How to Move Beyond the Blame Game

Communication issues are often one of the top concerns couples bring to couples therapy.

In today’s post I want to give a nod to practical communication expert and public speaker Jefferson Fisher who in a recently published video made the following excellent insight about communication in relationships:

“You never want to win an argument because you start to lose the relationship. Instead you want to see arguments as something to unravel. Find a knot in the conversation and start to unravel it instead of you tugging your way and me tugging mine….  when you walk into a conversation with something to learn instead of to prove you are going to walk away with much better communication”

The metaphor of unraveling a knot instead of proving a point is a cool concept that I want to reflect a little further on today because I do believe it can help shift the way you and your partner argue.

So let’s start with the simple question: What does it mean to unravel the knot of an argument?

Here are two principles I would like you to follow:

#1: Seek to Understand the Logic of Your Partner's Point of View:

EFT couples therapist and researcher Sue Johnson has often made the point that she has never heard anyone express an emotion that was not logical once she fully understood where the person was coming from.

Even though you and your partner might view reality in very different ways, each way has a logic if we really comprehend the worldview of the other person.

In other words, rather than deciding whose viewpoint is the correct one or the most righteous one, the task should really be to fully put ourselves in the other person’s shoes and try to view the world the way the other person views the world.

#2: Zoom Out from the Surface Issue to Understand the Bigger Meaning:

Another point about unravelling the knot of an argument is to understand that the surface issue we argue about often stands in for a much broader issue that explains why we fight so hard for our position.

Why my partner is always nitpicking at me and treating me like I am incompetent child really becomes an issue of my partner’s lack of trust that she can count on me, not of whether or not she should be picking at me.

Or: Why my partner doesn’t seem to want to open up to me really becomes a question of how he gets scared of triggering an angry or suspicious reaction in me, and not about whether or not he should or should not open up to me.

Unravelling knots instead of trying to win is about getting to the heart of an issue. And what lies at the heart is often deeper than what is immediately expressed. It requires going a step deeper into the reasons why something is happening.  When we unravel the deeper feelings or meanings at stake in the tug-of-wars of our mundane fighting, you start to make sense to me, and I start to make sense to you, but now at a completely different level.

Why my partner always complains that I don’t help out around the house becomes different when I begin to see that my partner is not just criticizing me for not helping out with chores, but feels stressed about going through life without feeling like she has someone to go through life with. Yes, the chore not getting done is annoying on its own, but it also represents a lack of care and consideration and a lack of ability to depend on the other person, both of which are deeper issues that can begin to unravel the knot of the argument. They take the power out of my usual rebuttal of “doesn’t she see that I work 80 hours a week and am doing plenty to contribute”, and makes the argument about something else. The question now becomes, how, in spite of my busy work schedule can I show up in the relationship in a way that makes my partner feel cared about and like she is not doing life on her own… 

She in turn can also get unstuck from her particular demands by understanding that the conflict to me doesn’t just represent being asked to do more chores, but feeling like the list of demands is never-ending and that I can never quite make her happy even though I do so much for our family or for us.  The “can you please put your shoes away” represents one more rebuke or complaint that says “you are not making me happy, “you are a failure as a husband”, or “you are not really who I want to be with”. Having a conversation about that fear is much different than arguing about whether or not it is reasonable to relax when I come home from work…

So how can we begin to have the sorts of conversations that unravel knots instead of seek to prove the superiority of my own point of view?

Here are some questions you can ask your partner to get you started:

• What’s really going on? Why do you think this is so important to you?
• What is your ultimate fear if this issue does not get resolved?
• What does this issue symbolize for you? What deeper issue does it represent?
• What does this issue represent about how you think I feel about you or about the standing of our relationship?
• What underlying feelings come up about this that you are not expressing? Why do you think those feelings are coming up?

And here are some DO’s and DON’Ts as you each listen to seek to understand…

Don’t:

• Defend yourself  - keep the focus on understanding your partner
• Tell your partner why their perceptions are wrong or untrue (even if your intention is misrepresented or misunderstood) – you can get into that later…
• Engage in tit for tat (“you also don’t…”)
• Agree to make changes or apologize before you really understand the emotions or values underlying your partner’s position (this is about getting your partner which is itself a powerful action and sometimes feeling understood is even more powerful than the promise of a change)

Do:

• Listen to understand
• Ask more questions to grasp the logic of your partner’s position
• Validate the logic inherent to your partner’s position (remember validation does not mean agreement, it just conveys that you can see why your partner feels the way they do given how they perceive events)

With that said you should now have some tools to start to unravel the knots of some of your reoccurring disagreements. Rather than pointing fingers and proving that you are right and your partner is wrong, you are now going to be able to learn something new about your partner that will deepen your knowledge and connection with them.

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