I was in the car with an attorney friend who was discussing with his previous law partner a legal case. After a passionate disagreement about the best approach to take in the case, he surprised me by ending the conversation with “I love you Buddy.”
When I asked him about this apparent contradiction, he said, “I love working with this guy! We think differently, yet we can be totally straight forward about disagreeing with each other. We complement each other perfectly. ”
It struck me that this rare quality—the ability to openly disagree without bitterness and resentment—is one of the key ingredients to any outstanding partnership, whether romantic or professional. When two people can be candid with each other without becoming defensive or ready to capitulate or dig in, they can have productive, creative, and lively discussions about daily challenges and opportunities. Moreover, it will make their relationship interesting and animated.
Productive Disagreements
To discuss differences productively, we should focus on having the following two motivations:
1. to figure out and consider the merits of what the other person believes and wants, and
2. to express ourselves in a way that the other person will listen to us without becoming defensive.
To communicate effectively and avoid bitter arguments, we can try the following:
1. Listen carefully and really try to understand what the other person thinks and feels. Put ourselves in his or her shoes.
2. Let the other person finish his or her thoughts before interrupting with another point of view.
3. Use body language and tone of voice that won’t trigger the other person when expressing ourselves.
4. Be ready to simply accept our differences. There is no need to have total agreement all the time. Sometimes finesse, patience, and multiple discussions are necessary to find a win-win solution.
Relationships improve when people can discuss their true opinions both passionately and compassionately. When you are motivated to enhance your relationship by respecting the other person, communication becomes passionate, effective and rewarding.
Many people are naturally introverted—they gain energy while spending time alone. Others are naturally extroverted—they become energized by spending time with others. However, both introverts and extroverts can often benefit from finding a healthy balance between spending time with others and alone.
Introversion
Introverts who spend too much time socializing and spending time with others may become depleted and drained. In the words of Henri J.M. Nouwen they come home “with a feeling that something precious has been taken away from them or that holy ground has been trodden upon.” They need to find ways to nourish their desire for solitude.
On the other hand, introverts who spend too much time alone tend to become increasingly uncomfortable and awkward around other people. Thus, to avoid becoming a recluse, it’s important to balance their preference for being alone with some ongoing association and interaction with others.
Extroversion
In contrast, extroverts who spend an excessive amount of time socializing often lose a sense of groundedness and depth. When they are forced to spend time alone they tend to feel listless and forlorn. An evening alone can become downright painful and scary because they have lost touch with their own self. It’s like being stuck with an unapproachable stranger.
Nourishing our natural preferences is important, but we should beware of becoming extravagantly imbalanced. It’s ideal if we can avoid both extremes of onesided socializing and avoiding others at all cost.
Over-entertaining others
Notwithstanding personality differences, people who feel drained from entertaining others are perhaps putting too much effort into their interactions. The notion of having to “entertain others” may be part of the problem.
Some people think that they have to make sure everyone in a given situation is enraptured, fascinated, or amused. They may take over the spot light in an effort to enthrall and enchant others. Ironically, such forced attempts to non-stop “entertain” others can actually cause others to feel exhausted and ignored! When entertainment is a one-way profusion of speech or energy, it often neglects spontaneous interaction, and may ignore the audience’s reactions, thoughts, and even their very presence.
Being aware and open
A truly enriching relationship between people does not involve one person entertaining the other. Rather, it is based on meaningful connection, which involves being present, paying attention, and responding with authenticity. This is not to say that entertaining story-telling should be avoided. However, relating with others including story telling is more rewarding and less exhausting if you focus on being present with others rather than on entertaining them. In new age terms, it helps to allow the back and forth flow of energy, thoughts, and words.
If you notice people aren’t responsive to your “entertaining” monologue, try asking them questions. Paying attention to the other person allows you to interact with spontaneous, relevant and responsive ideas and humor that makes interaction truly interesting and alive. Cultivating genuine, heart-felt and mindful connection with others can benefit us all, no matter how extroverted or introverted our tendency.
Before you wish your partner would simply obey your wishes, think about how a domineering/submissive dynamic would impact the long-term health of your relationship. A relationship based on unequal power and obedience will not grow and cannot sustain passion. Domination and compliance are quick ways to deal a blow to the respect required for a long-term passionate relationship.
Respect and love are at the heart of any meaningful or enjoyable relationship. In fact research shows that men and women who are able to listen to their partners in a respectful way are more likely to sustain a successful relationship.* A sense of power sharing is critical to a mutually respectful relationship that is capable of sustaining long-term harmony.
Equality does not mean giving in, giving up, or taking turns in your decision making. It means really listening with an open mind and generous heart.
by Alison Poulsen, PhD
*Reference: Richard Wiseman, “59 Seconds: Think a little, Change a lot.”
People who swing from one extreme to the other, from being pleasant and charming one moment to being angry and defiant the next often lack emotional resilience and autonomy. They tend to fuse emotionally both positively and negatively to others, behaving wonderfully when they feel good, and blaming everyone around them when things are not going their way. Their sense of self reacts to external circumstances, and their behavior fluctuates according to their unstable sense of self.
There can be many reasons for emotional volatility, including genetic influences such as bipolar disorder, parental indulgence that contributes to a lack of impulse control, dietary imbalance, narcissism, or brain trauma from injury or drug use. Regardless of the contributing factors, when we understand how we might affect, trigger, or play into the relationship dynamic with a volatile person, we can learn how to stop having to suffer at the whims of the temperamental people in our lives.
Emotional Fusion
Swings in mood are exacerbated by emotional fusion. The emotional merging together of two people often results in excessive attachment, manipulation, and reactivity. When two people are emotionally fused, there is insufficient emotional separation for either person to maintain a grounded and empowered sense of self. As a result, emotionally-volatile people tend to swing from being hyper-accommodating to recalcitrant. Autonomy and intimacy get replaced by a sense of isolation and oppression.
Problems with Emotional Fusion
1. Repression and Anger
The reason volatile people swing from good to bad moods is that the only way they know how to be “good” is to be completely accommodating of other people’s needs and desires. The problem with being overly accommodating is that you repress your own conflicting needs, feelings and thoughts.
Such repressed feelings can manifest themselves in depression, sickness or addiction, or they erupt unexpectedly in anger or self-sabotaging behavior. The inability to calmly and firmly withstand the pressure to acquiesce to another person or tolerate another person’s disagreement or disapproval often leads to anger, belligerence and sdestructive behavior.
2. Weak Sense of Identity
Excessive emotional fusion creates an increasing dependence on others, which will often result in self-loathing. From infancy onward, human beings possess the instinctive drive to become capable and autonomous. It is not egotistic for a child to say, “Look at me! I can throw the ball, paint a picture, tie my shoes.…” It feels good to be able to do something on your own.
Yet it can be tempting to allow others to do things for you or tell you what to do. Such dependence seems to make life easier, but also creates deep-seated resentment. Thus, emotional fusion leads to cycles of attack and capitulation, which cause bitterness and a diminished sense of self. The underlying problem is that neither person can maintain his or her sense of identity in the presence of the other.
3. Subject to Peer Pressure
When you accommodate others in order to get validation, you become subject to peer pressure, that is, you behave in order to gain the immediate approval of your peers. This can easily lead to engaging in behavior that is harmful to yourself or others.
4. Diminishing Boundaries — Fusion
With increased fusion, boundaries between people dissolve, and anxiety becomes increasingly infectious. Undifferentiated people, that is, people who tend to fuse emotionally to others, mistakenly assume that they are responsible for another person’s wellbeing. The expectation that they must “make somebody happy” ironically increases pressure, anxiety, and disappointment for both parties. It does not generate happiness.
We can only placate someone temporarily. While we can be kind and considerate, we cannot ultimately provide wellbeing to another person without diminishing that person’s independence and exhausting ourselves in the process.
Altering your role in a fused relationship
1. Disengage: Don’t Manipulate
Control your own behavior but don’t try to control the other person’s behavior. It takes two to become emotionally fused. Stay calm even if the other person throws a temper tantrum, tries to manipulate you, or withdraws suddenly. Those strong emotional reactions only have power if you give them power.
You may have to pull back, limit the relationship, or discontinue the offerings you provide, but don’t do so in a dramatic way. Actions taken without emotional heat are much more effective than histrionics in the form of pleading, lecturing, or giving the cold shoulder.
It is imperative to stop participating in the drama of trying to control, manipulate, or unduly accommodate the other person. If you become emotionally separate, that is, if you remain caring without becoming overly reactive or tied into the other person’s emotional state, the other person will lose the intense desire to provoke an emotional reaction from you. There will be less of an urgent desire to either please you or to rebel against you. In other words, their reactivity — whether smoldering hatred or sweet manipulation — diminishes when there is no dramatic emotional effect, including cold indifference.
Analogy
Think of a toddler’s temper tantrum. When parents bribe, plead, or make threats, they actually encourage more tantrums. The toddler, who is just starting to develop a sense of self, thinks “Wow, this is cool. Look at the commotion I am causing! I have power!” Moreover, the parents’ anxiety expressed by their frantic attempts to calm the child shows the child that the world is not so safe. Why else would the parents be acting so anxiously?
For those who lack self-empowerment, such as a toddler or a dependent adult, having power over others provides a substitution for the feeling of power over one’s own life. But it is a poor substitution.
2. Stop Tip-toeing Around: Don’t be Compliant
Resist the temptation to become compliant in order to modify the other person’s mood and wellbeing. State your requests or potential consequences in a matter-of-fact way. We want to be considerate of others in our interactions. However, we do not want to compromise our own lives by endowing emotionally-volatile people with too much power over our own wellbeing.
By not allowing other people’s anxiety to infect us, we remain more emotionally separate and objective. Our disappointment in others diminishes as we accept and honor our individual selves. Even if only one person becomes less reactive, the relationship will improve. Moreover, it makes it easier for the other to eventually own, enjoy, and be responsible for his or her own decisions, moods, and conduct. It will ultimately give the other person the opportunity to develop a substantial sense of self and empowerment.
Often people get sucked into their child or spouse’s power trip because they feel guilty for not having been a “perfect” parent or spouse — as though there were such a thing. This is a mistake. Trying to make up for past errors and omissions by submitting to your partner’s emotional manipulation hurts everyone involved. On the other hand, being caring yet emotionally separate allows people the freedom to take responsibility for their own lives.
Changing negative judgmental thinking into positive, though realistic, thinking changes the way you experience life and the people around you. Once you alter the lens you look through, the way you see others and the way they see themselves in your presence will change. They will improve the way they interact with you.
You will increase your inner peace when you redirect your view of people from their weaknesses to their strengths. By focusing on their positive qualities and understanding the challenges they confront, your experience of people will transform.
Deepen your view of people’s behavior:
A. “My wife is being a witch.”
B. “My wife is a caring person, but must be exhausted. I should give her a hug and then give her some space to unwind.”
A. “My co-worker is an idiot.”
B. “My co-worker might be annoying sometimes, but he has a good heart. He probably is just trying too hard to be liked.”
A. “My whole life has been a series of mistakes.”
B. “My life is an adventure. I’m living and learning, and I have a lot of stories to tell.”
Focus on the positive:
That which you focus on tends to intensify. Therefore, it is more fulfilling and productive to focus on people’s good points than to focus on their limitations. “Stop being so miserable and rude!” engenders more malice than courtesy. Depending on the circumstances, it’s more productive and kind to say something like, “I’m sorry you’re so upset. I’ll give you some space. / Please try to be more polite to me—you’re pushing me away. / Is there something I can do to help you?”
Look for clues to explain unfortunate behavior in others. Also look for what is special or good about others. People respond much more positively when you approach them with compassion and appreciation for their good points.
Should I think positively about abusive behavior?
Unfortunately, there are people who are truly abusive or annoying beyond the occasional minor transgression. There is no reason you cannot be understanding AND keep a distance from such people. Being energetically reserved or in fact creating physical distance and creating boundaries will protect you from abusive behavior and from getting angry and holding a grudge. In serious cases you may have to completely avoid any interaction to move toward peace and fulfillment.
Self-criticism:
We are often most severely critical of ourselves. Thus, we need to become more understanding of our own less-than-perfect behavior and mistakes. It’s easier and more pleasant to improve ourselves when our self-criticism is reasonable, moderate, and balanced with an appreciation of what is good about ourselves. When we change the lens through which we view ourselves we also alter the way we view others, gaining compassion for all of humanity.
You can even view and express suffering with an eye for beauty. Just look at the great comedians and blues musicians.
