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The 5th Relationship-Wrecking Mistake... The Fatal 'F's or Man-lite-ous...

How to identify and avoid these heart-breaking communication mistakes.

In the past newsletters, we discussed the first 4 of the 5 most common communications mistakes:

- Case Building is the first choice we are faced with in communication. It is deciding whether we want to build a case against somebody by gathering evidence to be used against them, or whether we want to build a connection with them.

- Story Telling is when we tell ourselves a story about an observation -- and then believe it. Somebody glances at us in a restaurant and we decide that they are being critical of us and then we base our behavior on that assumption.

- The third mistake, Message Assuming, is assuming that the person we are talking to actually understand our message in the way that we intended. Or that we understood theirs.

- Cup Stuffing is trying to get somebody to listen to you when they are already feeling overwhelmed - they are in need of empathy before they can listen.

Today we will look at the 5th mistake: The Fatal Fs. The Fatal Fs are fixing, fighting and fleeing. They are a natural progression in the way we normally handle difficult situations.

Every day at your job you are paid and valued by the problems you can solve... and yet, once you go home, solving problems can be a very dangerous thing as far as your relationships are concerned.

For example, your partner comes home from work and tells you about how her boss, once again, changed her job description to include more duties.

She didn't argue this with the boss, but came home to complain about it to you. What do you do?

Well, the normal reaction would be to offer advice to help her fix the problem. Of course you can see that what needs to be done here. It's obvious to you...

So you tell her to "Just say no.... Tell the boss politely, but firmly you are not going to do it."

To your surprise, rather than being happy and thanking you for your wisdom she responds defensively. You're fixing.

Anytime you offer advice or try to education without offering empathy (listening and understanding) first, you are 'fixing' the person. And, unlike problems, people don't like to be fixed.

When your partner feels like you are fixing her instead of giving empathy, she will become angry and resist the fixing. She'll explain her side, she'll yell that you don't understand, and then you'll resist this counter attack, and the whole situation will go downhill from there. That's fighting.

And once you've fought over this same argument for about the hundredth time, the natural reaction is to leave the room and refuse to repeat it one more time. That's fleeing.

So what's the good news? The good news is that you can stop this progression by giving empathy at the very beginning, before offering education. You can make the decision to stop fixing people and start listening and understanding.

It will take a lot of practice, but it is worth every minute of it.

And how do you give empathy? Through the Language of Peace. The Language of Peace is the process of giving and receiving empathy.

Nonviolent communication has four distinct steps that help people connect: state the observation: "When your boss said ..." and then ask, "Were you feeling . . .(sad, frustrated, overwhelmed, disappointed), because you're needing . . . (understanding, acknowledgement, support)?"

Next make a request. The most useful request is to ask, "Would you mind telling me what you heard me say?"

That way you'll know if they understood. Plus, just saying the words that connect the feelings and needs can be incredibly soothing to the person listening.

Here's an assignment: the next time your beloved comes home to tell you about a situation, use the Language of Peace to connect to and understand them.

Ask, "When your boss gives you more work, do you feel frustrated and disappointed because you have a need for integrity, appreciation and autonomy?"

A conversation will proceed from there about what her feelings and needs in this situation. It may take several rounds of questions before you and your partner are able to really connect to her feelings and needs, so stick with it until she has nothing more to say.

Then you might be able to offer some advice about how to have better handled the situation. ask her first, though, if she doesn't like to hear some advice. If she doesn't want to hear it now, then at least you know before you start talking.

Not understanding "The 5 Relationship-Wrecking Communication Mistakes" can cost you the love of the people most important to you. We've worked with parents who haven't talked to their grown kids for years over a misunderstanding. We've worked with siblings who no longer talk after a disagreement. And of we've worked with divorcees whose relationships didn't need to end, but who didn't have the communication tools to make it through.

If you'd like to receive the full report on the 5 mistakes, go to the link at the bottom of the page.

You'll see this is not just a 'little' report. This can help you avoid some of the most painful, intimacy-destroying, relationship-wrecking communication mistakes around (I know - I've made all of them!)

I realize that even with my great and wonderful teaching skills it will take more than one read-through to really make these skills your own. Read this several times. Read it out loud with your spouse before going to bed, and when you wake up. Take it on your vacation to remind yourself what you really want from your relationship and what you want to avoid....

Kristin Denton & Paul Sterling teach Relationship Communication Skills -- Live Seminars or Tele-Classes including '4 Steps To Instant Intimacy & Understanding'- '5 Relationship-Wrecking Mistakes'-- To get a free copy of 'The 5 Mistakes Report' go to http://www.magicRelationship.com/freeaccess

Best Wishes from Colorado,

Where we had lots, and lots, and lots of snow.

See if you can find Kristin's car in the post card?

Lots of love,

Kristin and Paul

The Four Basic Steps of the Language of Peace. . .
And a brief example of their use

Practice the Language of Peace until you can apply these skills with mastery. As you learn it, apply it more and more in your every day life and watch as it creates magic in your relationships.

The four steps of The Language of Peace are:

1. State whatever event happened in the form of an OBSERVATION
2. followed by how you are FEELING
3. next your NEEDS which were either met or not met by the event
4. and lastly end on a REQUEST

Step one is to clearly state the observation...

State what happened that stimulated the upset without any evaluation (our judgments about what happened). Our example begins with an excited husband who came home early on his anniversary to cook a special surprise meal for his wife. With the food prepared, candles lit, table set, wine poured… he waits and waits and waits. His wife arrives home two hours later than normal. By this time the food is cold, the candles have burnt out, and most of the wine is gone. The once happy husband is now rather disappointed, hurt and upset.

He meets her arrival like this: “I can't believe you are late on our anniversary! Why didn't you call? All you care about is work. You don't care about our relationship any more…” This is an evaluation (case building) not an observation and most likely will be heard as an attack, requiring either defensiveness or a counter attack. An observation may have sounded like this: “When I came home early and prepared a romantic dinner for us and you didn't get home until two hours after I was expecting you, I felt….”

Notice there is no judgment of her behavior here (and yes, this does take practice).


On step two, state how you are feeling about what happened...

...rather than saying what you are thinking about what they did. If you say what you're thinking, instead of feeling, you'll only bring up defensiveness and create arguments. From the way the husband communicated to his wife you can guess what his choice was: building a case. He spent two hours gathering evidence, evaluating and judging her behavior, thinking she had betrayed him, preparing his attack…

“You are always doing stuff like this, only thinking of yourself. You are so inconsiderate!” These are thoughts and they are not improving the connection at all. Let's look at how we would've done using LOP instead. “… I felt worried for your safety and once I knew you were safe I felt hurt and disappointed because I …”

Think about these two scenarios so far. If this was happening in your home, which approach would you want your spouse to use? The first approach or the Language of Peace approach?


Step number three, connecting your feelings to your needs...

This is an important step where we let someone know what needs of ours we're trying to meet and how that would make us feel. This ties into one of the basics of LOP, that what causes our feelings is not other people, but whether our needs are being met or not being met. What people normally do in this area rather than connect to their needs, is to get hung up on a specific strategy, hoping that it will meet their needs. They start using words and phrases like; you should do this, you shouldn't have done that, you must, have to, this is right thing to do and you are doing the wrong …

With a belligerent tone the husband says, “You should apologize and you should quit that stupid job of yours!!!” These statements are almost guaranteed to create resistance and resentment. Even if she did either one of them, which is doubtful, she would end up doing it with an energy they both would regret later. So let's see what happens when he uses LOP. Following up on the last statement “I felt hurt and disappointed because I needed some acknowledgement for how much I contribute to our relationship and celebration for how much we love each other. ”


Now onward to the fourth and final step of the LOP...

...making a clear, do-able request stated in the present tense. This can be the hardest step of all for some people because they are being vulnerable, asking for what they truly want and risking hearing that scary, two letter word, “NO.” So instead of risking the no, people are often tempted to make demands instead .

Angry and hurt by her lack of apologies and no admissions of wrong doing, he presses on, making a demand he knows will break her heart. “Either you quit your job or I'm filing for divorce!” At this point she is backed into one corner and he has backed himself into the other corner, guaranteeing no one is going to be a winner and someone is going to sleep on the couch tonight. How could he have approached this differently using what you're about to learn at one of our workshops? His request would be simple since he understands that “the message sent” (what he said) is rarely “the message received” (what she thinks she heard). So to try and understand what she heard he would simply ask , “Can you tell me what you heard me say?”

I have tried both ways of communicating; I also have the divorce to prove the first one doesn't work so well. I also now have the best relationship of my life. The tools are simple, and the choice is yours. Don't ask yourself which way looks easier. Ask yourself which way will create the connection, intimacy and understanding you desire.

Oh, yes--at any point in this dialogue, even if the husband chose to build a case, the wife could have used these tools to turn it round, to give him the empathy he needed.

“Desperate Housewives...

Desperate Communication!"

All communication is either an act of love or a cry for help.

Either our needs are being met and we’d like to celebrate that with other people, or our needs are not being met and we would like empathy from others.

This is one of the basic premises of Dr. Marshall Rosenberg’s communication theory, Nonviolent Communication (www.cnvc.org). And the characters in the hit TV series Desperate Housewives soooo beautifully demonstrate this premise.

Take the episode from season 2, “No One is Alone.” In past episodes, Susan has remarried Carl in order to use his health insurance for a surgery she needs.

It’s presumably just for the papers, not for any real romantic interest. Meanwhile, Carl and Eddie are becoming more serious. Nobody has told Edie of Susan’s predicament and that they’ve remarried.

I was never sure why they would have kept that a secret, but truly, there ARE people who think that keeping secrets is the only way to go. That happens when they run into too much pain by being honest earlier in their lives.

to read the est of this article by Kristin Denton click here...

Relationship Communciation - The Language Of Peace

Learning how to communicate in a way that creates more Love, Intimacy and Understanding in any relationship quickly... also learn about the five most common relationship wrecking communiation mistakes...