How to Talk to Your Partner About a Difficult Issue in a Non-Threatening Way...
Have you ever had difficulty talking to your partner or your spouse? Does it always seem to turn into a fight over a ketchup bottle or a fight over everything when you try to talk about a difficult issue? The Softened Startup is a couple intervention designed to make it an achievable goal to talk about the subjects that are difficult to breach without starting a fight. Relationships are going to have conflict! The trick is to resolve conflict in a healthy way.
First, I want to give credit to the developers of this technique, Gottman and Carrere (Check out their research study here).
Second, you should check out this article about how to fight fair.
So, how do we do the Softened Startup?
Step 1: Prepare Yourself
The first thing you want to do to prepare is realize your goal. Visualize your desired outcome. Do you need your partner to accept a change in financial habits or child-raising? Would verbally rehearsing help? Remember that the goal here is to speak from the heart in a non-threatening way. Try writing down how you would verbalize your problem to your spouse. Write down how you feel about it. Write down what you think about it. Then, read it back to yourself. Ask yourself, is this how I would like to be spoken to? Ask yourself, how might my spouse react to hearing this? Now, do the exact opposite! That's right! Don't talk about the problem! Start a new paragraph or a new cognitive thread in your mind and identify something you like about your partner. What is something they do that pushes your buttons in a positive way? When was a time when you had a really sweet moment together that had a positive effect on you? Once you answer this question, try to structure your presentation to your spouse where it is a conversation that begins with the positive statements, and then softly confronts the problem (this is the essence of the Softened Startup.)
Before moving on to the next step, make sure that you are not going to engage in any of these behaviors in your conversation with your partner.
Step 2: Make Time With Your Partner to Talk Set aside some time where you and your partner can speak to each other without distractions. Try to make sure there are no smart phones, tablets, televisions, visitors, guests, noisy pets or children around so that they cannot distract either of you from the conversation. Try to be in a place that is comfortable. Find a babysitter, and turn off the electronics is the bottom line here. Do not allow outside influences into the conversation in any way. You may have to be patient to find the right moment.
Step 3: Tell Your Partner What You Like About Them Use "I" Statements. Tell them something they did that made you feel positive. Try to verbalize the exact emotion. Try to avoid blaming. Try to stick to the facts. Describe yourself and describe the situation. Tell your partner what is great about them. Tell them with a positive tone why you fell in love with them, or just about how awesome it was that they made coffee the other day. This helps reduce emotional tension and set a positive tone to the conversation. Many clinicians would say that I am embellishing by adding this step to the Softened Startup and making it part of the formal process. However, I cannot stress enough how important this step is in making a safe place to talk about difficult issues.
Avoid speaking in these ways:
"You never..." "You always..."
"We don't ever..."
"You're so ________"
These are examples of accusatory tones. You will not get a positive result if you speak to your partner in the ways I have listed above.
Step 4: Tell Your Partner What You Need
Now we are getting into the problem!
This step is where you begin to breach the subject of the problem. Much like the previous step, you will need to use "I feel" statements, and try to avoid blaming. Check out this video for examples of both harsh and soft startups. Make sure you cover these subjects:
What you feel ("I feel _____")
Why you feel that way ("I feel _______ because ________")
What you need from your partner ("I need ______________ to help me with this")
Remember to avoid accusatory tones. Be sure to check out the links I have added to this blog to fully understand how to accomplish what you are trying to accomplish here.
Here is another video on the subject of the Four Horsemen of the Relationship Apocalypse. Feel free to check out my website www.TheEasyTherapy.com if you would like me to assist you with these issues.
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