How To Handle An Unreasonable Person Who Won't Listen

I received an email from a person who asked, "What do you do when you are trying to listen and understand and work things out but the other person never listens or tries to find a reasonable compromise?"

I've written in the past about how to arrive at agreements to which people are committed and not just compliant. In this case, I'll take the writer at his word that the other person truly "never listens or tries to find a reasonable compromise" and offer four alternatives for resolving this dilemma:

1. Leave the relationship.

If, in fact, you are really "trying to listen and understand" but the other person truly "never listens or tries to find a reasonable compromise," give up. You will never get what you want from this person so there's no point in trying. This is called "take it or leave it" where the other person is forcing you into either accepting her behavior or leaving the relationship. So leave.

2. Stick around because the good outweighs the bad

In this case,  you're willing to stick around for the good and live with the bad. For example, the unreasonable person might be your boss and you need the job. Or, the unreasonable person may be your spouse and you want to stay for the good of the children or because, on the whole, there are more good days than bad. Decide to accept the person's behavior for a greater good. Stay in the relationship and recognize that this is your choice. No one is forcing you to stay so give up being upset.

3. Stick around because you hope the person never changes.

Not only do you stick around hoping the person never changes, but you might be disappointed if he/she does change.This is not at all obvious so you really do have to be a good listener and hear me out.

Consider the possibility (and I know this is difficult to accept) that you don't really want to get along with this unreasonable person.  After all, if this person doesn't change then you get a huge payoff. You get to be right and you get to make the other person wrong.

Don't belittle this payoff. It's huge for human beings. As long as the other person doesn't change, you are justified in gossiping about him, belittling him and complaining about him. You can continue to think of yourself as a "good guy" because, after all, "he/she" has "forced" you to be this way. You don't have to take any responsibility for the relationship because the "blame" is all on the other side.

The way to know if this is the case for you is to notice if you gossip and complain about this person but stay in the relationship. If things are really that bad, why do you stay? You must be getting some kind of payoff. As noted, a huge payoff is that you get to think of yourself as right and, perhaps, righteous.

4. Question whether you are truly listening and trying to understand.

This requires some soul searching. If you are not really listening but only waiting for the other person to stop talking so that you can explain why you are right, then it's no wonder the other person doesn't seem to want to work things out. You obviously don't either at least from the other person's perspective.

I'm sure you can tell from these four suggestions that I'm a proponent of the school that says you can't control another person's behavior. You can only control yourself.

Surprisingly, it often happens that when you change, so does the other person. Could it be that the unreasonable person is being unreasonable because of something you're doing that causes him to think it's the only way to get his/her needs met?

The Courage To Ask Questions

"We make all sorts of assumptions because we don't have the courage to ask questions."

Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements:  A Practical Guide To Personal Freedom

Have you ever noticed that a 2-hour movie would be over in 10 minutes if one character simply turned to another and asked, "So. Why are you upset?" Instead, we get two hours of guessing, recriminations, gossip and heartbreak before the final reel when the two characters realize that their assumptions were faulty and fall into one another's arms as the credits roll.

The same thing happens in real life. Instead of asking why someone appears angry, we make assumptions (that is, we guess) as to why he might be angry. Instead of asking why a phone call wasn't returned, we make assumptions like, "I must not be important" or "She doesn't like me."  Instead of asking why someone appears to be scowling, we attempt to "read" the body language behind the apparent scowl and assume that we've done something to upset him.

We spend endless hours conjecturing with friends as to why someone didn't smile at us or why our email wasn't answered or why we were told "no" when we expected a "yes" instead of simply asking the person whom we feel offended by, "why didn't you do (what I expected)?"

Silence isn't golden.  Unless we ask why a person did or did not do something, we are left only with our guesses and our imagination. And these guesses and imaginings can damage our relationships.

Here's a real life example that had a happy ending 55 years later than would have occurred had one person simply asked, "So. How did you like the flowers?"

The story is told in the book (although not in the television movie based on the book), "Masters Of Sex," the story of William Masters and Virginia Johnson who became famous and infamous for their sex research during the last decades of the 20th century.

In 1937, when he was 22 years old, Bill Masters fell deeply in love with Geraldine Oliver whom he called Dody.

At one point in their courtship, Dody was hospitalized near her home  in Buffalo, New York. Bill was attending medical school in Rochester and, as soon as he heard the news, drove all night to be beside Dody.

Unfortunately, when he arrived at the hospital, Bill was told that he couldn't see Dody because she was recuperating and couldn't be disturbed. Bill left to drive back to school, but first left flowers and a note with the night nurse with instructions to please be sure and give them to Dody as soon as possible. The flowers were an elaborate and expensive assortment and Bill had gone to considerable trouble to get them.

Weeks later, Bill returned to Buffalo to see Dody after she had left the hospital. Dody seemed distracted and responded perfunctorily to conversation. Bill was dying to ask why she was being stand offish and how she liked the flowers, but never did. Assuming Dody had lost interest in him during her hospitalization and subsequent convalescence, Bill and Dody drifted apart.

Over the next 55 years, Bill got married, had two children and divorced after 28 years to marry his sex researcher partner, Virginia Johnson to whom he was married for 22 years.

In 1991, at the age of 76, Masters asked Johnson for a divorce so that he could marry the love of his life. He had run into Dody completely by accident. Neither had been looking for the other. Dody had herself been married, divorced and widowed from a second marriage.

55 years after the fact, Bill Masters found out that the night nurse had never given Dody the flowers and he never asked about it. Dody had assumed it was Bill who had lost interest and her silence was her way of communicating her hurt.

It took 55 years for Dody and Bill to be reunited, something that could have happened 55 years earlier, had he simply asked, "So. How did you like the flowers?" or she had simply asked, "Why did you ignore me when I was in the hospital?"

It takes courage to ask questions. But life is short and it saves a lot of time and grief.