments where you “miss” each other’s needs. If either of you is feeling a lot of hurt over seemingly minor slights, you may want to spend some extra time on strengthening your fondness and admiration (
chapter 5) and practice
turning toward each other (
chapter 6). Not acknowledging and talking out these small moments can make a relationship more vulnerable to gridlock over significant issues.
When couples are able to sidestep gridlock, they come to treat their perpetual problems as they would a pesky allergy or bad back. They know the difficulty won’t ever go away, but they manage to keep it from overwhelming their life together. Of course, when you’re in the midst of gridlock, it may seem impossible that you could manage the conflict as readily as, say, a trick knee. But you can do it. Remember that you don’t have to solve the problem to get past gridlock. Neither of you has to “give in” or “lose.” The goal is to be able to acknowledge and discuss the issue without hurting each other.
To navigate your way out of gridlock, you have to first understand that no matter how seemingly insignificant the issue, gridlock is a sign that you each have dreams for your life that the other isn’t aware of, hasn’t acknowledged, or doesn’t respect. By dreams I mean the hopes, aspirations, and wishes that are part of your identity and give purpose and meaning to your life. Dreams can operate at many different levels. Some are very practical (such as wanting to achieve a certain amount of savings), but others are profound. Often these deeper dreams remain hidden while the more mundane ones ride piggyback and are easier to see. For example, underneath the dream to make lots of money may be a need for security.
Our deepest dreams are frequently rooted in childhood. You may long to re-create some of your warmest memories of family life from your youth—such as having dinner together every night without interruptions from the TV or text messages. Or, you may feel the psychological need to distance yourself from painful childhood memories by not duplicating the same patterns or activities. For example, you may resist having family dinners if the evening meal in your childhood home was often the setting for hostility between your parents that left you with indigestion.
Here is a list of some common “deep” dreams expressed by couples I’ve worked with.
1. A sense of freedom
2. Feeling at peace
3. Exploring who I am
4. Adventure
5. A spiritual journey
6. Justice
7. Honor
8. Consistency with my past values
9. Healing
10. Having a sense of power
11.
Dealing with growing older
12. Exploring a creative side of myself
13. Getting over past hurts
14. Asking God for forgiveness
15. Exploring an old part of myself I have lost
16. Having a sense of order
17. Being productive
18. Getting my priorities in order
19. Exploring the physical side of myself
20. Being able to compete and win
21. Traveling
22. Atoning
23. Ending a chapter of my life—saying good-bye to something
All of these dreams are beautiful. None of them are inherently bad for a marriage. But a dream can cause problems if your spouse doesn’t respect it or you keep it
hidden. Under these circumstances, either you may have open battles over the issue, or it may go underground and only be expressed symbolically. In the latter case, the couple may think they are at loggerheads over whether to go out to dinner every Sunday night, but the bottom-line issue has to do with something much deeper than a restaurant meal. Sunday night holds a special place in both of their hearts, stemming from their childhoods. Her dream is to eat out because her family did that every Sunday, a treat that made her feel special. But for her husband, a restaurant meal was always much less of a treat than having his very busy mother cook for the family—something she only did on Sundays. So the question of a restaurant versus a home meal is really symbolic of what makes each of them feel loved.
Why do some couples cope so gracefully with these sorts of issues while others get bogged down? The difference is that the happy couples are aware of each other’s dreams and consider helping each other realize them to be one of the goals of marriage. “We
want to know what the other person wants in their life,” says Justine, who is happily married to Michael. But she could just as well be talking for all emotionally intelligent couples. In satisfying relationships, partners incorporate each other’s goals into their concept of what their marriage is about. These goals can be as concrete as wanting to live in a particular kind of house or to attain a certain academic degree. But they can also be intangible, such as longing to feel safe or wishing to view life as a grand adventure.
Shelley wants to go to college. Malcolm’s hefty paycheck allows her to do that. But he yearns to quit his high-pressure marketing job because his dream is to be his own boss and build boats. In a happy marriage, neither spouse insists that the other give up their dream or attempts to manipulate them. They work it out as a team, taking into account each other’s wishes and desires. Maybe Malcolm decides to keep at the grind till Shelley finishes school. Perhaps Shelley studies part-time or suspends her studies for an agreed-upon length of time. Practicality might demand that one or both of their dreams be put on hold for a while. Whatever they decide to do isn’t really the issue. The point is that their concept of their marriage incorporates supporting both of these dreams. The way they go about making such decisions—with mutual respect for and acknowledgment of each other’s aspirations—is part of what makes their relationship so meaningful to them.
When either spouse isn’t aware of or doesn’t fully appreciate the importance of supporting his or her partner’s dreams, gridlock is almost inevitable. That was the root cause of the severe marital problems between Ed and Luanne, a Seattle couple who were interviewed in my
Love Lab for a TV news program. When Ed and Luanne were in the lab together, you could see that their fondness and admiration were still there. But they were experiencing enormous stress over Luanne’s nine-year-old horse, Daphne, with whom she often competed in horse shows.
Before they were married, Ed was very taken with Luanne’s
horse. But now that he was confronted with the monthly bills for Daphne’s care and maintenance, she became a source of tension between him and his wife. He wanted Luanne to sell the horse so that they could save money. The more he and Luanne argued over selling Daphne, the more he feared, deep down, that she cared for the horse more than she did for him and their marriage.
The couple talked out this problem in three fifteen-minute sessions, snippets of which were aired on the show. In between those sessions, my team and I coached them, using the sorts of techniques you’ll find in this chapter. Luanne was told not to give up on her dream and to make sure that Ed understood that he came first in her heart. We helped Ed understand that helping Luanne realize her dream to compete in horse shows with Daphne was part of his role as her spouse. He also needed to accept Luanne’s influence when it came to making financial decisions. By the end of the three sessions, Ed and Luanne had made a major leap forward in their marriage. When Ed told Luanne he would support her decision to keep Daphne, her wide smile lit up the screen.
Eventually, Luanne sold Daphne in order to lease a younger horse (though she still visited Daphne). She continued to compete in horse shows, and Ed continued to support her desire to do so.
For Ed and Luanne, it was apparent that a dream was the root cause of their conflict. The challenge was to respect the dream and each other’s needs. But for many couples, the dream that is at the core of the conflict is not so obvious. Only by uncovering this dream can the couple get out of gridlock.
Take the case of Katherine and Jeff. They were happily married until Katherine became pregnant. Suddenly, it seemed to Jeff, her Catholic faith took on a much more central role in her life. He himself was an agnostic. When he found out that she had been talking with her father about having the baby baptized, he was livid. He did not want his child to have any kind of formal religious instruction.
By the time Katherine and Jeff discussed this conflict in my lab, they had clearly become gridlocked. I could tell that their marriage was in serious danger because they were emotionally distant from each other. Even while discussing the highly personal issues of faith and family, they didn’t raise their voices, cry, smile, or touch each other. They were able to talk intellectually about their difference of opinion, but they were emotionally disengaged. And since their problem was really an emotional one—concerning their feelings about families, parenthood, and religion—no amount of careful intellectual analysis would be able to resolve it.
At their next session, I suggested that instead of trying to solve the issue, they should just listen to each other talk about what religion symbolized to them. This was the only way to get to the hidden dreams that were fueling the conflict. Katherine went first. She described how her faith had carried her through very hard times. Her parents went through a rancorous divorce. For ten years, her father had no contact with the family. Her mother became so depressed that Katherine couldn’t depend on her. She felt completely unloved and alone until she turned to the Church, which embraced her. Not only did she feel a kinship with her fellow worshippers but she felt comforted by prayer. When all the chips were down, feeling God’s love brought her deep comfort. Katherine started crying as she remembered those hard times and the solace she found in religion.
Jeff explained that he had been an agnostic his entire life. In contrast to Katherine’s dysfunctional family, his was very strong and loving. When he went through hard times, he always turned to his parents. He wanted his child to feel the same trust in him and Katherine. He feared that if their son was “indoctrinated” into the Church, this would interfere with that bond; the child would be trained to turn to God instead of his parents.
Jeff and Katherine had opposing dreams: He envisioned them as a happy family that would supply all the love and support their children needed. He saw religion as a threat to their deep connection. Katherine viewed religion as a vital support system that she wanted to ensure was there for her children.
The key to ending gridlock for Jeff and Katherine was (and is
for all couples) to discuss openly why their position was so important to them—and in particular to open up about the history behind their position and what it meant to them. We call this sort of discussion the “Dreams Within Conflict” approach to gridlock. It not only helps to defuse the problematic issue but also increases your sense of intimacy and connection.
When Katherine and Jeff used this approach to openly discuss their dreams, the mood in the room changed dramatically. Jeff told Katherine that he loved her. It finally sank in to him that her desire to baptize their baby came out of her deep love for their child—for his child. He realized it made “perfect sense” that out of this love she would want to protect the baby from ever feeling the pain she had experienced. This helped him reconnect with his own deep feelings for Katherine, which had gotten buried under all of the bitterness and anger.
In the first session, no emotion had passed between the couple. But this time, you could see the compassion on Jeff’s face as he listened to his wife recount her childhood. When she cried, he handed her tissues and encouraged her to keep talking. Katherine listened just as intently to his side of the story.
Now that the real issues were out in the open, Katherine and Jeff were able to talk about raising their son in a way that honored both their visions. Jeff told her he wouldn’t oppose the baptism. He himself would always be agnostic, but it was okay with him if the child received rudimentary training in Catholicism. However, he still opposed intensive religious study, because he feared the Church might impose ideas on the child. Katherine was able to accept this
compromise.
Deep issues like these are unlikely to be declawed in just one session. But Jeff and Katherine made an important first step. They turned toward each other and respectfully acknowledged each other’s dreams for their child. They agreed to seek further counseling to build on the success of the lab session. Will this issue ever go away or be resolved in their relationship? Probably not. But they have begun to learn to live with it peacefully.
If you’ve reached gridlock on any issue in your marriage, big or small, you need to identify which dream or dreams are fueling the conflict. One good indicator that you’re wrestling with a hidden dream is that you consider your spouse to be the source of the marital difficulty. If you find yourself saying, for example, that the problem is simply that he is a slob or she is irresponsible or overly demanding, that’s a sign of a hidden dream. It may indicate that you don’t see your part in creating the conflict because it has been hidden from view.
Uncovering a hidden dream is a challenge. The dream is unlikely to emerge until you feel that your marriage is a safe place to talk about it. That’s why it’s important to begin by working on the first three principles, outlined in
chapters 4,
5, and
6, in order to strengthen your friendship with your mate.
Keep working on your unresolvable conflicts. Couples who are demanding of their marriage are more likely to have deeply satisfying unions than those who lower their expectations.
Often, deeply personal dreams go unspoken or underground because we assume they must in order to make the relationship work. It’s common for both partners not to feel entitled to their dreams. They may see their own desires as “childish” or “impractical.” But such labels don’t end the longing. So if the relationship doesn’t honor the dream, conflict will almost inevitably ensue. In other words, when you bury a dream, it just resurfaces in disguised form—as a gridlocked conflict.
Now that you have had some practice uncovering dreams, you’re ready to address an area of gridlock in your relationship. Understand that working on these issues will take time. You may find that when you first begin to recognize and acknowledge your dreams, the problems between you seem to worsen rather than improve. Be patient. Acknowledging and advocating for your dreams is not easy. The very nature of gridlock means that your dreams appear to be in opposition, so you’ve both become deeply entrenched in your positions and fear accepting each other’s influence and yielding.
To get started, choose a particular gridlocked conflict to work on. Then write an explanation of your position. Don’t criticize or blame your spouse. Use the statements made by the couples above as your guide—notice that they don’t bad-mouth each other. Instead, they focus on what each partner needs, wants, and is feeling about the situation. Next, write the story of the hidden dreams that underlie your position. Explain where these dreams come from and why they are so meaningful to you.
Once you both understand which dreams are fueling the gridlock, it’s time to talk about them. Each person gets fifteen minutes as the speaker and fifteen minutes as the listener. Do not try to solve this problem. Attempting to do that now is likely to backfire. Your goal is simply to understand why each of you feels so strongly about this issue.
Talk honestly about your position and what it means to you. Describe the dream that’s fueling it. Explain where the dream comes from and what it symbolizes. Be clear and honest about what you want and why it is so important. Talk as if you were explaining your dream to a good friend or neutral third party. Don’t try to censor or downplay your feelings about your dream in order to avoid hurting or arguing with your spouse. If you find this difficult, review the advice in
chapter 9 about softening your start-up. Some of the same approaches hold: namely, to make “I statements” and to talk only about
your feelings and needs. This is not the time to criticize or argue with your partner. How you feel about your spouse in relationship to this dream is a satellite issue that should not be addressed right now.
Suspend judgment. Don’t take your spouse’s dream personally even though it clashes with one of yours. Don’t spend your time thinking up rebuttals or ways to solve the problem. Your role now is just to hear the dream and to encourage your spouse to explore it. Here are some supportive questions to ask. You don’t have to use these verbatim, but put the thought and spirit behind them into your own words.
• “What do you believe about this issue? Do you have some values, ethical ideas, or other beliefs that relate to your position on this issue?”
• “What are all the things you feel about this issue?”
• “What does your position mean to you?”
• “What is your ideal dream here?”
• “Tell me the story of your dream. Does it relate to your history or childhood in some way? I’d like to understand what it means to you.”
• “What do you want? What do you need? If I could wave a magic wand and you’d have exactly what you needed, what would that look like?”
GEORGIA: I’ve always dreamed of going on a mountain-climbing expedition to Mount Everest.
NATHAN: First of all, we can’t possibly afford something like that. Besides, I can’t think of anything more stressful than mountain climbing. I get vertigo standing on a table.
GEORGIA: Forget it.
GEORGIA: I’ve always dreamed of going on a mountain-climbing expedition to Mount Everest.
NATHAN: Tell me more about what it means to you to climb a mountain. What would it do for you?
GEORGIA: I think I would feel exhilarated, like I was at the top of the world. As a child, I was always told that I was weak and couldn’t do anything. My parents were always saying, “Careful, careful.” I think climbing a mountain would be the most liberating thing I could do. I’d feel such a sense of accomplishment.
If you can, tell your partner that you support his or her dream. That doesn’t necessarily mean that you believe the dream can or should be realized. There are three different levels of honoring your partner’s dreams—all of which are beneficial to your marriage. The first is to express understanding of the dream and be interested in learning more about it. For example, Nathan could support Georgia’s decision to take a course in mountain climbing and listen with enthusiasm when she talks about it, even if he has no interest in taking the course with her. The second level would be to actively enable the dream; in this case, Nathan could offer to help Georgia finance a mountain-climbing trip. The third level would be to become a part of the dream, to come to enjoy mountain climbing himself.
Acknowledging and respecting each other’s deepest, most personal hopes and dreams is key to saving and enriching your marriage.
You may find that you’re able to “go all the way” with some of your partner’s dreams while with others you can’t get past the first level of understanding and interest. That’s okay. The bottom line in getting past gridlock is not necessarily to become a part of each other’s dreams (although your marriage will be more enriched to the extent that you can) but to honor these dreams. After all, you don’t want the kind of marriage in which you triumph at the expense of crushing your partner.
Discussing dreams that are in opposition can be stressful. Pay attention to how you are each reacting to the conversation. Alert your partner if you feel signs of stress (for example, your heart begins to pound). Remember that if flooding occurs, the conversation will get nowhere. So be sure to use repairs if either of you becomes upset. If flooding does occur, stop for at least twenty minutes, and spend the time in any activity that calms you down. (For extra help, see
“Soothe Yourself and Each Other”.)
Now it’s time to begin the ongoing task of making peace with this issue, accepting the differences between you, and establishing some kind of initial compromise that will help you continue to discuss the problem amicably. Understand that your purpose is not to solve the conflict—it will probably never go away completely. Instead, the goal is to defang the issue, to try to remove the hurt so that the problem stops being a source of great pain.
The way you start this process is by using the circle exercise (
“Finding Common Ground”). You define the minimal
core areas that you cannot yield on. To do this, you need to look deep into your heart and try to separate the issue into two categories:
These are the aspects of the conflict that you absolutely cannot give on without violating your basic needs or core values.
This category includes all parts of the issue where you can be flexible, because they are not so “hot” for you. Try to make this category as large as possible and the first one as small as possible.
Share your two lists with your spouse. Working together, and using the skills you learned in
chapter 9, come up with a temporary compromise. Try it for about two months, and then review where you stand. Don’t expect this to solve the problem, only to help you both live with it more peacefully.
For example, Sally believes in living for the moment—she tends to be spontaneous and loose with her money. Gus’s main goal in life is to feel secure. He moves slowly and carefully toward decisions and is very frugal. These differences lead them to clash when Sally insists that they buy a mountain cabin. Gus immediately says no—they can’t afford it. Sally feels confident that they can.
For a year they gridlock over this issue. Whenever they try to discuss it, they become embroiled in a shouting match. Gus lets Sally know he considers her an irresponsible dreamer who always wants to squander the money they work so hard to earn. Sally accuses Gus of wanting to squash all the fun and joy out of her life.
To overcome the gridlock, Gus and Sally first have to explore the symbolic meaning of their positions on the cabin. In their first conversation to try to work on this issue, Sally says that her dreams are to pursue pleasure, to be able to truly relax, and to feel unity with nature, all of which she can realize by having a cabin. Although she also fears that Gus wants to turn her into a drone who’s living just for tomorrow, she doesn’t say this to him now. (She has said it frequently in the past.) Instead, she focuses on what she desires, not her anger and fears connected to Gus.
When it’s Gus’s turn to talk, he tells her that saving money has
a lot of symbolic meaning for him. He longs to feel financially secure because he fears being destitute in his old age. He remembers seeing his grandparents suffering because they were so poor. His grandfather ended up in a low-quality nursing home that Gus believes took away his dignity. One of his big goals in life is not to feel humiliated when he is old. Gus is also furious at Sally because he believes she is reckless and has a childish need for immediate gratification, which is a threat to his well-being and the life he’s trying to build. However, he doesn’t hurl those accusations at her this time. Instead, he sticks to explaining and describing his dream of financial security and its roots in his childhood.
Once Sally and Gus have discussed the symbolic meaning of their positions, a transformation takes place. Rather than seeing each other’s dreams as threats, they see them for what they are: deep desires held by someone they love. Although their dreams are still in opposition, they are now motivated to find some common ground, to find a way to respect and perhaps even accommodate both of them. Here’s how they do this:
1. They define the minimal core areas that they cannot yield on. Sally says she must have a cabin. Gus says he must save $30,000 in order to feel financially secure.
2. They define their areas of flexibility. Sally says she can settle for a small cabin on just a couple of acres, rather than the larger retreat she had envisioned. She can also be flexible on the timing of acquiring a cabin. She would like to buy one right now, but can wait a few years as long as she feels Gus supports the decision and they work toward it together. Gus says he can be flexible about how quickly he must save his $30,000 as long as he knows that they are consistently working toward that goal by saving a specific amount from each of their paychecks.
3. They devise a temporary compromise that honors both of their dreams. They will buy a small cabin, but not for another three years. Meanwhile, they will devote half of their savings to a down payment and half to a stock fund. In a couple of months, they will review this plan and decide if it’s working.
Sally and Gus realize that their underlying perpetual problem will never go away. Sally is always going to be the visionary, imagining a life filled with cabins and adventurous trips, and Gus is going to worry about their financial security, their retirement fund, and so on. But by learning how to cope with their differences, they can avoid gridlock on any specific conflicts their fundamental differences trigger.
Here are a few other examples, using some of the couples from the “Detecting Dreams” exercise above, that show how you can learn to live with your differences through this process. While none of these conflicts are likely to mirror yours exactly, they should give you an idea of how couples with entrenched differences of opinion can overcome gridlock.
Housecleaning—she wants him to be neater, he wants her to leave him alone about it.
Ashley’s Dream: A sense of order and security at home
Brandon’s Dream: A sense of freedom in his own home
They agree to take a break by enjoying a hot bath together, with candles and music they both love.
Ashley’s: She can’t abide dirty clothes left out, not in the hamper, or a dirty bathroom.
Brandon’s: He can’t abide having to clean up his papers right after he’s finished with them.
Ashley’s: She can live with some clutter as long as there isn’t any dirt.
Brandon’s: He can cope with cleaning up clothes, dishes, and bathrooms as long as he doesn’t have to straighten up all the time.
Very different comfort levels with expressing emotions
Nicole’s Dream: Being emotional is part of her self-identity and part of what gives meaning to her life.
Kyle’s Dream: He sees being emotional as a weakness.
They read aloud the relaxation instructions on
this page–
this page as they monitor their own heart rates. They wait until both their heart rates are back to baseline before continuing.
Nicole’s: She cannot stop reacting with great passion to life.
Kyle’s: He cannot become a highly emotional person just to please her.
She enjoys spending time with other people at parties, while he wants her to stay with him.
Ava’s: To feel free and be able to explore by meeting new people at social events
Thomas’s: To be the center of her attention
She is soothed by his reassurance that he has no desire to control her or determine who her friends are. He is soothed by her insistence that she is not interested in any man but him. They take a half hour to meditate, an activity they both enjoy.
Ava’s: She must have the freedom to enjoy herself and meet new people.
Thomas’s: He cannot abide her dancing with or touching other men, even in a friendly way.
Ava’s: She doesn’t have to be completely separate from her husband at parties.
Thomas’s: He can tolerate her talking with other men for a few minutes.
It may take more than one session to overcome gridlock on issues that have been deeply troubling to your marriage. These sessions can be stressful, no matter how diligently you attempt to accept each other’s viewpoint without judgment. The goal here is to re-create the spirit of thanksgiving, in which you count your blessings and look inward to express gratitude for all you have. This may be particularly difficult to do after talking about gridlocked marital conflict, but that’s all the more reason to make the effort. To be sure you end on a positive note, offer your partner three specific thank-yous. (For suggestions, turn to the
“I Appreciate” list.)