A Story Book Romance Requires Accepting Another's Story

In "Being Wrong," a book about how difficult it can be to admit errors in judgment or belief or perception, the author Kathryn Schulz interviews Raoul Felder, a divorce attorney with a roster of wealthy clients some famous, some not.

Felder notes that during his first meeting with a client he/she invariably tells Felder that he is about to hear a story of marital discord the likes of which Felder has never heard before. Felder nods sympathetically, even as he is thinking that he has heard it all before many, many times.

According to Felder, the story invariably goes something like this: I wish that my (husband/wife) would realize that there are two sides to every story. But because he/she refuses to see that there are two sides to every story, I have to end the relationship.

Of course, as Kathryn Schulz notes, what's left unsaid but implied in this rant is the assertion, "then he/she would realize that I'm right."

Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen, Clinical Professor of Family and Community Medicine at University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine, writes about a woman she knows who, in a few hours, can have people with diametrically opposing positions work together as colleagues. When Dr. Remen asked this woman how she achieves this extraordinary accomplishment, the woman responded, “Simple. You just change the story they are holding about themselves and each other.” (check out Dr. Remen's complete article here)

Consider a relationship you have that is going well or one that is not. Why is that relationship going well or poorly? Your answer to that question is the story you tell and it's the story that determines the quality of that relationship.

For example:

Is your boss unreasonable in his demands (your story), or interested in excellence (his story)?         

Does a friend avoid giving you her opinion because she doesn't care (your story), or because she's concerned about hurting your feelings (her story)?

        

Did your spouse not pick up the dry cleaning because he is getting back at you for something (your story), or did he legitimately forget (his story)?

Does your boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife still communicate with someone from a former relationship because he/she simply wants to remain on good terms (his/her story) or because he/she is not fully committed to you (your story)?  

        

Sometimes there are two sides to a story and sometimes there aren't but there are definitely always two stories. A storybook romance or any great relationship requires the acceptance of the other's story.

"I Didn't Think Of It"

Consider this scenario: You are seated across from a person who is holding a tennis ball. Your assignment (and I ask you to accept it) is to get that tennis ball from the other person. How do you do it?

The people to whom I asked this question had one of three suggestions.

11.   Offer something to the person in exchange for the tennis ball. For example, "I'll give you a cookie if you give me the tennis ball."

22.   Ask for the ball and give a reason for asking. For example, "Will you please give me the tennis ball? My dog is a Golden Retriever and it's a fun way for me to exercise him."

33.   Look as needy as possible and ask, without providing a reason, "Will you give me the tennis ball?"

A University of Chicago sociologist used this very scenario. You may know that Chicago has recently experienced a spate of gang related murders and the sociologist was trying to determine why this might be so and what to do about it. I recently heard the results of his experiment on National Public Radio.

The sociologist brought in pairs of young people, not necessarily gang members, who lived in the areas of the city where most of the gang related violence was occurring. He paired them up and gave one person a tennis ball and directed the other to get the ball away from that person.

In every case (and I don't recall how many people were put through this exercise), the person wanting the ball tried to wrest it away from the other through some sort of intimidation such as, "If you don't give me the ball, I'll take it from you."

After a few minutes, the experiment was stopped and the person whose job it was to get the ball was asked why he (the study was all males) didn't simply ask for the ball or use one of the other strategies suggested by the people I queried.

In every case...in every case...the response was basically, "I didn't think of it." 

Now before we judge these young people, consider that their response ("I didn't think of it") is not much different from any of us who are living with unresolved conflicts. We are all the victims (and beneficiaries) of our past. Our approach to handling conflict is based on that past. Whatever worked for us in the past is likely to be our modus operandi in the future. And when that modus operandi doesn't work, we tend to give up or blame the other person.

That's why, when you are frustrated by a conflict, get help from someone you trust. Stop asking yourself what to do because asking yourself for suggestions will only yield what you've already thought of. What you're looking for is a solution you haven't yet thought of.

You'll know you're on the right track when you hear a suggestion and you say, "I didn't think of that."

Conflict Resolution: A Lesson From "The Descendants"

As I've suggested before, a key to resolving conflict is to give up our attachment to being right. The harder we dig in our heels, the firmer the person we're in conflict with digs in his and the conflict goes on and on and on.

If you're looking for an example of what giving up the attachment to being right looks like and the value for doing so, there's a clip near the end of the George Clooney film "The Descendants" that provides a terrific example.

In the film, Clooney's wife has suffered a horrific accident while water skiing and is in a coma from which she will not recover. Clooney has two daughters, one of whom reveals to Clooney that, just before the accident, she had discovered her mother having an affair. Clooney is stunned to hear this news.

Clooney also has to deal with his wife's father who claims that the accident would never have happened had Clooney, a rich man, bought his wife her own boat.

The accusation is, of course, absurd as Clooney points out. What difference would it have made if his wife had been water skiing behind her own boat or, as was actually the case, behind someone else's?

But just a few moments later, we see Clooney give up his attachment to being right and it's a beautiful scene.

After lambasting Clooney for not buying his wife her own boat, the father in law says about his comatose daughter, "She was a faithful, devoted wife. She deserved more."

We in the audience know this isn't true. We know about the affair Clooney's wife was having and we have met the man with whom she was having the affair.

Clooney pauses. What should he say? We can almost see his mind racing, trying to decide how to respond. Should he contradict his father in law? Should he reveal details about the affair of which his father in law knows nothing? Or should he allow the impression to remain so that his father in law will continue to think well of his daughter?

It is at this moment that Clooney gives up his attachment to being right and responds, "You're right. She deserved more."

What is accomplished? It doesn't change the father in law's opinion of George but it does end the conflict. After all, when we say, "You're right" to the person we're arguing with, that ends the argument. The other person can only keep the conflict going by saying, "No I'm not right. Let's continue fighting."

Giving up our attachment to being right costs us something. For George Clooney, it costs the emotional satisfaction of proving his father in law wrong. In our lives, this is generally why we hang on to the attachment to being right. The possibility of proving someone else wrong is too juicy a payoff to let go of.

But that payoff of proving someone else wrong costs us peace. It costs us affinity with others. It keeps us mired in the conflict because the person we've just proved wrong is going to want to argue even harder (one can imagine the father in law, on hearing of his daughter's infidelity, continuing the conflict with the accusation, "You drove her to it.").

When we let go of our attachment to being right, we get peace. We get to let go of needless arguing. We can move on with our lives.

If we hang on to being right, we may get the temporary satisfaction of proving someone wrong. But it eliminates the longer-term satisfaction of peace and harmony and contentment.  

A Conflict Resolution Formula

George Mitchell is the former Senator from Maine, special envoy to the Middle East for the Obama administration, former Senate majority leader and one time chairman of Disney. Senator Mitchell chaired the negotiations that led to the peace agreement in Northern Ireland in 1998.

Appearing on the Charlie Rose show on PBS, Senator Mitchell revealed how he was able to broker the Northern Ireland agreement. He noted that he "got the parties to listen to the other side. Don't walk out. Don't dismiss it. Don't think of something else. Without that, nothing would happen."

I can't think of a better formula for resolving conflict, but I'm sure you already know that listening is the key to conflict resolution. If so, you probably think you are listening but the other person isn't and you're wondering what to do to get that person to listen to you.

I obviously don't know your specific situation, so I'll have to speak generally and, if you wish, write me with your questions and/or comments.

The following will test just how good a listener you are. As you read, see if you can listen to me without "walking out" (that is, stop reading), "dismiss it" (that is, fail to keep an open mind) and/or "doing something else" (reading the entire piece before checking email, etc.).

Here goes:

1.   If people won't listen to us, we are giving them reason to think it will do no good to listen. If people are being defensive with us, we're giving them reason to think there is something they have to defend. If people are hostile, we're giving them reason to believe they have to be (perhaps because we're not listening to them).

2.   We're the reason the conflict still exists if we've violated Senator Mitchell's formula by walking out, dismissing the other person's ideas, thinking of something else or (adding to the what the Senator said) blaming the other person for the conflict.

3.   We have to see the conflict from the other person' perspective. To the other person, we're the problem. We're being difficult. We're not listening. We're hard to get along with. Accept this and listen to find out what we need to do to not be so difficult to get along with.

4.   If the conflict has been going on for longer than 15 minutes, we're no longer arguing about the issue that started the conflict. What has entered the picture are our memories of all the past hurts and injustices that we believe the other person has inflicted on us and we're now interested in getting even, not resolving the conflict. The same thing that perpetuates wars between countries perpetuates interpersonal wars.

5.   All of the above, while perhaps counter to our beliefs, suggests we're more in control of resolving conflict than we think we are. Or, put another way, our ability to control the outcome of a conflict is correlated with what we think.

Resolve Conflict Now. Say "Enough."

No resolution of conflict is possible without the willingness to let go of the past. Another way of saying this is that someone has to say "enough" and mean it. Or, as Harry Truman said, "The buck stops here."

I saw two movies in the last two days that reminded me that the word "enough" begins to create a future distinct from the past. "Enough" draws a line in the sand that demarcates who we were from who we will be.

The first movie that reminded me of this is called, "War Witch" and is the fictionalized story of an unnamed African country where children are abducted and trained to be killers. In the movie, the main character, a girl who is 12 at the beginning of the movie, is forced to kill her parents, then later her husband and, still later, is raped and has the baby of one of the rebel leaders. It's a story we've read about in the newspapers and will continue to read about until enough of us say enough.

The second movie is called "The Gatekeepers" and is a documentary in which six former heads of the Israeli security forces (called Shin Bet) tell the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict after the so called Six Day War in 1967 in which Israel annexed the West Bank and the Gaza Strip after defeating the Egyptian, Syrian and Jordanian armies.

This violence will never end until someone says, "enough" and means it. As one of the former Shin Bet leaders says, "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter."

Similarly, I was attending a fund raising breakfast for a group in Phoenix that mentors at risk children. At the breakfast, several of the children spoke, as did a father whose son was being mentored and who had attended parenting classes.

The father was a big, broad shouldered man who dwarfed the lectern behind which he stood.

The man started crying from the moment he began speaking and was barely able to finish his talk. He spoke about how he had abused his children before attending the program, had stopped as a result of the program and was committed to a very different life for his family. In other words, he had learned to say, "enough."

He also talked about how his father had beat him. I imagined that his father's father's father's father had also been an abuser and the abuse would have continued into the next generations were it not for the man behind the microphone who had learned to say "enough."

And that's what it takes for our world to change. Enough people have to say enough. Enough to violence. Enough to conflict. Enough to being right and righteous about being right.

Our conflicts can end now. We just have to say "enough. It stops with me."

Pay Attention To Complaints: They Lead To Relationship Breakthroughs

Recently, I wrote about a surprising encounter I had with a man in a restaurant who I first assumed was "crazy" and then, after listening to him, discovered he wasn't crazy at all.

In response, I heard from a psychiatrist who is on my distribution list. Before you think that he was writing to tell me that I was the crazy one (perhaps he secretly was), this psychiatrist is my uncle and my story had reminded him of something he experienced early in his career.

I'm turning this issue over to that psychiatrist, Cliff Wilkerson, because I think there's a valuable lesson in what he experienced. I've bolded a few phrases that relate to a comment I'll make at the end.

Cliff wrote:

(Your story) reminds me of a child in a day school for the cognitively and emotionally impaired where I once consulted. He kept saying, "Matchbook" to his classmates and to his teacher who would respond, "You can't have a matchbook; matches are dangerous." She was growing impatient with the child  because he brought it up incessantly during the day, day after day. She was also frustrated that he sometimes became agitated when she would tell him about the danger of matches.

I found a matchbook and took it into class with me and, sure enough, the child came up to me and said, "Matchbook."

I took out the matchbook and the child's eyes lighted up as he held out his hand. The teacher looked on anxiously as the child took it from my hand. She firmly believed he would take out a match and strike it. Instead he pointed to the cover and said, "Mother."

"Mother?" I asked.

He nodded and handed the matches back to me. "Mother."

I told the teacher that I thought he was trying to tell her something about missing his mother when he said matchbook, that for some reason a matchbook was a transitional object for him. I suggested she give him an empty matchbook to carry in school and, when he mentioned matchbook, realize he was trying to communicate something about his need for his mother and that the matchbook would very likely quiet him.

She did as I suggested and the boy ceased his constant refrain, "Matchbook," except for times when he needed comfort from his teacher.

The end. Thanks for the contribution, Cliff.

Is there a "matchbook" in your life? Is there someone in your life who, like that child, talks about something "incessantly?" Like the teacher, do you get "frustrated" and try to make the complaint go away? After all, why pay attention to a complaining person when there are so many others who don't complain?

Consider that every complaint contains the seed of an unmet need. Like that child, perhaps the complaining person "was trying to communicate something about his need." Perhaps listening to the complaint will produce a breakthrough in the relationship that might not have occurred otherwise.

After all, a person who complains incessantly is like someone knocking on a door, trying to get the attention of those inside and who will keep knocking until the door is opened.

Perhaps it's time to open some doors.  

By the way, Cliff is also an author and has published a memoir called "Beautiful Brown Eyes and Other Stories" and will soon have a second book in circulation.

Do You Want To Know A Secret? Listen

Thanks to the Beatles for giving me the title. Indeed, listening is the "secret." 

Whenever I mediate a conflict or whenever I teach people how to handle conflict, I’m amazed at how easily conflicts could be resolved if people just listened to one another. Instead, we think other people are “crazy” to believe, think, and feel as they do. I assure you: To the people with whom we are in conflict, we are the “crazy” ones.

I was thinking about this because of an interesting encounter with a sane man recently. At first, though, I thought he was "crazy" and I was trying to figure out how to get away from him.

I was enjoying my coffee and newspaper at a neighborhood restaurant when I heard from a table near by, “Excuse me. Do you have the time?”

I glanced to my left. The man who had asked was seated a few tables away and was dressed in a stocking cap pulled down almost to his eyebrows and a dirty flannel shirt over a tee shirt that must have once been white but was now gray and stained. His hands, clutching his paper coffee cup, had apparently not been washed in quite some time. In fact, my impression of the man was that he had not washed anything in quite some time. The man appeared to be about 30 years old, although it was tough to tell through the layers of grime and beard stubble.

I glanced at my watch. “8:04” I said and immediately returned to my newspaper. I was certain this would be followed by an appeal for money and I thought that by avoiding eye contact, I could avoid him.

“Do you believe that my parents never gave me any money for clothes?” he asked to no one in particular.

I didn't look up from my newspaper. I was a little afraid. Should I ignore the man or just get up and walk away? I was debating this in my head, listening to my internal dialogue, when I surprised myself by looking the man directly in the eye and asking, in as nonjudgmental a voice as I could muster, “Why are you telling me this?”

A strange thing happened. The man’s eyes cleared. I don’t know how else to describe this. His eyes had appeared cloudy when I first glanced his way and, when I asked my question, they cleared. He had blue eyes.

“I know there’s nothing you can do about it, “ he said looking directly at me and with a conversational voice, as though I were his friend. “I just can’t believe my parents wrote a check to a charity for $3,000 but they won’t give me any money.”

“What do you need?” I asked, expecting that I would now hear that appeal for money.

“Nothing, “ he said. “I just wanted to tell someone. But I’ll get even when they die. When they stand in front of that Man for judgment, I’ll get even.“

“How do you know?” I asked.

“I just know, “ he said. “I have faith.”

"Good luck, “ I said as I rose to leave the restaurant. “I hope things work out for you.”

“Thanks, “ he said. “And God bless you.” The sincerity in his voice was touching. He spoke as if he really did want God to bless me. He never gave any indication that he wanted me to give him money. And, once I really looked at him and listened to what he said, I never had any thought that he was crazy or dangerous.

What struck me was how sane this man turned out to be when I chose to listen to him rather than to myself.

I remembered when I mediated a conflict between the President of a company and his Chief Financial Officer. To me, they were as "crazy" as that man in the restaurant first appeared. It was obvious that they were saying the same thing only coming at it from different directions. They wouldn't have needed me if they simply listened to each other.

Might this apply to other situations when we just can't understand why others don't think as we do? When we think that others must be "crazy" not to act or believe as we do?

By listening, might conflicts "clear" as quickly as that man's eyes had cleared when I listened to him?