In any long-term relationship, there are going to be difficult conversations—the times when you feel polarized about an issue, when your partner’s point of view threatens yours, when you feel defensive, angry, or frightened of what they are bringing up or when your point of view has changed. Megan and Matt agreed in the beginning that they didn’t want kids because travel and freedom meant more to them. But one day, Matt realized he had changed his mind. Not only did he want a child, but he could think of little else. The more he avoided the topic, though, the stronger his desire grew. Jen and Paul had been monogamous for 15 years, but for the past few years, Jen has felt restless in her marriage and bored with their sex life. After having lunch with a friend who shared how liberating it was to have an open relationship, Jen became enthralled with the idea but is afraid to bring it up with Paul. Annie and Kate have been partners for 30 years. They carefully planned an early retirement together and had a shared dream of traveling and trying new things together in retirement. Two years into their new life, Annie heard someone give a talk on energy healing and realized that she had a gift and a passion for feeling energy. She hadn’t known how unfulfilled she’d been in retirement, but the more she explored her deeper feelings, the more obvious it became that she needed to do the three-year training to fulfill this part of herself even though it would take money and time and would mean a new focus in her life aside from her plans with Kate. How do we have these difficult conversations and still keep our relationships intact? What is the secret to having a threatening conversation without harming our love for one another when discussing something painful, threatening, and potentially dangerous to our stability and well-being? Like so many other aspects of our relationships, this is a very complicated but learnable skill. I call it the “black belt of relationships,” and it’s something we can all learn. There are five steps to managing difficult conversations. The more you practice these steps (in your everyday life), the easier it will be when the time comes that you and your partner have to confront a difficult issue: Walking away from a conversation in which your partner wants to change something you thought would always stay the same and being able to stay connected and feel cared about is earning the black belt in couples’ communication. Practicing these steps on a regular basis will help ensure that when the time comes, you will have the skills to listen, empathize, and hear something threatening without feeling rejected. Don’t wait for the final exam! Use these skills in your daily relationship so that when the time comes, you can abide by the rules of connected, caring, and empathetic connection.
