The Three Steps: Issue Resolution Part 3 (Episode 24)

In Part 3, Brent and Janis finally reveal the mysterious 3-step process they have been building up to in the first two parts. If followed, these can lead us to find unity and common ground in our relationships. It is a powerful way to build emotional intimacy in our marriages, families and friendships.

The Life & Love Nuggets podcast will help you learn valuable insights into relationships, life, and love. Brent and Janis have been empowering couples through pre-marriage and marriage therapy in their private practice, Life Connection Counseling, since 1982. They recently retired after forty years of pastoral ministry and are continuing to help individuals, marriages and families in their private practice.

This podcast should not be considered or used for counseling but for educational purposes only.

Fear Cycle - Dance Steps

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Transcript:

[Brent]: Good morning, friends. Welcome back to Life & Love Nuggets. We're glad that you're here with us. We're both here together. Janis is-- You're going to hear her voice is--

[Janis]: Yeah. I'm going to say very little. My voice has gotten a lot-- A lot deeper.

[Brent]: Yeah. So, trying to get that radio voice, right?

[Janis]: That's right. I'm going for it. I will actually say I sound worse than I feel today.

[Brent]: Okay. All right, good.

[Janis]: We'll get this done.

[Brent]: We have these wonderful, amazing little grandbabies and they're just like, little petri dishes that we seem to pick up stuff fairly easily.

[Janis]: I seem to catch everything they have.

[Brent]: Yes, but they're amazing.

[Janis]: Yes.

[Brent]: So, we are continuing in our series on issue resolution. We talked about the idea that if we had one skill that we could coach people in, particularly couples is-- But any kind of significant relationship, it would be this. Because if we can talk through stuff, if we can talk through issues, if we can resolve issues, if we can blend and get the benefit of differences in relationships, what a different world we live in. If our culture could blend the unique viewpoints and perspectives and get the benefit of different ways of seeing the world, if they could find common ground, it would change the world.

[Janis]: And that's why I feel like, it's not only in relationships, but even in our jobs and everything else. Learning these skills-- Excuse me. Learning these skills-- I'll be quiet after this. Really enhance just our view of conflict and the fact that conflict is not a bad thing, but it's how we deal with it.

[Brent]: At human relationships, it's inevitable. There's just no way that you can be honest and open and we have two people that are fully alive and fully who they are and blending their lives together; it's impossible to not have conflict.

[Janis]: Right.

[Brent]: It's going to happen. God is not surprised about this. He just has a different way for us to manage this than where our culture does it and so. we spent a couple of weeks. We talked about the first week, we talked about this unproductive way that we can get into a pattern we call the dance step. It's a way we trigger each other and one of us does something or says something that triggers the other one and they react and it triggers us back and then our amygdala gets involved. That part of our brain that wants to go into fight or flight or freeze and at that point, we have no business talking to any other human about anything because we're triggered and so, we talked about this getting a safe word and coming up with an agreement that if either one of us get triggered, we'd take 30 minutes to an hour to take a break and kind of start over, and we talked about we would come back to, we don't just jump right back in the conversation and go “what I was saying was…”, you know? We have to have a new way of approaching that. We've been talking about this magical three steps.

[Janis]: Yes

[Brent]: [Unintelligible]. Everybody's like “get to it already!” and so, that's what we're going to talk about today, is these three steps. If you can follow these three steps in a conversation, you're going to be able to walk away with a win/win solution, something that works for both people. Now, as we mentioned, you don't have to get into an argument before you do this. We don't have to trigger each other and take a break. But in human life, we will have that happen from time to time, but we can just come right to them with this process and so, we're going to kind of lay that out before you and talk about kind of an example of what that would look like and kind of what's behind this. Now, this takes practice. It's going to feel awkward, it's going to feel structured, but it kind of has to, because we can just go off on all kind of rabbit trails as humans and-- But just like anything, like riding a bicycle, it was awkward when you first started.

[Janis]: Yeah

[Brent]: But I rode a bike for hours and hours and hours and hours, and eventually, you get on it and you don't even think about it. So, that's kind of what can happen here. Last week we talked about what are the basic principles, the foundational guidelines. We laid out these top ten issue resolution guidelines that this three-step process is based on and we also laid out the scriptural framework for this. So, this isn't just our philosophy of life that we feel like it's been grounded in this for a long, long time and these truths and so, today we're going to look at these three steps.

[Brent]: So, the first one is what we call set it up. One of the ways that we found conversations tend to go badly is we didn't decide we were actually going to talk. One of us just said something or did something and we just got into it. It just spontaneously combusted and so, there's something about saying something like-- And in the examples we're going to talk about, it's not like we've been arguing about this, most of the time the other person doesn't even know what it is. But one of the ways we set it up is simply by saying “hey, there's something I need to talk about. When's a good time for you?”.

[Brent]: So, I'm going to say I need to respect myself. I need to speak up. I need to talk about something. But I also want to respect you; this may not be a good time for you. You may have a headache or be tired or hungry or have to run back to the office or whatever. We recommend that you adopt our 24 hours rule. That if your partner or whoever asks you for a time to talk, then we've got to give them a time within 24 hours. Now, we're going to talk at the end of this. We're going to talk about how would you do this with somebody that doesn't even know the rules and so, if you were talking to your-- Wanting to talk to your boss, you would set an appointment with him. We don't just barge in our boss's office and start rambling. If we want to have a job, right? You'd say “hey, is there some time today that we could get together and talk? Or maybe tomorrow?” and we actually set an appointment and so, that's the idea. There is a scripture that talks about not letting the sun go down in your anger.

[Brent]: That's where we get these 24 hours from. But I think we've taken that too literally and we get in these midnight conversations of which we have no business talking to anybody about anything.

[Janis]: And they're ugly.

[Brent]: Yeah, because we're spent, okay? And so, it doesn't mean that we have to watch the sun and go “hurry! We got to talk!”. The way I interpret that is don't let a day pass. Don't let stuff pile up, get stuff settled and so--

[Janis]: But this is so counterintuitive, or I should say, it's so different from how we normally do it. Because normally we walk in and go “why didn't you take the trash out?”

[Brent]: Right.

[Janis]: Or we text-- We have some crispy texting going on, or we pull out our phone and we call them and it's saying “I don't care what you're doing right now. What I have to say is more important than anything that you could possibly be doing”. We don't think that, but that's how we're acting.

[Brent]: That's what it communicates. Yeah. So, that's the way we would set it up. If our partner doesn't know what we’re-- We even have an issue. Now, if we're in our dance step and we encourage everybody to-- We're triggered and we're already in an argument and one of us uses our safe word, let's say they say “time out”, then that means that we're going to take 30 minutes to an hour. But if I say-- Again, if you remember, if I say the safe word, then I have to be the one that suggests the time. So, we're actually going to again, set an appointment less than 24 hours. So, the whole idea is, let's get this conversation going that we've both agreed we're going to talk. We do it within 24 hours of the issue.

[Janis]: Yeah

[Brent]: So that's how we set it up. So, let's say we've got it set up now. So, the second step is share the problem. Now, there's a few different parts of this. The first one is we have the person share their thoughts and their feelings. Their thoughts, we just want them to logically describe the issue. But we also need feelings. “I'm frustrated, I'm hurt, I'm disappointed, I feel misunderstood” or whatever. Feelings add a very important emotional quality to it, but it also helps us understand the level, because there's a difference between “I'm a little frustrated about something” and “I'm so mad I can't see straight”. But if you don't say your feelings, your partner has to guess. It's like “wow, are they really that upset over this?”.

[Janis]: Right

[Brent]: When in reality, they're just a little miffed and so, we share thoughts and feelings. I have a lot of people that I have to go “okay, I don't think I heard any feelings there”, or they say “I feel that” or “I feel like”. Those aren't feelings, those are thoughts. Okay, we use the word “feel”, but it's actually a thought. So, a feeling is an emotion word.

[Janis]: And sometimes I encourage couples to get a whole page of feelings, so that they can look at it. Because oftentimes we don't know what we're feeling, and especially people who aren't good at identifying emotions and so, they have to have a list in front of them and go “oh, I feel frustrated, I feel intimidated, I feel overwhelmed” and it just helps them when it's not natural for them.

[Brent]: Yeah. Really, really important and particularly in a very important conversation that we share clearly our feelings, because our partners need to know what we're feeling. They need to know that-- It helps them have empathy towards our experience. So, we share our thoughts and our feelings without saying the words “you” or “yours”. We talked about this in our guidelines; this is one of the most important parts of this.

[Janis]: Yeah

[Brent]: So instead of “when I get the kitchen cleaned up, you frustrate me when you come in and put all your stuff up on the counter”. We would say “when I cleaned up the kitchen, I get frustrated when I walk in and see a bunch of stuff put on the kitchen counter”.

[Janis]: I never know why you use that for an example. Never mind.

[Brent]: Again, the shift there is really critical. The person still knows you're talking to them, but I've changed the focus from “you're the problem” to “the problem is the problem”. It makes a huge difference in these conversations. So, when this happens, I feel this, or when I walk in and see this, or when I was told this, I see this. It's real clearly focusing on the problem instead of the person.

[Janis]: Yeah

[Brent]: This is back to the fact that we tell people “If you want to guarantee that a person will not hear a word you said, say a bunch of ‘you’ words, okay? Makes a huge difference on your partner being able to hear this, which is why we're talking. We need them to hear us” and so-- Now, there are some “you” words that are not judgmental, but we recommend that you just practice learning how to rephrase all of them, because it's going to be too difficult to figure out which is an okay one and which is a not okay one. That if we're not careful, we'll just let some of them go and then, all of a sudden, the zinger will come out and so, it's just good practice to talk about eliminate “you” words and to talk about the problem instead of the person.

[Janis]: Yeah

[Brent]: So, I'm going to say my thoughts and feelings without saying the words “you” or “yours” and no interruption; really important. So, whoever's talking, whoever has the issue, gets to talk until they're done. Now, we have had some couples, you know, when we're talking about marriage counseling go “well, they could talk for like 30 minutes. They just wear me out and they just go on and on and on and say the same thing over and over again”. So, as a couple you might decide-- I've had a few couples “could we each get five minutes” or whatever, you know, if that's a problem. Now, for most couples that's not going to be a problem, but sometimes that is and you decide as a couple “what's our limit?”. We get a few minutes to say our stuff and not wear the other person out.

[Janis]: Yes, and I would also say without interruptions from cell phones or TV or kids. So, this is the time just like if you were talking with your boss, you would sit down and not have any other interruptions. You really focus on not having any interruptions and looking at each other the whole time.

[Brent]: Yeah, and you can also nonverbally interrupt. We got to keep that out. So, no eye rolls. No…, you know? We are respecting what the person is saying, we're listening, we're hearing it and so, none of those kinds of interruptions as well. Do the best we possibly can and so, when one person is finished, then we pass the imaginary microphone to the other person and they do the exact same thing. They get to share their thoughts and feelings without saying the words “you” or “yours” and without interruption.

[Janis]: And when people finish, they should say “I'm finished”.

[Brent]: Yeah. Because some people do talk and think a little bit, and they don’t--

[Janis]: Yeah. Talk, pause, talk, pause, while other people are--

[Brent]: Yes. So, say “okay, I think that's it, I think I'm done”.

[Janis]: Yeah.

[Brent]: And then that gives the other person-- They get a chance to go “well, the reason I put my stuff on the counter is because I'm afraid I'm going to forget it in the morning” or “I didn't even realize I did that. I guess it's just a habit I have” or whatever they would say and so, they get to share their thoughts and feelings without saying the words “you” or “yours” and then the person who had the problem can't interrupt. So, it's like, we've got a bargaining table. We've got two microphones kind of like we are right here. We've got two microphones sticking out of each end; this would be a good example for that.

[Janis]: Yes

[Brent]: And we both get a chance to get our stuff out on the table. We're just trying to get enough information out there, so that we can move to the third step, which is the solution phase, which remember, that's the most important thing.

[Janis]: That's our goal.

[Brent]: That's our goal. It's not to try to prove who's bad, who's wrong, who's right, try to win the day. It's “how do we solve this? This is an issue. Let's solve it”.

[Janis]: Yeah

[Brent]: Now, most couples never get to the third step ever, ever, okay? And they just talk about the problem and talk about the problem and talk about the problem and talk about the problem and get in their dance step and never get to the solution.

[Janis]: Which I tell my couples that's barking.

[Brent]: Barking. Yes.

[Janis]: Most people just go around in circles barking at each other the whole time and nothing's accomplished.

[Brent]: Just like two dogs they’re barking at each other.

[Janis]: …I can say that.

[Brent]: Yeah, yeah, and so, because of that, then this is probably-- Again, one of the most important parts of this structure is we only do this step one time. We both get a chance to get all of our stuff out on the table, so that we can move to a solution. Therefore, we only do this one time. Now, I tell people every day “I guarantee you this will frustrate you sometimes, because the person with the issue is going to share the problem and they think “I've shared everything I can” and then, their partner responds and then it's like “oh, I forgot to say this” or “they didn't quite understand this” or “I need to explain this some more”. Just know you always will think that.

[Janis]: Yes.

[Brent]: Not maybe, you always will think that, think you need to say something else. Now, most of the time, 95% of the time, if you say more stuff, you've already said it. But even if it's 5% that you didn't say or forgot to or they misunderstood you or whatever, we don't do another round. We have to hold that and we're going to then move to the solution and whoever's issue it is, they will start the solution phase and so--

[Janis]: Just like they started the conversation.

[Brent]: Exactly. So, I'm going to come back to that in a second, but let me talk about the reasons why we only do this one time.

[Janis]: Yes.

[Brent]: Okay. Number one, if you go to a second round of the second step, you will go from giving information now into influence. Now, you're going to try to sell them on your vantage point and well, they're just going to have to sell you on their vantage point. Then you're going to have to sell them on your vantage point. They're going to sell you on theirs and it's just going to go-- It'll trip it right back into a dance.

[Janis]: Yeah

[Brent]: Another reason is we almost always will bring in another issue. Remember, we got to talk about one issue. We oftentimes will expand the problem. “Well, not only is there stuff on the counter, but the whole entryway's got stuff left in it”. Okay, so now I'm trying to make my problem bigger and now, we've got two issues and we've lost the whole thing.

[Brent]: The final reason, and there’s probably more than this, but these are the main three. The final reason is we all tend to think “if I can just keep talking and keep explaining myself, then eventually you're going to agree with me, you're going to see where I'm coming from and you're going to agree with me” and I say every day “no, you could talk until you're pink, blue and purple in the face and you're never going to fully understand each other”. Now, we do the best we possibly can to try to, but there's no way to fully understand another person unless we did brain transplants, unless you actually got inside of them and saw the world as they see it. It's not going to happen and so, we're going to leave this stage oftentimes with “I don't know why they see it that way. I don't know why this is not so important to them” or “I don't know why they can't understand how important this is to me” or whatever. But you can still solve it. We can solve things even if we don't completely understand each other.

[Janis]: That’s right.

[Brent]: Because we won't completely understand each other, but we can still solve it. The key is, can we find a place of common ground that we can live and be in peace? And it doesn't matter whether we understand each other or not. It doesn't matter why I understand the issue about stuff being left on the counter. It doesn't matter whether we agree whether that's a right thing or a wrong thing. It's just if we agree what we're going to do about that, then we've taken that off the table. It's a non-issue in our life.

[Janis]: Yeah

[Brent]: So, in the third step, then what we have is the person who started it is going to suggest a solution that they think will solve it for them, but they think might also solve it for the other person.

[Janis]: Which is a stretch sometimes, because we tend to come in saying “this is what I want”. But we have to listen to the other person, so we can combine that perspective in as well.

[Brent]: We have to think win/win.

[Janis]: Yes.

[Brent]: The only reasonable solution is something that works for both people. So, I've shared my problem, I've heard their problem. “So, they thought they were going to forget their stuff in the morning if they didn't put it on the counter, so I should be thinking about that in my solution. Well, where can we put that stuff? Someplace else that they would remember it” and so, we share our thoughts-- We don't share any more thoughts and feelings, we share a solution and this is really hard because we oftentimes want to explain why we're giving our solution. We've already done that and so, we want to go “well because of this and because of this. Because of this my solution is this”. I always tell people “If you want to say the word ‘because’, bite your tongue in the solution phase”. It's just “my solution would be…” and you can say as many “you” and “your” words as you want to now. So, this will relieve everybody, okay?

[Janis]: Yeah

[Brent]: As a matter of fact, you need to say that. “I would ask that you do this” and make it very clear, it needs to be behaviorally specific. So, we don't want to say “we'll just try to be more thoughtful about this”; no idea what that means. Say exactly what you're asking them to do and if you're watching, which most of you are just listening, but if I had my hands apart, then my right hand would move a little bit towards my left hand, you know, my solution is this. The left hand has two options. I could either agree with that solution or I could present an alternative, but I can't say anything negative about their solution. I can't go “well, that's not going to work, that's not reasonable. I can't do that”. We have to accept it as a legitimate solution even if I don't agree with it.

[Janis]: And not even subtle things like “well, because that would never work” or “because we don't have the money to do that”. I have to tell couples all the time “no, that is making a comment on their solution”.

[Brent]: Yes. We accept it as legitimate. But again, even if we don't agree with it and we have to value it as legitimate and we just suggest an alternative “well, what if I did this?”. So, my left hand moves towards my right hand, and right hand has the same two options. I can either agree with theirs or present a third option. The other person, I can agree with that or present a fourth option. We keep nudging towards each other and if you're watching, my hands are getting closer. Until one of us can say “okay, I could live with that”. At that point we have agreement.

[Janis]: Yes

[Brent]: Doesn't mean we see it the same way. It means we have found common ground. We have found a place that we can live with and we even recommend you don't even say the words “I don't agree with that”. We just keep it all positive. We just keep going “what about this solution?”; “Well, my solution would be--”; “Well, my solution would be--”. We keep nudging towards each other until one person can agree with the other one.

[Janis]: Because we believe there is a solution. We may not see it yet, but there is a solution out there. We just have to keep working on it till we find it.

[Brent]: Yeah. So, no more thoughts and feelings. No more “becauses” and neither one of you can ever say “that's my final offer. I just can't compromise any more than that”. Well, then the other person is going to go “well, I can't either”. So, if you can't think of anything else, it just means you haven't thought of it yet. So, it just means that you need to say something like “well, give me an hour to think about that” or “give me a day. Give me a day to think and pray about this”. But we come back in an hour or a day, we don't come back with “I've been thinking about this all night, and the reason this is so important to me--” and “oh, my gosh, there's whole other reasons why this so--”. You know, we don't do that. We [Unintelligible] start with our next option. “I thought of something else. My solution would be this. What if we did this?” and we keep doing that until we again can come to that place of agreement. So, sometimes we need to-- Our solution is “let's do some research on this. We'll take a few days and research this”, you know? That's fine, as long as we are continuing to move towards common ground.

[Janis]: Or sometimes it may require us-- Once we've come up with a solution, we may say “I would like to do this for a two-week trial basis”.

[Brent]: Yeah, yeah.

[Janis]: One of the earliest things I remember us actually using this model was-- I think it was your issue. [Unintelligible]. The issue was there were too many cabinet doors and drawers that were left open.

[Brent]: Yes, yes.

[Janis]: And I was totally unaware that that happened in our house, that someone left them open. Who knew?

[Brent]: Who knew? I think this is before children.

[Janis]: It was before children. Yeah. I vaguely remembered you coming in and kind of moving all over and hitting doors and drawers, but I didn't even think that I left them open. But I think your first solution was “I'll put a yellow sticky note on every cabinet, door, and drawer that's open”.

[Brent]: It'll just remind you; you know?

[Janis]: Yes. Which, you know--

[Brent]: And it'll help you get in the habit of that.

[Janis]: Which I did not respond to negatively externally, but--

[Brent]: “Have you lost your mind!? That’s crazy!”.

[Janis]: Yeah, “am I an idiot!?”. But I remember saying “my solution is--”. Eventually we got to “my solution is you give me this much time to focus on it”, and I was able to change that pattern.

[Brent]: Yeah, just a couple of weeks.

[Janis]: Yeah

[Brent]: Yeah, and sometimes we're looking for the home run ball, trying to come up with a solution we think is going to solve everything forever. Well, we might not, we might need to try it for a month, you know? That might be our solution. “Let's try this for a month, and if it doesn't work, let's get back together and try it again” and so, do you want to give maybe the example that you use with clients in this?

[Janis]: Do you want to do it with me? Okay. In case my voice doesn't work.

[Brent]: Yeah

[Janis]: So, the example that I usually use is, let's say we have a couple. One of them is working in the yard, and the other one is working in the house. It's Saturday. They're like “let's get all of our stuff done, and then we can get together and watch something”. So, the person who's working in the house has finished, and they sit down, they turn on Netflix, they're ready to relax and the person that's outside finishes and they come in and they leave little bits of grass and mud all the way across the back of the house tracking all the way down the hall and into the bedroom. Take their clothes off, throw them on the bed, and there's little bits of grass and mud on the bed as well.

[Janis]: So, if we weren't using the model, the first person would say-- The person inside would say “I can't believe you did this. I cleaned up. Do you not care about anything that I'm doing? This is terrible!”, but we're not going to do that.

[Brent]: Right, right.

[Janis]: So, let's say that person walks into the bathroom and the person who’s in the shower pulls back the shower curtain and says “there's something that I need to talk to you about. When would be a good time?” and let's say the other person says…

[Brent]: “Sure, just let me finish, you know, what's up and we'll talk”.

[Janis]: Okay. So, that person gets out of the shower. They sit down, everything's turned off. They're looking at each other face to face and the first person says “I get really frustrated when I spend Saturday cleaning the whole house, and I feel like you get everything done and then I look up and there is mud and grass tracked through the house. I feel so unappreciated. I just vacuumed all of that. I just washed the floor, and even the bedspread has stuff on it. It's so frustrating and irritating that I have to deal with that. I'm finished”.

[Brent]: So, the other person “Oh gosh, I'm sorry. I don't think there was that much stuff. You know, I've been out in 100-degree weather and I'm just exhausted, and I just need to-- I've done everything by myself outside and gotten everything finished, and I just need to get a shower and rest and get some water and so, I'm not even thinking about it and, again, I don't think there was that much stuff dropped on the floor”.

[Janis]: Which the other person is thinking “oh, yeah? There was a lot of stuff that was on the floor”.

[Brent]: “I can show you”.

[Janis]: “I can't believe that you can't see that and sure, you're hot and tired. You think I didn't get hot and tired from cleaning the house?”, but we can't say that.

[Brent]: But that's where that person has to hold that.

[Janis]: That’s right.

[Brent]: You’re gonna think all that stuff.

[Janis]: All that stuff is going to come.

[Brent]: But you can't say it. You got to start thinking solution.

[Janis]: Right.

[Brent]: Okay? And so, what might a solution might?

[Janis]: So, let's say the person says “my solution is you go in the garage, you take off your shoes, you take off all your clothes, and you walk naked through the house and then go take a shower”.

[Brent]: And the other person, they're sitting there thinking “I'm not walking through the housena-- What!? That's the craziest idea ever heard of!”. They don't say that?

[Janis]: Right.

[Brent]: Okay? Again, you're going to think it, but you don't say it and so, I have to gather myself, think of a solution, okay? And so, it might be “I'm willing to-- I just want to do what I need to do, because all I can think about is getting a shower and so, I just need to get through the house and then, let me get a shower, and then I'll go back and if there's stuff tracked in, then I'll kind of pick it up or whatever”.

[Janis]: And the first person thinking “uh huh. How is that any different than what we've got right now?”, but they can't say that. So, trying to come to the center knowing that they really feel like their first solution was a good one.

[Brent]: Yes

[Janis]: Trying to come to the--

[Brent]: We can’t go back to say the same thing.

[Janis]: Right.

[Brent]: We [Unintelligible] repeat ourselves

[Janis]: Tempting as it is, and we can’t explain to them why our solution is brilliant and that they're missing the whole point.

[Brent]: Yeah. Like, “why take all that time to make a mess, to clean it up then? Why can’t you just--? What's wrong with just changing your clothes out in the garage?”. I mean, you're going to think all that stuff.

[Janis]: There's a lot of wrong ways we can do it.

[Brent]: Yes. We just don’t go there.

[Janis]: So, it goes back to “okay. My solution is you take off your shoes in the garage, you kind of like, shake out your clothes and brush them down to get as much off of you as you possibly can and you walk through the house, you take a shower, and as soon as you get out of the shower, you vacuum the whole path of what you went on before”. Does that make sense? From the garage? Yeah.

[Brent]: So, yeah, the other person's going “why should I--? I just worked and cleaned up the yard, why should I have to go through and clean up the-- You know, do all that? It's not that much stuff”. We just don’t go there.

[Janis]: Think of these as bubble thoughts.

[Brent]: Yes, these are bubble thoughts.

[Janis]: Yes, over the top of the head. This is a bubble of what you're thinking.

[Brent]: Yeah, just don't be surprised, you’re going to think all kind of stuff like that and so, let's say this person comes back with “okay, let me just put some gym trunks. I'll put Gym trunks on a little hook out there, and I am glad to just change my clothes out there, put Gym trunks on and come in and I get to those clothes whenever”.

[Janis]: I got distracted by gym trunks, because I think anybody under 60 would call them shorts. So, repeat [Unintelligible].

[Brent]: Like, running shorts or something?

[Janis]: Yes, yeah. “So, you'll leave them in the garage?”

[Brent]: “Yes, I'll leave them hanging on a hook. I'll have some clean ones that I leave out there, and I'll take my clothes off out there, put my gym trunks on and come in. That way I won’t-- Anyway”.

[Janis]: Yes

[Brent]: And do that.

[Janis]: “Okay. My solution is you leave your gym trunks in the garage”.

[Brent]: [Unintelligible] again? It’s shorts. Shorts. Okay.

[Janis]: “…in the garage. You go ahead and take a shower, and as soon as you get out, we just look and see if there's any grass and dirt that's left in the rest of the house”.

[Brent]: And I'm sitting here going “what do you mean? I changed my clothes” and you're thinking “it might still be dirty”.

[Janis]: Exactly.

[Brent]: Okay, and at that point, I probably go-- I'm thinking “I'm not gonna-- I’m going to be clean by then, you know?” and so, I don't say all that, I just go “okay, I'm good with that”.

[Janis]: Right.

[Brent]: So, at that point, we have common ground.

[Janis]: Yes.

[Brent]: Okay? At that point two very significant things happen in a relationship. One, we get rid of the negative. That feeling of everything you just spent all your time cleaning and just got dirty again is going to go away. So, we get rid of the negative feeling, but we also get a positive. The fact the other person's willing to hang their--

[Janis]: I guess trunks do belong in the garage.

[Brent]: They hang their shorts out on a hook. The fact that they're willing to make an adjustment and make sure the house doesn't get dirty and even though they're hot and tired and all they can think about is a shower and something to drink, that person's going to feel cared for. “They heard me and they listened. They made an adjustment”. This is how we feel loved. This is how we feel cared for. The way I think in marriage, is God designed marriage is, you take two very different people; we blend their lives together. We thought blending was going to be magic, of course. In the beginning, we thought we would never have a conflict over something like this because we loved each other so much. Reality is we start moving towards each other, we start bumping into issues and because we don't know how to move through those, these irritations just build and build and build and most couples kind of pull back from each other and disconnect.

[Brent]: You solve something like this and it actually begins to blend a couple's lives together. We get win/win where we feel like “hey, we're on the same team here”. Of course, we're going to have conflict. We're two humans. We're going to do stuff, not do stuff that's going to bother each other, but we have a respectful way of bringing it up.

[Janis]: Yeah

[Brent]: We listen to each other, we make adjustments, and we go on and we enjoy life. Now, we don't resolve this one issue and have deep emotional intimacy, but it's a pathway towards that. You solve another one, you solve another one, you solve another one and then eventually, we don't have these things that are tearing at us or stealing energy from the relationship, and we have this sense that we care for each other and so, it really is a pathway to intimacy in relationships. Now, oftentimes we have people going “okay, wait. So, what if they do it like, for a few weeks and then they stop?”. Well, what we don't do is “I knew you wouldn't do that. You know, you say you're going to do stuff and you don't follow through”; we don't do that. We literally have a new issue because the issue is not tracking through the house, the issue is you didn't do what you said you were going to do. So, we bring it up as a new issue.

[Brent]: “Hey, there's something I want to talk about. A month ago, we talked about the whole grass getting tracked in the house after I clean on Saturdays and it was going great for a few weeks, but it’s just, lasts two times it's like, happened again and I'm like, ‘what happened?’, you know?” and the other person's thinking “oh gosh, I forgot to put the shorts back out there and I forgot--” or whatever they would say and we work towards a new solution and either we need some accountability built into it or we need more than one pair of shorts out there, you know? To make sure we don't run out of shorts or whatever it is. That we just keep working until we have a good enough solution and also, we can have built in accountability. So, let's say I'm the person, you know, doing the outside work that's tracking in the house and I know that I'm willing to do this, but I also know I may forget.

[Brent]: And I can say “hey, I'm really committed to doing this, but if I forget to do it, please say this to me: ‘Hey, there's stuff we got-- I think we forgot the shorts or stuff got tracked in or whatever’ and if I say-- To say that to me. I'm not going to get mad at you for saying it because we're working together on that” and the other person “I know my spouse and I know they've got good intentions but I think they're going to forget”. Then, it could be “I want to be able to remind you of this” and again, if you agree on that, then again, we call that built in accountability. That can be very helpful. We just keep working on this until we have a solution that's actually working effectively.

[Janis]: And sometimes I have couples that have to do conflict resolution over how they do the reminder, because they don't want the reminder to be “you didn't do it again!”.

[Brent]: Right

[Janis]: But it needs to be “if you could just say this to me, that would be helpful”.

[Brent]: Yeah. Use the tone of voice, the words to say--

[Janis]: Yes

[Brent]: Again, we're just collaborating. We know our sensitivities and so, we’ve got-- Again, these three steps, it does take practice and we recommend that couples start with some small stuff and you might want to just set up a time sometime, where it's like “let’s, both have a couple of little issues and let's practice it”, you know? In the show notes, we're going to put an outline of these three steps so that you can practice it. We've had some couples that they'll get with another couple and say “let's help each other learn this and so, we'll be the coach or the counselor or whatever and you guys’ practice and we'll help you. If you start saying ‘you’ words and stuff, we'll be the reminders of that”. Also, having some understandable built-in accountability within the relationship on if somebody does break the rules. “If they go back to more thoughts and feelings in the solution or if they say a bunch of ‘you’ words, how do we hold each other accountable for that?” and whatever the couple agrees with is going to work for them.

[Janis]: Yeah

[Brent]: We could come up with all these different rules on what to do, but it's really best for you guys to decide that together.

[Janis]: And I think it's also important to remember that the solution doesn't necessarily mean you come exactly to center. We may find something that's outside that. I know we do this a lot in marriage seminars. We bring a couple up and we'll have them practice this without knowing anything about it and the people in the audience really will come up with solutions that the people that are trying to do it, they've never thought of it because we do get locked into our solution. So, let's say our situation or our hypothetical situation of the person in the yard and inside, it could be my solution is “we hire a lawn guy”.

[Brent]: “And we clean the house together or something”.

[Janis]: “Yeah, or we alternate. I clean the house one week; I do the yard work the next week”.

[Brent]: Yeah, all kind of options and so, we’ve found that as counselors sitting there listening to the couples doing this, we're thinking of all kind of stuff.

[Janis]: Yes

[Brent]: But it's because we're not emotionally involved and we're more objective. That's the whole point of this process, it's building creativity. It's getting us thinking outside the box. We're trying to create-- Maybe you have a work team that you work with and everybody's just throwing out ideas. Well, nobody's defensive about it, nobody gets mad at each other, they're just throwing out creative ideas and sometimes they come up with stuff that none of them would ever think about, and we've had couples say that a lot to us that “gosh, we would have never thought of that on our own and we came up with a really great solution”.

[Janis]: Yes

[Brent]: Well, that's like, godlike. I mean, it's the power of synergy, the power of the team is greater than the power of the individual parts. Now, we have had some people over the years obviously, we've kind of coached couples on how to do this and they go “oh, come on! People don't talk like this” and we're like “yeah, that's kind of the point”.

[Janis]: “That's the problem”.

[Brent]: We've not seen this happen; we've not seen it modeled, but it is a very powerful way. We have seen it over and over and over again build strength for couples where they now have the ability to see differences as just differences. It doesn't just have to turn into right and wrong, which most conversations go “who's right and who's wrong?” and it's not helpful and it just creates tension, it creates animosity. It turns the whole conversation adversarial. “We're now enemies, combatants. Who's going to win?”, which is total breakdown of what the whole idea of unity is and so, it really does create an opportunity for ideas and creativity come alive in us.

[Janis]: Yes

[Brent]: Because we have these guardrails that we've put down and so, again, what we found for more passive people, we talked about that last time. This helps them feel safe that if we can talk this way, then they start talking more and then more-- For more aggressive people, it gives them guardrails that if I can stay within this framework, I'm not just going to run over my partner and I'm not going to shut them down or cause them to pull away from me and so, it really is a move towards each other.

[Janis]: And sometimes, I will encourage couples before you get together to do some journaling, so that you really can kind of center in on what is the issue here and I find for the passive people, it helps them speak up a little bit more because they've clarified what the issue is and from some of the more aggressive people, I've seen them really go “okay, if I said that, that might be teaching” and so, it's a preparation to go into that.

[Brent]: Yeah, and I would say really important issues certainly take time to prepare yourself. You know, you may go to the computer and type it out “this is how I want-- What I want to say” and then you can go edit it, “oh my gosh, I said 15 ‘yous’. How can I go back and change all this?”. Even if you had to sit there with the paper in front of you, your partner is going to feel like you really try. You're taking care here; you're being very respectful. It communicates a real positive there.

[Janis]: Yes

[Brent]: Now, this is something that can be done one way without the other people even knowing what it is. So, how would you talk to a colleague or a roommate or a friend or an adult child talking to their parent or whatever the circumstance was and they don't know the rules? You can actually guide them through a conversation without having a little hand out and say “I want to talk to you this way”. It would go something like this, it would be “hey, is there a time that we could get together in the next day or so? That I'd like to talk about something important” and so, you're setting an appointment with them and that's the setting it up stage.

[Brent]: And then when you start sharing the problem, you would say “you know, I've got some stuff I want to share. If you could just hear me out, I like to kind of say my piece and then I really want to hear your perspective on this and I want to listen to what you have to say”. So, I'm not saying “now, you can't interrupt me and you can't say the words ‘you’ or ‘yours’”. They don't know all that. So, you would just model it.

[Brent]: If you eliminate the “you” and “your” words, then they have a much better chance of not being aggressive back. So, you'd set it up like that. “If I can just kind of share my piece, then I want to hear your piece” and then we'd say “then, maybe we can throw out some ideas that we think might solve this and maybe I could lead with that. If that works for you, great. If it doesn't, give me another option”. So, we're actually kind of moving them towards this model without them even knowing what's going on and now, you just have to make sure that you don't interrupt them.

[Janis]: Right

[Brent]: That you don't say the words “you” or “yours” and then when they share their side of the story, that you don't want to go to another round, that you're the one that keeps it moving and says “okay, this is a solution that I thought of. You know, if that works for you, great. If not, give me another option, and if that works, great. If not, then maybe I can come up with something else and let's just see if we can't find something that works for us” and boy, it can really move that conversation forward. It can move it towards a solution and we found that to be very effective as well.

[Brent]: So, takes time, takes practice.

[Janis]: It's not easy.

[Brent]: Not easy, but it can make such a difference and so, again, we're going to put it in the show notes, the outline, encourage you to grab it and just practice it.

[Janis]: Yeah

[Brent]: Now, start with little bitty stuff. We got to learn how to ride this bicycle with train wheels on it first. But eventually, you'll find yourself even in just your general language with others, you'll find your selves talking more about the problem instead of the person and it'll move conversations more towards a solution.

[Janis]: Yeah

[Brent]: So, blessings to you. Happy issue resolution-ing. Peace to you as you go.