Wesley my 17 year old son is finally showing interest in driving. It’s been something Lynda and I have never pushed. We figure the longer he puts off driving the better it will be on every level.  But now all of his friends are driving he wants to get his license.

Well, we all know before he get his license he have to do a lot of preparation, there are lots of skills and laws he will have to learn first.  It could be another good three to six months before he will actually become licensed to drive on his own.

The same idea is true for our communication.  To stop fighting and start talking you will need to do some preparation, and learn some new relationship skills. New ways of thinking and talking to each other need to be mastered before you can jump into an emotionally charged conversation. Learning conflict resolution will not take you 6 months, but you will need to invest some time prior to any intense conversation to figure out what’s wrong and not talk always talk about who’s wrong.

The exercise in this article is called “So what?” and this free communication tip will help provide the clarity you need prior to having a discussion.  So if you are getting ready for a phone coaching session with your spouse and our coaches at Help Talking, or you want to talk with your partner alone, you will need to get clear on what to say.  The exercise, so what will help you do that, by clarifying the difference between what’s wrong and who’s wrong. You can learn more about avoiding the blame game by watching the clip or reading You Can Right or You Can Be Married.

Here’s how this relationship exercise works.  Take out a piece of paper and at the top write out what the conflict is all about.  Keep the relationship problem to just one line or a few words.  In the example from the free video clip I used a couple I was coaching in New York.  The wife was upset because her husband had gotten home 15 minutes late.  So at the top of the page I put “came home late”.

Then below the header I wrote out why that behavior was problematic.  In our example I put, “It made us wait”.  Then next to that line, I want you to write the words, “So what?.”  Spend a moment thinking why the other person’s behavior upset you.

Again using our example, the response to “So what?” was that being late was rude. So we wrote rude on the next line below “it made us wait”.  Now next to “rude” I want to again write the phrase “so what?.” This again gets you to think about why your partner’s poor behavior was upsetting.

Continue this process of writing down how the other person’s bad behavior is causing you to feel bad and allow yourself to go deeper with each line.  In our process it came out that the husband’s rude tardiness brought up feelings of being unimportant, which were accompanied by even deeper feelings of being unloved.

Once my couple in New York, were able to get to the root issue of the conflict, the conversation changed from how rude he was for being 15 minutes late, to how she felt unloved when he came home late. This was just one of the actions he took that made her feel unloved. Those were two very different conversations with two very different outcomes.

As you go through this process yourself I am confident that you will find the shift from who’s wrong to more about what’s wrong will make all the difference in the world.  If you get stuck or need any additional assistance please get on the phone with one of our coaches and we will walk you through the process in one simple call.

Take care,