by Kelly Bryson, MA, MFT, CNVC certified trainer

Fair Fighting (John Bradshaw’s and other’s term) is an argumentative term in itself. Since when has anybody every agreed on what ‘fair’ is? If we agreed on that we wouldn’t be fighting in the first place. It starts you off on a right/wrong adversarial footing. The idea sends you up to your head to be ever vigilant, like a lawyer ready to pounce.

“Objection your honor! Fair is supposedly an objective term, which puts the authority in some objective external body. And if our lawmakers, judges, clergy, psychology Gurus and philosophers can’t agree on what ‘fair’ is, what chance do we confused consumers have?” 

I prefer a much more subjective reference—‘Fun Fighting.’ The Locus of this authority is within me. “Am I having fun yet?” This helps me take the responsibility for whether I am having fun and if not what I am going to do about it. And by fun I don’t mean just the pleasure of amusement, I mean the satisfaction of being in genuine connection with someone and moving the dialogue forward.

Thinking for one second that something that is happening isn’t “fair” is poison to potent, productive problem solving. When I am thinking something isn’t fair my consciousness is focused on an image of myself as powerless victim. When I am holding that image of myself as a victim of some more powerful unfair force, very few of my brain cells are working on the problem. My feelings are often a mix of anger, hurt and hopelessness and I have very little awareness of what my present need is, therefore little hope of taking an action that might meet that need. I would like to notice that I am confused about how to get my needs met in that moment. 

I would like to step back from the particular strategy that I am locked into (like getting her to admit that just buying her a new car right now would not be fair to me) and get more connected and conscious of the underlying need. Here the need might be to reassure myself that I will take good care of my resources or that I will negotiate powerfully and nonviolently for my own interests. From this perspective I might find a way to embrace the others need and look for a win/win solution. Often it is this being locked into my judgment of the other as unfair and holding a tunnel vision of my one solution that triggers a lot of fear and resistance on the part of the other party involved. No one likes to submit to another person out of fear of their judgment and no one likes to feel like there are loosing in any interaction.

When Push Comes to Hug

Relationships are like Chinese finger puzzles. You know the kind made of straw where you scrunch up the cylinder, put both your index fingers in. And if you just try to pull your fingers back out again the cylinder tightens up, and holds your captive fingers all the tighter. The key to getting out of the Chinese finger puzzle is the same key as getting out of the polarized power struggle in a loving relationship. It is useful to push towards the middle instead of pulling towards the ends. 

When you find yourself in a relationship struggling towards one of the polar ends, decrease the strain of the power struggle by pushing back towards the middle. For example: Pulling for either freedom or closeness (or one of its millions of manifestations like traditional marriage vs. open marriage, autonomy vs. interdependence, spendthrift vs. miser, slob vs. anal neatnik, intellectual vs. emotional, extroverted vs. introverted, action oriented vs. being oriented, harmony vs. adventure, certainty vs. uncertainty, etc.)

Its true with any tug of war, that as soon as you move towards the other’s position all the tension goes out of the struggle and it can turn into a hug of love. I want to push towards my partner. I want to push in towards intimacy instead of just pulling out toward my desired outcomes.

So when my partner is pulling for closeness and I find myself tugging back for freedom I can change the polarity of the conversation by just beginning to think: How can I meet some of her needs for closeness without compromising my needs for freedom?  As soon as I start thinking this way the field of energy between us will begin to soften and relax, the tension will decrease as the fear diminishes. The fear in both of us is that we have to fight, defend and protect ourselves from being taken advantage of and to get our needs met.

When blaming is going on, which is another way of saying that a request for empathy, healing and reconnection is being made, I recommend taking one of the following actions:  (The order of these actions is in a hierarchical order from the most effective and preferred to the least. I need also to be humble enough to recognize which of these actions I can do with honesty and integrity. For example even if I recognize that empathy would probably be the most effective strategy for the occasion, I will still need to choose honesty at that moment if that’s all I can give with congruence. You can’t give empathy from ‘should’ energy.)

Example:

Your partner says:  “You just are not meeting my needs for relationship.  And besides that you’re selfish.”

1. Empathize with the pain and unmet needs of which the blame is a tragic expression. You might say: “Are you feeling kinda lonely and hurt and want your needs to matter more?”
2. Acknowledging any regret and action that I took that may have played a part or triggered the other person. You might say: “I am sad that I forgot your birthday and went to play golf all day.”
3. Ask your partner for acknowledgement. You might say: “I’m sad and would appreciate any acknowledge that I did remember your birthday for the last six years.”
4. Ask your partner to acknowledge their regrets or actions. You might say: “I am frustrated and would appreciate acknowledgement that you forgot my birthday too and I would like to hear how you felt about forgetting?”
5. Give nonviolent, self-responsible honesty. You might say: “I am feeling scared right now and need to protect myself from sinking into a guilt pit, could I get back to you in an hour?” (And in that hour you may want to consult with your giraffe journal or call your empathy partner.)
6. Be quiet, and give yourself a chance to reconnect with the kind of energy and the intention you would like to be coming from before you respond. (This option can be useful at any point to get in touch with these other options.) You might say to yourself: “I am scared and angry right now. I don’t have to respond until I want to. I am going to wait until what I say might help matters.”
7. Be a Jackal. Go ahead be a jerk, but do it consciously from choice.
8. Be a silent Jackal. Silently you are thinking “Who would want to do anything for that judgmental, victim conscious co-dependant?”
9. Verbalize self-blame. You might say, “You’re right, I am a selfish clod.”
10. Silent self-blame. Just think, “You’re right I am a selfish clod.” Be silent with the intention to punish or control.

I’m both afraid of triggering other’s “power over” response to me and of having a “power over” response to others. This makes me scared to “get into” my power. So do I go in with an attitude of interrogation or exploration?

Decreasing the Danger of Distorting

If you’re going to distort or exaggerate something, it is helpful to acknowledge that it’s a distortion before you say it. Like “I know this is an exaggeration but please hear how it feels in my body. I seems like you are trying to suffocate me.”  Then take time to unwrap the feelings and needs underneath the distortion. 

Example: “When you asked me if I was going to come to your party, I felt tense and scared and anxious because I really need reassurance that if I say no I won’t be punished.” In general though, it is better not to use images and exaggerations to build a case for your pain and fear, better to express the needs and feelings behind the distortions in the first place.

The Value of Taking a Step Back

Have you ever gotten a fishing line all tangled up, to where you got so frustrated that you just start yanking on the different loops of line which of course makes the knots and tangles even tighter and more difficult to untangle.  Wouldn’t it be great if you could notice that you were starting to do that in a discussion with your loved one and were able to stop, take a step back, a time out, before the frustrated yanking occurs. 

If the time out could be taken before intense angry and frustration occurs the tangles would not be as difficult to untangle.  And if it could be an understood that the request for the time out was in the service of reconnecting with oneself, then the reconnection with the beloved would happen all the sooner.  Instead, what I sometimes do is to take space if a huff, implying with my body language and tone that “she is impossible, it’s hopeless, I can’t take anymore of this, etc.  Often I am afraid I have only two choices:

1. To hang in there and yank and struggle and fight until we get through this mess, or        
2. To take space and feel unresolved, disconnected, lonely, worried, unsettled for hours on end until we come back and finish the argument. 

I am excited about a new option.  We can take space in love as an expression of caring for the relationship and in hopes of getting back into connection all the sooner and protect from making the tangles all the worse.  And then during that “taking space” time here are:

6 Things You Can Do:

1. Think about my part of the tangle to gain clarity about what my reaction was about.
2. Not think at all about the distressing discussing but enjoy the break from the struggle trusting that with rest, new energy and clarity will come organically.
3. Translating my Jackals first.
4. Translating her Jackals
5. Music, nature, sports, something totally involving of the mind (reading might be difficult)
6. Journaling

Many of the couples I work with have the following kind of pain going on. The woman is hurt, discouraged, hopeless, and lonely while the man is angry, frustrated, exhausted and scared. The woman’s unmet need is for empathy, closeness and a higher quality of intimate conversation. The man’s need is for respect, rest, validation of his worth as he is, and to unhook himself from his inner sense of guilt and inadequacy about his partner’s pain.

Again this issue is related to the old freedom/closeness dance. How to get the word out. If I was back in my hippie days I would take off all my clothes, drop some mind altering, fear destroying drug and get two big pieces of cardboard (I used to use those fold up card tables). I would write on it in big block letters with oil paint I stole from the University of Florida Museum of Natural History:

“WOMEN — YOU DON’T HAVE TO GET HIM TO HEAR YOU, YOU JUST NEED TO BE HEARD BY SOMEONE!!!” 

And on the other one I would write:

“MEN — YOU NEVER HAVE TO LISTEN TO ONE MORE WORD THAN YOU WANT TO HEAR!!!” 

Then I would parade through very densely trafficked areas of the city in hopes of raising the consciousness of the people so their suffering could end.

I wish that both men and women would refuse to listen to each other unless they were sure it was a compassionate contribution to the other’s need to be heard instead of a caving-in-concession. May we only “give to” each other and never “give in” to each other lest we breed the slimy serpents of resentment.

The pain and the emptiness and the loneliness become so intense for women that they truly become either desperate or hopeless. They get into aggressive demanding or pleading or moping around in slop of self-hate/pity, both of which are hard not to interpret as demands. If they could just get some high quality listening/empathy somewhere it would take some of the charge and intensity off their pain and make it easier to open a dialogue with their mates. Some women are afraid to do this because they interpret this as infidelity or disloyalty. They fear that if they open up their vulnerability and heart to someone else it will give him permission to intimately connect with someone else and they fantasize that this will lead to loss. Others think of it as inappropriately airing the family’s dirty laundry and are afraid of the family being looked down upon in the community. And of course this does happen a lot in certain communities. Still others are afraid of having their vulnerability trampled upon in the various ways I have already mentioned.  

The frustration, irritation and resentment gets so built up in the men that the slightest request triggers the unleashing of the backlog until their partners are walking around on eggshells. Their resentment comes due to their own self-abandonment. It comes because they have listened when they needed to be heard. It comes because they were trying to be strong and not need to take space and rest and recharge when they needed it. The resentment is there because they didn’t know they had a choice not to listen when it didn’t fit for them to listen. Had they known that listening to someone when you really need to be heard or rest is violence to the both of you. Because as I have said before, you violate your responsibility to yourself and begin to hate yourself whenever you don’t take care of your own needs. Also you begin to hate and resent the other and hold the illusion that they are oppressing you.

And of course this dynamic frequently occurs with the genders reversed.  But for the sake of simplicity I will continue to describe this yin/yang dynamic in terms of male and female.

Somewhere along the line in the relationship the man grows to dread seeing the woman’s pain for several reasons:

1. He interprets it as accusation. (I hear your pain, and I ad it to my list of inadequacies)
2. He interprets it as proof of his inadequacy. (If she is still in pain, I must not be adequately providing for her, therefore I must be inadequate)
3. He thinks he has no choice but to sit and listen. (We all know we hate whatever we have no choice about; lectures from our Dad, finishing our broccoli, paying taxes.)
4. It triggers fear that the relationship is ending, which he wants to avoid.

Because he has such fear of his own anger about his powerlessness, and shame about thinking he somehow inadequate, sophisticated men learn to go up to their heads to hide behind sophisticated projective, politically and spiritually correct analytical labels of their partners. Here are a few of my favorites:

1. “She’s just playing victim.” Translation: “I am pissed off that I am choosing to take on responsibility and feel guilty about the pain she is in.”
2. “She’s so f____ing neeeedy.” Translation: “I am scared to tell her that I have different needs that she does right now partly because of the shame I have about having needs at all but also because I am afraid I will be abandoned if I don’t meet her needs.”
3. “She’s overly dependent.” Translation: “I am confused about how to assert my needs for independence and I am tempted to plead with her to please give me permission to be independent.”

When I enter into an intensive needs negotiation session with a loved one (otherwise known as a fight), I need to know that I’ll be able to detect the difference between a giving-in/giving-up type of compromise and a true opening of the heart to a compassionate shift. If I have no confidence that I can make this distinction I will be to scared to really listen/empathize/take in what the other person is expressing. I am afraid I will listen, feel sorry for them and end up giving in when I didn’t want to. Then I will have to deal with self-hate (my inner jackal says, “Wimp, people pleaser, why do you let people push you around?) and resentment (inner jackal, “Why do they always have to have their way, they’re selfish, it’s not fair).

It is this fear of self-abandonment that contributes to the fear to hear what the other is really saying.  The other fear that gets in my ear is that of taking in something that will trigger self-judgment, shame or guilt. I am really never afraid of the other’s judgment, only having my own inner self-judgment triggered by their judgment.

When I have no feeling sense that the other is empathizing with my expression of needs, it is very easy to interpret their expressions of need as an attack. (Rumination - “You tell me your sweet needs, I add them to my list of inadequacies.”) When I am not feeling that energy of connection/understanding/acceptance, it is easy to misinterpret what you are saying as a criticism of me. 

Example: 

My beloved says, “I have felt disconnected and alone for days now.” 

I hear “You unconscious creep, what kind of beloved are you, how could you let me suffer so, your companionship is inadequate.” 

The behavior of lashing out in verbal or physical violence stems from the fear or the perception of being attacked. My beloved could greatly reduce the likelihood that I will perceive attack if she makes connection with me, or empathizes with my fear, before she shares her needs and her pain.

The behavior of telling someone what they did wrong is often motivated by the fear that they will be somehow judged for expressing their pain in any form. Therefore it becomes important to make a case that your behavior “caused” me pain but it was also immoral and wrong. A part of me is hoping to protect myself from taking on any responsibility or blame for what occurred by making you the “wrong one.” This same part of me is hoping that if I really make the case that you were motivated by evil forces, you will have no credibility when you defend yourself by calling me “overly sensitive,” “partially responsible,” etc.

Searching for Synergistic Solutions

In order to get good at finding synergistic solutions, it’s important to develop a consciousness and a language for expressing needs, instead of only being able to identify and express requests. If I can only express the behavior change I want to see in the future, it looks to you like I am locked into my one and only way to get the need met. This can easily trigger your fear of being taken advantage of, which leads to power struggles.

When both parties are locked into “request consciousness” it looks like there’s no way to get both requests met. This is when fear arises and each party often starts to pull and fight for their request in whatever ways they were taught in their family. The two most popular strategies are power over (saying or doing things that evoke shame or fear to coerce the other to give in), or power under (saying or doing something to trigger guilt to coerce the other to give in).

A “need” never has a specific action or specific other person tied to it. A need is universal to all human beings, which is why it inspires so much more compassion that just a request.

Example of “request consciousness”:

John: “Jane I need you to stay home tonight.”

Jane: “And I need you to quit being so controlling.”

Translation into “needs consciousness”:

John:  “I am feeling restless and need to have some company and play, would you brainstorm with me about what I or we might do tonight?”

“Needs language” opens the door to thousands of solutions and makes it easier for the other to trust that you don’t have your mind all made up. It also makes it easier to trust that there is room in the solution for everyone involved to get their needs met.

Now I will write about a subject that is so volatile and controversial it may prevent this article from being published. It is an aspect of that deepest of male/female conflicts, the freedom needs vs. closeness needs. It takes the form of the traditional monogamous marriage versus the “open non-monogamous marriage.” Neither monogamy nor non-monogamy are needs. They are both requests for specific actions. I recommend that couples learn how to talk deeply and thoroughly about the needs behind these requests.

Some needs behind the request for monogamy:

Closeness     

Interdependence

Emotional Security          

Simplicity

Focus or depth of relationship

Consistency

Peace of mind due to following religious convictions         

Financial Security

Acceptance from family, friends, and society

Some needs behind the request for non-monogamy:

Freedom       

Autonomy

Exploration of different parts of oneself        

Aliveness

Community   

Integrity with self

Openness     

Pleasure

Interdependence

If couples can take responsibility for their needs and learn to negotiate them using “need language” what was a conflict, becomes a love making session. I say this because finding ways to meet each other’s needs without compromising ourselves is one of my favorite definitions of love.

If a couple is locked into conflict about any specific request, I recommend they go back to hearing each other on the need level. However, each of us is ultimately responsible for our own needs. And if we become exhausted trying to negotiate a particular need with someone, we still will need to take care of it somehow.  The freedom need is a special need in that it cannot be obtained from your partner or anyone else. It is a gift only you can give you.

When I enter into an intensive ‘needs negotiation session’ with a loved one (Otherwise known as a fight) I need to know that I’ll be able to detect the difference between a “giving in” type of compromise and a true opening of the heart to a compassionate shift.  If I have no confidence that I can detect the difference I will be afraid to really listen/empathize/take in what the other person is expressing.

When we are upset with someone’s tone we are really in need of connection to that person’s feeling.  It is just a strategy and not a need, to ask them to change or lower their tone.

One way out of guilt is to really hear the other’s pain.  When we are feeling guilty we are still resisting empathizing with the other’s pain. We are not yet one with the pain. When I am one with the other’s pain there is no room for blame for anyone.

It helps me to take the attitude that my partner is never running away from anything but is always running toward something. For example, when she runs screaming out of the house and down the street, she is not running from me but towards sanity.

The issue will take care of itself once the intimacy is established.

Dear friend when you use words such as ‘theatrics’ to describe my style of expressing myself, you keep the focus on how I’m expressing instead of what I’m expressing. This leaves me feeling all the more Shakespearean, suffering the slings and arrows of an outrageous lack of being heard, tempting me to take arms against your sea of judgments.

Perfecting Your Victimhood

• Ask not what you can do for yourself, ask what’s wrong with your partner?
• I may be the detonator but I am not the dynamite.
• Don’t use shorthand words like “messy” or “lazy” until you’ve done the work to establish a trust that you both know that neither of you are really in judgment about the issue.  
• Instead of asking your partner to soften his or her tone, try asking for them to express what they are saying in terms of their feelings and needs. I have found this often meets the need for safety and connection that the request to lower the tone is trying to meet.
• Are you hearing the truth of the moment, or having a flashback from the past?  Notice it and acknowledge it.
• If you partner overwhelms you, it’s your fault. It’s your fault in the sense that you chose to abandon yourself, and try to buy love instead of speak up for yourself or use whatever protective force is necessary.
• Only when your beloved trusts that her expression of either ‘no’ or ‘yes’, will still maintain the same quality of connection between you both, can there be deep safety in the relationship.

Partner 1 - “If I had any common sense I’d leave you.”

Partner 2 - “Oh, so does that mean you’re staying?”

• When dancing, better to be well rested so as to step on fewer toes.
• When I am in pain I want to wait till I’m clear what I want back from you before I speak.
• The objective needs to be to create the quality of connection needed to get everyone’s needs met. 
• I don’t want to exert my will over the other but convince them to change willingly.
• If you want to keep the wild in your wild man keep encouraging him to keep setting himself free.
• May we always turn each other on, instead of turning on each other!
• Let the process make the decision.  If you just keep listening to the different needs, the decision will make you.
• “I love you” is often a vague request for reassurance.
• Intimacy is found through the balance of freedom and closeness.
• The cause of resentment is self-abandonment.
• Fight to the Life.  If you don’t schedule a fight it will schedule you. (The advantage to scheduling is that you can bring in referees, for example, another couple).
• Rumination—Life isn’t fair or unfair, it’s a mystery to be patiently, persistently, passionately unwrapped.
• I like the idea of ‘least effort’ harmony but I’m doubtful that ‘no effort’ harmony exists. 
• I’m getting clear that I don’t want to try to get respect from others through expressing anger towards them. At those angry moments that I am thinking I want respect, what I really want is empathy to the fear and pain going on in me.
• When I am thinking I need respect, many times I am really in demand mode in my head. If I felt down into my body I would notice that I’m scared and need to feel a sense of centeredness, but for the moment I am attached to controlling the outside circumstances or people. It is that attachment that causes the frustrations and sense of powerlessness.
• There is safety in oneness. What I am joined with can’t hurt me. In other words, when I am one with another’s pain (and remember blame is just disowned pain) it can’t hurt me. When I am resisting it or running from it, it seems to hurt me.
• No one in a relationship can take the other person’s power. We can only give our power away to each other.

Kelly Bryson MA, MFT, is author of the best selling book, Don’t be Nice, Be Real - Balancing Passion for Self with Compassion for Others, has been featured in Elle and Shape magazines, appeared on many TV and radio shows, lived in an ashram many years, is a humorist, singer and licensed therapist in private practice. He keynotes conventions (national Montessori), is an inspirational speaker and has been an authorized trainer for The Center for Nonviolent Communication for over 20 years, and has trained thousands in the U.S., Europe and the Middle East. He trains, presents and consults with groups, corporations (Tony Robbins, Paul Mitchell Salons), churches (all flavors), schools (U.Cal.L.B, Body/Mind College), clubs and all types of organizations. He also studied with E. Stanley Jones, Gandhi’s concierge and friend. Learn more about his work at www.LanguageOfCompassion.com or contact him directly at 831-462-EARS (3277).