Resolving stupid marital conflicts

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Joe Shlabotnik
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Re: Resolving stupid marital conflicts

Post by Joe Shlabotnik »

Amen - I learned Reflective Listening at a seminar for a non-profit board I was on back in the day. When I am pissed about something someone has said, I try to begin my reply with "What I am hearing you say is..." and that can help defuse a situation.

Of course, I'm getting to the age where I don't give a [expletive] what other people think so I probably don't use it as much as I used to. But still...

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Leroy
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Re: Resolving stupid marital conflicts

Post by Leroy »

We haven't argued since I got my white sleeveless t-shirt and my pitbull, killer.

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33anda3rd
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Re: Resolving stupid marital conflicts

Post by 33anda3rd »

Best thing about counseling is that it puts you in a room for an hour and requires that you talk and communicate and share. So in situations in which you're both busy in life, or stressed, or withholding something in your day-to-day and are not sharing how you feel and what you need from the other person, you're effectively put in a room where you take the time to do all that. Which is a nice, necessary reset for people who don't make the time otherwise.

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cardinalkarp
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Re: Resolving stupid marital conflicts

Post by cardinalkarp »

As someone who's been to both marital and individual counseling this is all really good advice. Being able to communicate effectively first of all requires one to listen, but more importantly to understand what the person it trying to communicate to you. Until one understands why the other person's upset and then try to gain a view from their perspective they can't really effectively communicate.
Last edited by cardinalkarp on August 15 16, 10:39 am, edited 1 time in total.

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lukethedrifter
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Re: Resolving stupid marital conflicts

Post by lukethedrifter »

My wife apparently requires a referee to have a productive discussion.

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Jocephus
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Re: Resolving stupid marital conflicts

Post by Jocephus »

cuckolding

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Joe Shlabotnik
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Re: Resolving stupid marital conflicts

Post by Joe Shlabotnik »

Leroy wrote:We haven't argued since I got my white sleeveless t-shirt and my pitbull, killer.
The wood chipper wasn't enough?!?

:-)

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Swirls
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Re: Resolving stupid marital conflicts

Post by Swirls »

I tried counseling with ex-Mrs. Swirls not too long after we moved to upstate NY. Mostly it was due to a combination of me starting my new job and immediately working a crapload of hours each week (70+ as we just started our refueling outage), her becoming clinically depressed at not being able to find a job, and her hating snow and cold weather (of which there is a [expletive] load).

It became bad enough that she would stay up as long as possible throughout the night watching TV in the living room so that she would finally come to bed around the time that I got up in the morning to go to work. After a week or two of that, I overheard her talking rather loudly on the phone to a friend that she wanted a divorce. Apparently she had thought I was already asleep. And all this was barely six months into our marriage.

We agreed to go to counseling, although I only went to one session by myself. We did one session together, and then she went to a half-dozen or so sessions by herself. We made things work for the next 6-8 months, and I thought we were finally in a good place, when she told me she had accepted a job in Phoenix, AZ - about as big of a temperature/distance swing as you can get from Lake Ontario. She moved away, and a few months later we agreed on a divorce.

The counseling definitely helped, if nothing else it forced each of us to say things that we had been bottling up inside that we weren't comfortable telling the other person in private. Why it then becomes significantly easier to tell those things to a third party sometimes while your spouse is only a few feet away I don't know. But it's easier. There was definitely value added in going. I will admit that after counseling I learned how to communicate much better with ex-Mrs. Swirls (and now current Mrs. Swirls).

=============================

Current Mrs. Swirls and I also did mandatory pre-marriage counseling classes. Those sessions, along with the previous actual marriage counseling sessions, taught me a lot about communication. We try not to bottle up feelings very much, and for the most part we succeed at it very well. In the almost three years that Mrs. Swirls and I have been together, we've only maybe one real fight involving "angry tears" on the part of Mrs. Swirls. We have lots of disagreements and mini-arguments, but relatively few spats (and only the one real fight).

Honest and receptive communication is key. If you can't do it in private, formal counseling could definitely help.

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Fat_Bulldog
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Re: Resolving stupid marital conflicts

Post by Fat_Bulldog »

Eating gravy and having a good sense of humor works for us.

If that doesn't work, you might need this planet: (just kidding of course)


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Fat_Bulldog
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Re: Resolving stupid marital conflicts

Post by Fat_Bulldog »

Jocephus wrote:cuckolding
This made me laugh quite a bit.

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