I share my perspective, not tell someone what theirs should be

My wife and I have been together for 23 years, 18 of those married. For most people that see us, we come across as a very successful couple, because we are.

However, because we are always striving to be more, we decided to start couples therapy this year. The goal was to look back in 5 years time and say these most recent 5 years were our best years, in ways that we couldn’t comprehend today.

I got a referral for a licensed couples therapist from my individual therapist, and we work with her most weeks over Zoom. We started in person but… covid. Zoom has been fine for this.

The therapy has been more painful than I anticipated, because it revealed habits that we’ve developed over being together for so long in how we handle each other. Thoughts we project on each other from our own minds that affect our behaviors. On one hand, they’ve served us. For me specifically, as someone who avoids conflict, I’ve gotten real good at it. But this isn’t healthy to just avoid things all the time and not speak my mind.

So as we adjust and challenge ourselves, it has opened us up to some disharmony that we then have to work through – and that’s fine. It’s fine to have disharmony. It’s healthy. Aiming for 100% agreement is exhausting.

One of the best tools to come out of this for me has been to change my language somewhat. Instead of telling Robin what she should be thinking, or what she’s doing is wrong, I frame it to “I’m noticing this” or “When you say X, it makes me think Y”.

And even more importantly… “I don’t agree”, or “I feel differently about this than you”.

By changing my language, I’m being clear it’s about how I’m interpreting what is going on, and not telling Robin what she should be thinking.

This way of speaking has transitioned to my every day life and how I interact with everyone.

Now I share my perspective, and I don’t tell people what theirs should be.

As a reader of this blog, you are familiar with my writing style, which is to talk about my experiences and thoughts. I trust that you will pull what you find of value from that. I won’t tell you what you should be doing or thinking.

Sometimes I catch myself not following this rule, either with Robin or someone else. When this happens I have to immediately check myself.

I may flat out say “You know, I just realized I was telling you what to think. I’m going to stop that. I can only tell you what I’m thinking.”

By using this language, it achieves far more progress than a pointless exercise of trying to bash through someone’s personal defenses with little possibility they would change their mind.

I’ve also learned, as someone who is afraid of triggering anger in people and avoiding conflict, when I state this is how I feel or think, the other party doesn’t have much choice but to accept it since they don’t have control of my brain. I’m not telling them what to think, so no conflict arises. They can agree or disagree, and it doesn’t matter to me which they do.

My marriage continues to become stronger because of this, and my interactions with everyone become stronger.

If you reflect on your reading of my blog, how has this style worked for you?