This article articulated well an experience I’ve had many times. In my marriage we’ve found good ways to work through it. In other relationships though, I’ve found that the desire to avoid conflict or the risks of conflict are so high that it’s hard to even get started in the process. Or it’s hard to move past other people’s defensiveness to get them engage in the process whereas in marriage it feels like we’ve already decided to make the investment.
That's such an incredibly important point--that the incentives to have these hard conversations are naturally higher in marriage than other kinds of relationships.
My husband and I struggle with the reality gap in our disagreements. I am someone who is intuitive and relies on gut feelings and puts a lot of emphasis on feelings. He has reasons for being so repressed in his feelings, but he doesn’t really see that he does that and wants to stick to “facts.” He gets aggravated because there are times he views me sharing my feelings as trying to “make them the reality” when that’s not what really happened. For my part, I don’t think I am trying to make it the reality, I am trying to explain how my feelings made me interpret the same situation differently and that that is why we are not viewing the same event in the same way. My frustration at times comes from what I feel is an opposition to trying to understand how feelings can be important too. We’ve been to therapy individually for short term therapy and together but not for more than a few sessions, so I think he doesn’t really get the merits of differentiation still (i.e he still thinks decisions should be made from an analytical perspective and rely on facts rather than accepting that both our ways of making decisions have value).
Our strategies that have helped a bit include taking turns and allowing each person to share what they think the issue is, trying to understand each other’s point of view, sticking to one event and not bringing up other times something similar happened, and remembering that we both have different experiences which make us see the same things differently so that requires us to keep an open mind.
This is a difficult topic, and I commend you for tackling it!
What you describe is something I see so often in the couples' therapy room, and it's really hard to navigate. I love the tips you offer: turn-taking, making space for two experiences, focusing on understanding, and sticking to one topic at a time--those are all such good skills! Thank you for this, Laura!
A fantastic article! Especially as we enter the holidays and spend time with family that we don’t always see eye to eye. It seems some may be interpreted as gaslighting too. Of course, that’s a whole different problem if one is intentionally being manipulative.
After many years of being both a therapist and a partner in a marriage, I have finally learned to start with "we're both right," because our experiences and perspectives are valid. I feel like that helps shift us each out of defensive mode into listening and collaborating mode. Thank you for writing this!
This article articulated well an experience I’ve had many times. In my marriage we’ve found good ways to work through it. In other relationships though, I’ve found that the desire to avoid conflict or the risks of conflict are so high that it’s hard to even get started in the process. Or it’s hard to move past other people’s defensiveness to get them engage in the process whereas in marriage it feels like we’ve already decided to make the investment.
That's such an incredibly important point--that the incentives to have these hard conversations are naturally higher in marriage than other kinds of relationships.
My husband and I struggle with the reality gap in our disagreements. I am someone who is intuitive and relies on gut feelings and puts a lot of emphasis on feelings. He has reasons for being so repressed in his feelings, but he doesn’t really see that he does that and wants to stick to “facts.” He gets aggravated because there are times he views me sharing my feelings as trying to “make them the reality” when that’s not what really happened. For my part, I don’t think I am trying to make it the reality, I am trying to explain how my feelings made me interpret the same situation differently and that that is why we are not viewing the same event in the same way. My frustration at times comes from what I feel is an opposition to trying to understand how feelings can be important too. We’ve been to therapy individually for short term therapy and together but not for more than a few sessions, so I think he doesn’t really get the merits of differentiation still (i.e he still thinks decisions should be made from an analytical perspective and rely on facts rather than accepting that both our ways of making decisions have value).
Our strategies that have helped a bit include taking turns and allowing each person to share what they think the issue is, trying to understand each other’s point of view, sticking to one event and not bringing up other times something similar happened, and remembering that we both have different experiences which make us see the same things differently so that requires us to keep an open mind.
This is a difficult topic, and I commend you for tackling it!
What you describe is something I see so often in the couples' therapy room, and it's really hard to navigate. I love the tips you offer: turn-taking, making space for two experiences, focusing on understanding, and sticking to one topic at a time--those are all such good skills! Thank you for this, Laura!
This is so "spot on!"
Thank you so much, Jake! That means a lot coming from an experienced couples' therapist!
A fantastic article! Especially as we enter the holidays and spend time with family that we don’t always see eye to eye. It seems some may be interpreted as gaslighting too. Of course, that’s a whole different problem if one is intentionally being manipulative.
100%--when the intention is to be manipulative, there needs to be a different set of strategies. But sometimes it's hard to tell, isn't it?
After many years of being both a therapist and a partner in a marriage, I have finally learned to start with "we're both right," because our experiences and perspectives are valid. I feel like that helps shift us each out of defensive mode into listening and collaborating mode. Thank you for writing this!