Preventing a Communication Break Down

I was having lunch with a friend the other day and we were talking about relationships. ( I know...what else do we girls talk about?)

Anyway, I was telling my friend that I think even great relationships can have communication breakdowns and when this happens it's really hard to get back in sync.

My relationship is great, but it is so because I am always trying new communication techniques with Paul in order to ensure we are on the same page, or if we do disagree on something, I want us to be able to talk about our differences in a respectful and honest manner.

Regularly, I check in with Paul and ask him...

Okay, on a scale of one through ten, ten being extremely happy and one being ready to pull the plug, how do you feel about our relationship?

Most of the time Paul answers nine or even 10, but when he tells me our relationship is at a seven for him we need to talk.

My friend Myles recently gave me some good relationship advice. He told me you need to ask your loved one, "What do you need?"

This is an interesting question. It doesn't ask, "What do you want?" which is good because often I hear people remark to their partners, "I don't know what you want!"

A need is different...I might want Paul to make me breakfast every morning (it would be nice, but I don't need it), but I need Paul to......what actually do I need Paul to do? Most of the things that come to my mind first are wants. (Help with chores, drive the girls to dance, take out the garbage) All helpful, but not really crucial.

What I need from Paul is to love me, trust me, respect me and support me....and you know what he does.

Anyway, back to my advice on communication...

Since I am a public relations practitioner I can't resist the opportunity to create and implement a survey, so I designed a quick and dirty questionnaire for both Paul and I to complete separately and then compare our answers.

Paul, always agreeable to my innovative ideas was game, especially when I told him our survey results would help us reinforce our positive opinions, crystallize neutral/latent opinions and change or neutralize any negative opinions we had. (some pr jargon for you)

The survey only took me about ten minutes to complete and Paul had his filled out when he came home from work last night.

We handed each other our surveys to review and then talked about our answers.

We were both pleased to discover that many of our answers were similar and the ones that differed allowed us to talk about our differences in a calm and rational manner.

Not only was this exercise fun, it was also an easy and creative way to keep our communication channel open!

Feel free to try it!

Relationship Survey

WHAT’S IMPORTANT TO ME IN THIS RELATIONSHIP?


WHAT CAN I DO TO ENSURE EXCELLENT COMMUNICATION?


WHAT IS ONE GOAL I WOULD LIKE TO WORK TOWARDS BY DECEMBER 31, 2010


WHAT DO I NEED ON A REGULAR BASIS?



HOW MUCH PERSONAL SPENDING MONEY DO I NEED EACH PAY CHEQUE?


THE IDEAL DATE NIGHT FOR ME WOULD INCLUDE:



IF I COULD CHANGE ONE THING ABOUT MY PARTNER WHAT WOULD IT BE?


IF I COULD WORK ON ONE THING ABOUT MYSELF WHAT WOULD IT BE?


ON A SCALE FROM 1-5 HOW HAPPY AM I IN THIS RELATIONSHIP (FIVE BEING EXTREMELY HAPPY)

1 2 3 4 5


ON A SCALE FROM 1-5 HOW WOULD I RATE OUR COMMUNICATION?

1 2 3 4 5


WHEN I AM UPSET I WANT MY PARTNER TO____________________________



ON A SCALE FROM 1-5 HOW WOULD I RATE OUR SPENDING HABITS

1 2 3 4 5


WHAT'S THE ONE THING THAT MADE ME FALL IN LOVE WITH MY PARTNER?

Who says Whining doesn't Work?

On Sunday night I was standing in line at the grocery store waiting somewhat patiently to check out when I heard a mother arguing (for lack of a better word since it's really hard to have a debate with your toddler) with her three year old daughter. The child wanted a candy bar and the mother was refusing this request.

"But I want one!" said the child.

"No" replied her mother, "You haven't had dinner yet."

"Puhleese!" begged the little girl.

"Olivia, stop whining!" urged the mom, "You won't get your own way just because you keep on about it."

Hmmm!

I remember my parents saying the same thing to me when I was little, but now I wonder if this is in fact true.

Remember the idiom,

The squeaky wheel gets the grease?
meaning the person who complains the most gets the best service.

So perhaps whining does work??!!

I know that I have given in to my kids when they repeatedly ask for something that really isn't worth fighting about (staying up ten minutes longer, a muffin for breakfast instead of a healthier choice, or a sleep over with a friend)

A few weeks ago I was trying to buy a swimming pool for Jenna and Sierra after seeing one on sale in the Zeller's flyer. I drove to the nearest store, but found they were out of stock in the size that I wanted. The sales person offered to contact another store for me and put the desired pool on hold for me if I was willing to drive to the farther store. I was and promised to be there within a few hours. I arrived to the sporting goods department, found a boxed pool with my name taped prominently on the side and then realized the clerk had put my name on the wrong pool. Of course, there now wasn't any pools available in the size I needed, so I asked for the manager.

The poor girl managing the department had recently hurt her leg, so as she hobbled up to me, I smiled, asked her if she was okay and the proceeded to tell her my sad story of travelling the extra distance, taking time out of my busy day and how disappointed my daughters were going to be if I showed up back home pool-less.

My innovative suggestion was that in order to recover my time and energy the store should sell me the next sized pool as the advertised price of the smaller pool.

The manager easily agreed.

Now granted, I was polite and calm, but also I definitely whined a bit and it worked!

I also can remember several situations when friends of mine complained that they were overlooked for things like a parking spot by the door at work, seats to a concert, or even something that another friend was giving away for free, yet when I asked them if they ever let their boss, co-worker or friends know they were interested in those offerings they always replied, no!

My friend, Lisa called me the other day and told me how busy she was in the office. Which is great because when we last had lunch she was worried that she wasn't busy enough. I told her how happy I was to hear that things had turned around and she said, "Who says whining doesn't work?"

So...it's okay to ask for things, it's okay to tell people what you need and it's okay to plead your case about something you really want (Tantrums are never acceptable, but every so often whining might be exactly what you have to do!)

Just a thought!

Perception is Reality!

Whenever I hear a person telling me a story about some problem or issue, they will often hear me remark, "Well, perception is reality!" I love this saying, but I wonder if people really grasp what this means.



If a police officer is taking statements from several witnesses of a car accident he/she will hear different versions of what transpired to cause the accident. This makes sense to us since obviously depending on a person's view, location, or perception the observations can differ. One person might have thought one of the drivers was going to fast while another person might have noticed that one of the drivers failed to signal or shoulder check before changing lanes. Anyway when the police office is recording these statements he/she doesn't tell the witnesses, "Your statements can't be correct because they don't agree." He/she instead recognizes that for each witness what they perceive to be the truth is really the truth for them and therefore reality or at least their reality.



So what if we apply this same theory to relationships...



Say a guy comes home late from work one day because he decided to stop and get his watch fixed and finds his wife or girlfriend isn't home. He might be surprized and wondered where she was. He might have expected her to have dinner ready for him since he planned on going to the gym after dinner for a work out. He might have wanted to talk to her over dinner about a new position at the office or about their upcoming summer vacation. Anyway, he came home expecting one thing and then found another, so he is frustrated or upset.

When his girlfriend or wife walks through the door, instead of giving her a kiss and asking her how her day was, he asks her in a demanding voice where she has been. This obviously doesn't impress his woman because now she is defensive. She is thinking to herself, "Screw you!" But, she instead replies, "Well since you were late, I decided to be the responsible one, so I have been getting groceries, filling up the car with gas for our trip and taking your shirts to the dry cleaners." Now they are both angry and they both think the other person is wrong and should apologise.



But...really neither person is wrong. They are both right. The guy perceived the situation to be one way and so it was...he came home expecting his wife to be there and she wasn't. The wife perceived the situation to be another way, but it was still true for her...she was at home waiting for him and was hoping they could go to the gym before supper and then stop on the way home to pick up some take out, but she became tired of waiting for him, so she decided to run some errands on her own.



Since both of them are right neither of them are going to want to apologise, so instead of continuing the fight...they must recognize that every one's perception is going to differ and while you don't have to say sorry, you do have to say something like, "Gee, I am didn't expect you to perceive the situation this way when my intention was to try and help you out by picking up the groceries so we wouldn't have to tomorrow before our trip." He then could reply, "Well, sorry when I came home excited to talk to you about my job and found you not home, I was disappointed and thought you went to the gym without me."

I know it's not a simple as this, but I do think if we communicated better with our partners and tried to understand their perception of a situation, we would discover neither person was trying to be bad or evil, but in fact was just uninformed and then made assumptions based on what they perceived as reality.

Just a thought!