Relationships: Pulling Together Rather Than Apart

Have you ever found yourself stuck when trying to solve a problem in your relationship? You talk or battle round and round and never seem to reach any type of agreement. Granted some problems are complicated and difficult to solve, but sometimes we complicate our problems by approaching them from the “I’m right” and “you’re wrong” perspective.

Sometimes in order to solve a problem you need to make a paradigm shift; you need to change the way that you are looking at the problem.

I love crossword puzzles and I have found that if you are looking at the clue from the wrong perspective, finding the solution can be tough. For example, I had a clue, “something to knit” and I laughed when I found the answer was brow, since I had been thinking along the lines of the needles and yarn type of knitting. But, brow is something that you may knit when you frown. My perspective made it more difficult for me to find the answer, since I was looking in the wrong direction.

Too often we get trapped in thinking about a problem only from our own perspective. We do not invest the time or effort to see it as our partner sees it or even to see it as an unbiased observer might see it. We can miss the simple solutions that are right in front of us because we are so focused on getting our own way.

When we put all our effort into maintaining our position and proving that we are right, we get a defensive response rather than cooperation. Then we are battling to decide who is right and who is wrong and finding a solution to the problem gets lost in the bruised egos and hurt feelings. No matter how satisfying it may feel at the time, you never win by making your partner lose.

It is dangerous to your relationship to assume that you know what your partner is thinking and feeling. Since we see things from our perspective and not from theirs.

Some questions you might want to ask yourself the next time you have a problem:
What if this were not a problem?
What if this were an opportunity?
How can we creatively solve this problem?
If the problem is unsolvable, how can we creatively make this not a problem and find a way of coping that we are both comfortable with?

Do something unexpected, try something new, having the same argument over and over probably hasn’t accomplished a whole lot to this point so try a different approach.

Sometimes the answer may lie outside of both partner’s positions and with a little bit of co-operation and creativity you can find a solution that works for both of you.