The Top 5 Conflict Pitfalls for Husbands and Practical Tools to Repair Relationships

In this episode, Simon Goode reflects on common mistakes husbands make in relationship conflicts, such as poor listening, not staying calm, misidentifying conflict types, adopting the wrong conflict approach, and failing to repair relationships after disagreements. He shares practical frameworks like the EAR (Explore, Acknowledge, Respond) listening strategy and discusses techniques for self-regulation, apology, and moving forward after conflict. The episode encourages self-reflection and adaptability in conflict resolution to foster healthier relationships.

TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 Reflecting on relationship mistakes

03:08 Trying new note-taking methods

07:53 Types of questions in communication

13:35 Managing stress in conversations

17:35 Understanding conflict and calmness

19:48 Understanding conflict and self-regulation

25:28 Mindfulness and staying present

27:25 Approaching conflict differently

31:21 Discussing Parenting and Communication

33:24 Discussing relationship communication strategies

36:10 Common mistakes in conflict resolution

40:43 Five conflict resolution strategies

45:10 Resolving conflict with apologies

47:05 Types of effective apologies

49:18 Improving apologies and moving forward

54:00 Navigating relationship conflicts

58:00 Reflecting on relationship mindset

Transcript

Speaker 0:06

Well, hello and welcome back to the Conflict Skills Podcast. I'm your host, professional mediator, Simon Goode. I set up this podcast to provide free resources and tools for dealing with conflict, so if that sounds like the kind of thing that's useful to you, please consider pressing subscribe. Well, in the episode today, I'm sitting here in civilian clothes because I'm talking about a non-workplace conflict issue as a little bit of a different tack for this episode of the podcast. I'm actually going to be talking about some of the common mistakes that I've made as a husband, and to be frank, I've noticed that a lot of other husbands seem to make very similar mistakes. Now I'm not assuming that the shoe is all entirely on the one foot here. Obviously, just because these are common mistakes that husbands might make doesn't necessarily mean that wives can't make them as well. And I'm not necessarily saying that there's a single cause or a single reason why people slip into these different patterns of behaviour, I suppose is one way of thinking about it. Now I've wanted to talk about conflict with your with your partner, if you know what I mean. So your your wife or your partner if you've got a significant long-term relationship. And I always struggle with the same kind of challenges of it's not really imposter syndrome because I actually don't necessarily have the kind of authority to speak around that topic. I mean, who am I? I'm just a random schmuck making all of the same mistakes that all of the rest of you are making listening to the podcast, is my guess. What I tend to do when it comes to conflict, though, is that I approach these things in a reflective kind of way. And for me, the way that I conceptualize that is if I can develop different frameworks for understanding the situation, it's almost like developing a new kind of technology. Like it really does improve my self-efficacy. So as much as I've made mistakes along the way of dealing with my own wife, and they're just too numerous to list, to be perfectly frank, like some of the dumbest and most minor kind of things to like I've just treated her looking back in some of the most dreadful ways, and I often think, well, I can't go back and change it, but the at the least I don't want to continue repeating the same kind of patterns. So for me, there's quite a genuine desire to improve in my own conflict skills, I guess is one way of thinking about it. And so I thought that maybe sharing some of the different light bulb moments that I've had along the way might also resonate with something else that you're dealing with. Obviously, you're in a different context. There's two completely different people involved than me. So I'm not necessarily saying this is right, but you might appreciate hearing the way that I reflect, like what I think of as reflective practice, and then what does that mean in terms of the mistakes that I've identified and the possible remedies or ways to mitigate that that I may have discovered. Now, if you like this um approach to the podcast, please let me know down in the comments below. I've got a notepad in front of me that if you're watching the video, you'll be able to see. And I've handwritten some notes ahead of time this time round. I wanted to experiment with what it felt like to go through a topic with this kind of a format with handwritten kind of stuff. I actually really like it. I have to say it's very quick for me to express the idea that I've got as a trainer, and I think that it also probably is quite an engaging thing to be looking at as opposed to some generic PowerPoint slide or that kind of stuff. So the first area that I wanted to highlight that I often suck at as a husband is listening. And I know that this is just so frequently the course of a lot of conflict that people end up running into in their relationship with their partner. It's not that either of you are unethical, and it's not like you're not committed to one another. You've got that desire to support each other and operate in a mutually beneficial, collaborative kind of way, I guess. And so it's not like you're not trying. I think the problem often is that we don't do the things that help the other person to feel heard. Like we don't do the things that help the other person to feel understood. As a husband myself, I very frequently want to jump into fix-it mode. Like, what's the problem? Let's come up with some options, let's develop a plan, let's implement what I think of as a bit of a solution, so to speak, best practice according to the empirical data that we have available, and then review, you know, measure, monitor, review, however you'd think about that moving forward afterwards as well. And so when my wife tells me that something's happened at work, like she'll say, they've changed the budget for this particular thing, like they've cut their staff, travel budgets. Well, I immediately want to judge it. Like at the very immediate level, I want to say, why don't you do this? You need to tell your boss this, you should talk to the union, you should do whatever the like what I think of as just this incredibly shallow black and white broad brush interpretation of what the problem actually is. And I realize looking back on all of these different situations, that I had no idea about what the options were anyway. So what on earth was I doing going into this, like, let's figure out what's needed here kind of approach? It's almost like a bit of a knee-jerk reaction at times. So the fixing is one problem I think that gets in the way of listening. The other is kind of like making judgments, assuming that you've got enough information, assuming that you understand what's going on with this situation, why this person acted the way that they did, for example. And so we're coming to the person who's telling us something with this very black and white filter. We're not seeing all of the colours, we're not seeing all of the detail. And so that often isn't a very effective way of then helping the other person to feel heard, is it? If we feel like the other person hasn't even understood the nuances of what we've told them. Well, I mean, we're not going to really think that we've been listened to. And I don't think that we're very likely to follow the suggestions that they make either, are we? So, what should we do differently if our aspiration was to become a better listener? For me, I really like this ER acronym, the E A R. Explore, Acknowledge, and Respond. Now the respond step, that last element there, that's what I think a lot of people become in this knee-jerk reaction way of operating, regarding it's like I just react. I don't actually respond, to be honest. Like I'm doing something, I'm telling you what should happen, I'm trying to fix it. At the very least, I'm deciding what's important and trying to understand it based on my subjective filter. The other approach, though, that often helps people to feel heard is that we build in those first steps before we respond. So the respond might be giving advice, it might be coaching, it could be um doing something yourself, like I'll follow up with that. It might be letting somebody else know, like looping somebody else in, all of these kind of options is sort of the things that you might need to do to manage it, I guess, is the way that I think about that respond practically. But before that, we've got the explore and acknowledge. So let's think about what each of those different steps might involve. When I think about explore, we're talking about questions as well as statements. So within that explore category, we could either ask questions or we could make statements. In terms of the questions, we could ask either open or closed-ended questions. Now that's just one of the ways of classifying the different questions that we could ask. So an open-ended question might have multiple possible ways of responding. What's been going on? What's happened that's led to you feeling that way? What's your take on all of this? Uh how can I help? How can we manage this moving forward? What can we tweak? How could we think about this differently? How should I respond differently if I wasn't going to give you that sense that I've cr criticized you or whatever the thing is that they've obviously just communicated that you've done. It's looking for that nuance and those open-ended kind of questions, they're very helpful, especially in the context of conflict, because the other person is in charge of what to share, what's important, which areas are relevant, and how much detail to share as well. The other types of questions that we could ask are what are sometimes referred to as closed-ended questions. These might be yes or no kind of questions, or other questions with a limited number of possible responses. When did that happen? Sorry, was that an email that I've sent or a text message? Or did I say something about that? I'm sorry, I'm just trying to figure out which instance you're talking about there when you said that's what I wanted. So the closed-ended questions of was that a phone call or an email? Or when did that happen? Or have we talked about this before? Like it seems like you're frustrated. Is this your first time raising it? Like these closed-ended kind of questions, yes or no? I've talked about it with you before, or no, I haven't. So neither of them are right and wrong. The open-ended questions are good because they allow nuance. They give the other person a high sense of autonomy. They often are more helpful for actually getting to the heart of what's going on, peeling the onion of the issue. But closed-ended questions are also quite helpful, especially when the other person's in a very escalated kind of state. If they're really panicked or if they're really angry and furious, like closed closed-ended questions might be a good option. Like, okay, do you want to come talk about it now or should we circle back to it this afternoon? Have you got a moment to get into it or are you flat out? Um, you know, it's all these these kind of yes or no questions. Do you want to drink? Um, do you want to go somewhere a bit more private? And then the any other kind of yes or no questions that might relate to the issue themselves can also be quite helpful. Now they're easy to answer when you're frazzled and frustrated and kind of all over the shop in a very worked up kind of state. I think one of the mistakes that people make is that they'll ask too many open-ended questions like, oh, how did I communicate that? And of course, the more worked up that the other person gets, they lose capacity to think clearly. They're losing access to that executive function, the prefrontal cortex section of the brain, the higher level thinking. And that's in charge of things like understanding language, understanding the logic of the way that different issues might be connected, even empathy, even self-regulation. Like we want them to be able to stay calm. The more worked up that they get, the less likely that it is that they're able to do that. So when we ask too many confronting kind of questions, like when it's perceived as pressure or when it's perceived as a threat, that's when these types of questions often backfire. So we wouldn't want to make a question framed like criticism, like why on earth did you do that? Like that kind of the connotation there is that you shouldn't have done that, right? And we might not necessarily want to pepper them with too many questions in a row. That might feel a lot like an interrogation or something similar. The other option that we've got is what are called statements. You know, it's just saying something. And there's a couple of different ways I like to use those. One are like broad brush kind of summaries. I'll just drop that down while I'm saying it, broad brush summaries. Like I really like beginning listening to someone by asking oh by saying something, I beg your pardon. Like, so this probably wasn't the morning that you're anticipating. Oh, okay, you've had a lot on your plate, and that's saying the least, isn't it? I guess there's a question there on the other end of it, but the statement would be, this must have been really full on. So these kind of statements, they're not really questions. It's not clear about what I'm inviting you to do next. But there is this open space almost that gets created when we use those. They're very helpful for empathy and demonstrating that we do have some kind of a an understanding of what might be going on here. So I really like those broad brush kind of summaries. Those statements make a lot of sense. Like even with your wife, you might say something like, It seems like we're looking at this from really different directions at the moment. Full stop, it's just a statement. And then the invitation there is to respond with whatever, you know, the natural thought or feeling is that comes up for them. So we could use it like that. I also like it to kind of capture a section of a conversation and what we're doing is inviting them to move on. So something like, okay, so at the beginning that was how you were thinking. I can understand how that probably came across that way when I said and did this back then. Now we want to justify ourselves, we want to say, but that's because of this, but that's why you need to understand this. But those statements often are just okay, so it seems like at a high level this might be what's going on. And we don't necessarily even need to add something like, what do you think? In my experience, actually, that's the time people often really like speaking and telling you what's happening. Whereas when you ask a question, especially too many closed-ended questions or something in a row, it starts to feel a bit like an interrogation. You've got the the light on shining in their eyes. And so that perceived pressure or the perceived threat is likely to trigger that escalation in them. And then, like I said, they lose that self-regulation as well as the capacity to think in the same way as they would have when they're in more of a calm kind of frame. So explore's good because we unpack what's going on, we peel the onion, but it's also good because it's creating this sense of connection, it's creating this like almost like a culture within the conversation of what's going on that we treat each other with respect. And as I'm doing my best to listen to you and just slow down and not defend myself or not get in an argument, debate some minor issue or something, what that's doing is creating then a precedent that you would then then respond reciprocally to. Sorry, I've got too many long words in a row there. I should probably take a few moments before I start speaking, which is exactly why I need to calm down to regain the access to my own prefrontal cortex as we're going through this. So a nice deep breath. It's often the similar kinds of things that I need to do when I'm in the middle of conflict. So the Ear acronym, explore is the first step. The next thing that we would do is some kind of an acknowledgement. Here again, I think we can either do it in a more minor, more general kind of way, or we might choose to go into it in a little bit more detail. Like I like those phrases. Like it seems like we've been looking at all of this from very different perspectives, or I can understand how that might have come across that way, even though that wasn't my intention looking back on it. And certainly if I could have my time again, I would do something different. So it's this longer kind of summary of what might be going on. And what I'm often talking about there is that reciprocal pattern that's going on in the back and forth between us. I can see how I might have said this, you interpreted it like this, that's influenced the way that you've been perceiving the issue in this kind of way, and then you're responding in kind like this. And I suppose what we're getting at is that this makes sense. Like none of these things that have happened between us are because we loathe each other or something. Like we're in this dynamic, we're in this pattern that's playing out. And so we could use the acknowledged to summarize a little bit of that level, or even just I think some smaller acknowledgements are also incredibly helpful. Like that sounds really hard. That that probably felt really lonely when you felt like it was me against you. You probably felt like I wasn't doing much to support you, given the fact that you thought that I was doing this for this reason, etc. And it's not about we disagree and I need to correct the facts. This listening process is just about understanding the other person's perspective and creating that sense of being heard and understood. Empathy in a very genuine sense. So we've got the explore, we've got the acknowledge, either the sort of more longer term or more long version or shorter versions of that. And then the third step is respond, the E-A-R. How we respond might be the advice or coaching or doing something to fix it practically or whatever. But when we've done that explore and acknowledge thoroughly, it's much more likely that the other person that we're dealing with is going to feel heard. And when that's our wife, that's often something that we're aiming for. And you might think that the goal is to correct them or that the goal is to get them to understand something, and that might be true, but they're probably not going to be very open to that input that you'd like to make when they don't have a sense that you care or understand what's going on from their perspective. Okay, I just had to close my window there. There was some birds chirping very loudly out outside, and I have to say it's not the most terrible of background noises to have in your podcast studio, but it's probably just bad timing. So the next mistake I think that a lot of husbands often make is that they're not calm. Either they're not calm consistently, or they're very quick to react. Like they're constantly revving at a six and a half out of ten, so it doesn't take very much to sort of set them off and we go up to the it's like hitting the panic button, isn't it? Now, for me, I think about conflict from many different angles and at many different layers of meaning. We could understand our behavior in terms of the neurobiology and the chemistry. We could understand our behavior in terms of some spiritual lens like the Bible or something similar, which talks about what a person is, what free will is. There's other different religious sort of understandings of conflict and what we should aim for here. There's different ways of thinking about ethics and morals with different justifications and ontologies or basis for those as well. So when we're thinking about conflict, should it be at the moral level or philosophy? Is it more helpful to approach it in terms of the science and the neurobiology or maybe social psychology, like more like anthropanthropology type of science, like studying broad patterns within groups of people, within different populations? Um, I don't know, but for me, like getting to the heart of what's actually contributing to the conflict here is going to be completely impossible if I'm not calm. The more escalated that we get, the more that we rev up, the more like fast that we start moving, the more frantic our thinking and behavior, the more fractured and scattered our mind if we're bouncing between all of these different ideas. That's not congruent with productive conflict resolution. When you're really revved up, you're literally not able to understand complex thoughts. So all of these discussions around what's the best way to understand conflict or approach it, it doesn't matter if you're looking at the neurobiology and the chemistry. We know that cortisol rises and we lose access to the prefrontal cortex, etc., etc. There's a lot of mechanistic explanations for all of that. We could also, though, think about when I'm more upset, I do things that I might regret. Like even at a surface level, we understand the psychology that's often involved here. And I think it's why when a lot of people look back on previous conflicts that they've dealt with, there's an element of shame that's there. Like we're not thinking clearly. We do lose our capacity for self-control. We do lose our capacity for self-regulation. I think there's a lot of really interesting parts that are connected to that in terms of the philosophy of free will and therefore responsibility for your own behaviors and so many different elements there. So I think about conflict and self-regulation is the way I think about staying calm from a workplace kind of perspective at all of these different issues from all of these different perspectives. But regardless of the one that we choose, we can understand that being not calm leads to bad things. It leads to us saying hurtful things, interrupting the other person when they're speaking, coming to the wrong black and white kind of assumption about what might be going on, justifying our own behaviors, seeing things in a very short-sided kind of way, losing perspective about the context, like maybe your children are watching you argue with your wife. If you were more calm, you would immediately stop. You would look at the look on their faces and decide to talk about it later. But the the more that worked up that you get, the less able that we are to hit the brakes. So, how should we be more calm? If you wanted to be a more calm partner, a more calm husband, more calm dad, what should you do? For me, I think the beginning is often about the behaviors. Like I look for protocols or methods that are well backed up in the research that are helpful in the kinds of moments that I'm looking at. So I like methods that don't take any equipment, they don't take any training, they don't cost anything. Like I'm looking for self-regulation. This is a ability that I want to generate, almost like a resource that I can carry into the conflicts that I'm going into. For me, two really good options are breathing, a particular breathing technique that I like, and then mindfulness, a way of adjusting your perspective of choosing what you're focused on. Breathing deals with the physical body, mindfulness. To me, it's A way of managing the mind, the thoughts and feelings, and all of the mental mental machinations that go into all of that. So, how should we breathe if our goal was to stay calm? It's more effective if we breathe through our nose rather than our mouth. So I often begin taking deep breaths through my nose, and I focus on the breath out. A very long, slow breath out where we fully empty our lungs acts as a little bit of a circuit breaker to that fight or flight response, that escalation process. So really extending your breathing, and particularly the long exhale. You'll see it if you're wearing an Apple Watch or a Garmin Watch or something, your heart rate will drop very, very quickly within the time frame of a couple of short breaths, I guess. So we're using our nose, we're focusing on the breath out. I like to start by just doing one very, very long exhale at the beginning. Like just keep breathing out. And keep breathing out and keep breathing out. We often learn that we had more air in our lungs than we would have initially anticipated. So that's kind of interesting. And often when you've breathed out all of the way, some people get like a tingling kind of sensation, like they're very present. It's something that's like they're noticing new things that they weren't aware of a moment ago. I wonder if that's also a sign of what's happening internally in terms of the different bits of your brain that are active there. So after that, the minimum, according to Huberman and other like summaries of all of this that I've watched many times is like as in, I've I've been really interested in it, but there's many different versions of what's the ideal. But Huberman and others talk about the minimum amount of time for that breath out is five and a half seconds. So I would breathe out and count to six, breathe in and count to six. For me, that's the method that I prefer in terms of that deep breathing. But the very slow, relaxed, exhale-focused breath, it's the opposite of that fast, rapid, shallow breathing that we go into when we're in fight or flight mode. Like when you're watching a UFC fight, if someone gets hurt in particular, they immediately start breathing in this very rapid, shallow kind of way. And when the bell rings, the coaching staff often come in and they get them to cool down. And what they do is focus on the breath, exactly the kinds of technique that I'm talking about here. So this sounds a little bit airy-fairy, but it's very well backed up in the research. And most high performance people, like race car drivers or athletes or whatever, they all use this as a regular protocol to prepare for performance. Sorry, too much alliteration there, I'm sure. Now, when I'm talking about mindfulness, this is another area that people might have a little bit of a negative knee-jerk reaction in regards to. I think that the stigma is kind of lowering, but you might be imagining some Buddhist guy in a Zen pose on the floor chanting ohm or something like that when you hear the word mindfulness. For me, the way that I think about it is it's really just engaging with our senses. We pay attention to what's happening right now. And so our brain wants to pay attention to what's happening right now. It can't. It doesn't have any ears or eyes or anything. It's sitting inside a dark cave in our big skulls. And so the brain relies on all of the sensory information that's coming in. So we could think at a broad level of sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. So I just pause and ask myself something like, what can I see aside from this, aside from my wife, aside from the person that I'm arguing with? What can I hear? What's the background noise aside from our voices? What's the smells in the room that I can smell at the moment? What's the taste that I've got in my mouth? Like I might just pay attention to that just for a moment and describe it using a word or two. And then what can I touch? Wiggle my toes and feel the feeling of my socks and my shoes, or if I'm barefoot, feel the ground underneath my feet. For me, I really like that as a go-to strategy of almost like waking myself up, anchoring my attention or my perception in the present moment. What bits of your clothes feel like? Is the air in the room that you're in warm or cool? Is there a breath a breeze or is it still? Like there's no right or wrong or magical step that's needed beyond just paying attention to what's happening right now. It anchors our perception then in the present moment. And in my experience, anyway, it stops our mind from spinning about the past and the future, which are often the things that we get very worked up about. So we've gone through the first mistake of being a bad listener. A lot of husbands make that one. Me, no exception. Even as someone who's literally trained for many, many years in being a better listener, I still suck at it at times. And then the next mistake, not being calm, that's probably a bit of a clue as to why I suck at being a good listener when I'm getting very worked up and upset. The third mistake that I think a lot of husbands make is that they think that the conflict is about something other than it is. Now I like to approach conflict in an analytical kind of way, I guess. So it's not like we have a diagnostic criteria that we're trying to identify or something. But I do want to just pause and consider, well, what's driving this conflict? What's contributing here? I think that there's things that can be helpful for managing the symptoms of conflict. Like I've made you feel this way, there's something I might be able to do to help you or whatever. But in terms of resolving it, either preventing it from coming up moving forward or getting to some kind of a resolution, if it's something that's sitting there and we're upset about to some extent. Yeah, like I'm just not sure about the approach of continuing to do the thing that you've always done. I often use a work a quote in workshops that I do. If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've already got. And so you might want to do something different than what you've already been doing. This might be a tool that can be helpful in that regards. The five types of conflict, and I know that I've talked about this in many other previous episodes of the podcast as well, so I won't go into it in too much detail here. But broadly speaking, I think about conflict with these five factors that are often contributing. At the face level, the thing that we often notice first is what you might call the relationship conflict. This is all of the back and forth stuff that I mentioned that go on between us and our wife in this case or somebody else if we're in a different conflict with someone else. I'm so sick of the way they keep doing this. You need to stop doing this. Can't you just understand this? Serves you right. You're not you're not going to be able to push me around. You're just getting your just desserts. All of these kind of phrases, to me, as a professional mediator, are often clues that what might be going on here is relationship conflict. It's I'm treating you because I'm treating you the way that I am because of the way that you just treated me. And it's not even as simple as that. It's like the way that I've perceived that you've treated me using my very subjective lens and all of my subjective values that I'm bringing to that situation. So it's the build-up, it's all of the back and forths, the frustrations, the um feeling hopeless, those kind of moments with your partner. Now there are some things that can be helpful for dealing with this relationship kind of conflict. To me, it's often about going back to the goals. Like, what does supporting each other look like through all of these different changes? How can we get more on the same page in terms of parenting if we've got different perspectives given that we've had very different upbringings here? Like I'm talking to them, talking to my wife about the goal. Like, you know, how would you like things to be between us? When it comes to parenting decisions, what do you think would work in terms of our family dynamic? What's the level of input that you're wanting me to have? And then where are the kind of areas where you feel like that's just a decision that you can make yourself? And then where have I overstepped the mark? What is it that I've done specifically that's led you to feel that way? So we can talk through the goal or we can identify the patterns. I don't think though that those kind of things like, I don't know, making an apology, that's another example of what might help in the relationship. Just acknowledging that you've done something wrong and that you're going to do something different moving forward. But that's not going to solve the problem if underneath it you've still got different ideas about what's best for kids in regards to this decision that you're making together. Or you both want to cut back on your work. And so it's not likely that you're both going to be able to do that within the same time frame and keep the same level of income that's coming in that your family might need. Or you might have different ideas about what should happen. This is what I think of as the value. So we've got the data, we might have different perspectives about the facts, we've got interest, we want different things. There's different things that are important to us. I'll benefit, or I'm prepared to give you or help you with these particular things, almost like in a transactional kind of sense sometimes. Or it could be value, like what does respectful listening look like? What is yelling? Um, what is nagging? Like we've all got slightly different thresholds around these kinds of things. So it might be the bigger picture stuff, like how should parenting decisions be made? What's the level of independence that kids should have? How much pain should they go through before we help them? How can we let how can we help them learn to stand on their own two feet? Um, so it could be any or three of these different elements. And of course, these are all channeled through the structure that we choose to communicate. If you're SMSing your wife trying to get on the same page about recent research, that's gonna play out completely differently to sitting down in a quiet space with a coffee and having the time to talk it through in a very contained kind of way. So we could talk about the data, the facts, our interests, what they want or what we want. If you can just stop doing this, then this is what I'm gonna do for you. Or we could get into the values, the stuff about what's important here, what should be the priorities, what's correct. That's all channeled through the structure into the relationship, which then affects that and it affects how the other person then responds to us. Each of these five types of conflict to me are like different lanes that we could use to deal with the conflict. I could just choose to deal with this in a factual kind of way. Maybe they don't have access to the information that I've got. They're thinking that this was what was going on at my work, but actually it was something different. So I could correct it. I could give them that information that they're missing that they don't know. Or I could just talk about this in terms of interest. So if your wife's saying, can't we spend more time together? You could deal with it in terms of the data of saying, I've been too busy. Don't you know I've worked late four nights over the past week? Kind of like the underlying thing there is what do you expect? But the way that we're approaching it is you need to understand this. Or we could deal with it just in terms of the interest. How about we go out for dinner tomorrow night? And I'm not going back and correcting the ledger, I'm not going back and explaining why, and I'm certainly not going back and justifying, but I'm kind of saying, is this something that would work for you? This is what I'm prepared to do. We could collaborate, we could compromise. There's no right and wrong way of dealing with this. Sometimes it makes sense just to be very accommodating, give your wife the thing that she's asking for, or drop the request if you've been asking her to do something different, or sometimes it makes sense to stick to your guns and hold on to your boundaries, take that more assertive kind of approach. So we could deal with it in terms of the data or the interest or the values. It seems like when I did this, you interpreted that as being really unsupportive. Can you tell me a bit more about that? What led to that? What would you like me to do differently moving forward? And it's not about the facts of don't you know how busy I've been? It's not about the don't you want to go out for dinner tomorrow? Would that make it better? This is where we go into more of the big picture kind of values. And this could be the bigger stuff, like how parenting should be done, as I say, or it might be, I don't know, raising your voice. And you might say, look, I'm sorry, I come from the kind of family situation where we do raise our voice in disagreements. I don't intend that to come across as disrespectful, and I certainly don't want you to feel like I'm shutting you down. At the same time, it sounds like you've come from a very different perspective. So when those kind of things happen for you, it it does feel like I'm walking over the top of you or not listening or whatever the thing is that she's telling you that she's doing. I'm acknowledging the difference here, and this is often about validating both perspectives. Then if we want to manage it, resolve it moving forward, it's often about focusing on the behavior. What should we do? What would you like me to do differently? How could we set things up? What can we tweak in terms of our date nights, in terms of managing household chores, like whatever the thing is that you're in an argument about? We've got these two underlying ethoses, so to speak. How can we navigate this? Let's get on the same page moving forward. In my experience, that's often also the what the time that trust is built. I'm just gonna flick my phone and make sure that I'm on do not disturb mode just in case a call comes through. I have a terrible feeling that I'm gonna get to the editing and realize that all of the sound hasn't worked for one of the different these things are called scenes that are moving through here. So again, if if it happens to come, if it happens to work and this ends up being published and it's useful for you, please consider pressing like and leaving a comment or something like that. It's so helpful for little podcasts like this. And thank you in advance if that is something that you're prepared to do. So we've talked about three mistakes that husbands make: the not being a very good listener, the not staying very calm, and then dealing with the conflict in the wrong way, addressing the wrong type of conflict. The fourth mistake that a lot of husbands make is that they take the wrong approach to dealing with the conflict. So the wrong type, that to me is about is this a factual conflict or is this a quid pro quo kind of situation? Maybe I just need to change the structure and that's actually going to solve a lot of these issues. Like we could meet weekly for a finance meeting or something. That's going to prevent all of the conflict that we've been having about finances recently. But in terms of the actual issue of finances, there are also different options that we've got. For me, this is often called conflict modes or conflict styles. So some people, including many husbands, they get in a groundhog day way of responding to conflict. They always do the same thing. There's these very well-entrenched patterns in their behavior. Interestingly, there's also probably very well-entrenched patterns in terms of the neurons in their brain. It's so interesting. The neurons that fire together wire together. So the more in a rut that you get in terms of your practical behaviors, you're also seeing less complexity in terms of the different connections between neurons, etc., as well. It's, I think, so fascinating. There's a lovely parallel there. So some people are just assertive. They don't want to get pushed around. And so they come at conflict in a very direct, uh, very forceful kind of manner. So that's the first option that we've got for dealing with conflict. We could just say no if our wife's asking us to do something, or we could insist, this is the way that it needs to be. I sometimes use a wording of directive there or competing. If there's only one of us that's going to get the day off, it's going to be me. It's only going to be one of us that chooses the destination for the hotel. This is what I really want to do. And it doesn't necessarily mean that you're harsh or aggressive or rude or um inappropriate or something. It's just you're very firm. So you could still say, I just don't agree. This is how I see things. Or it's not negotiable. You don't need to say, if you don't listen to me, I'm gonna blah, blah, blah. Like in my mind, that's not what being assertive actually looks like. That's much more what I would think of anyway as being aggressive. So that's the first option that we've got for dealing with conflict, being very assertive. On the other end of the spectrum, we could be very accommodating. This is where we just go with the flow. Let her let your wife have the way that she wants it to be, agree to the request that she's making. It's kind of like just do whatever's needed to keep the peace and basically just say yes. So some issues within any marriage are worth sticking to your guns about. It's just this is the way that it needs to be. Um, it's not flexible, it's not negotiable. Some issues are relatively minor, but what often happens is that people get in these ruts, they develop these patterns, so they constantly say no because they don't want to get pushed around. And actually, what happens is that they might create additional stress and additional challenges for themselves just because they're never willing to be flexible. It's almost like a habit that they've developed very frequently. I think these conflict modes are connected to the ways that our parents dealt with conflict. But, you know, obviously there's very limited research in terms of a lot of that. The middle ground in between being assertive or accommodating is compromise. This is the split the difference kind of approach. If your wife says, look, I'm so sick of going around your parents for dinner, every time we go, they just tear strips off me and criticize me. And, you know, probably she's upset and sad about that, which isn't a situation that my wife's been through or a complaint that we've made, by the way. But she might say that. So you could say, no, it's really important to my parents. They're elderly, they're not going to be with us for much longer. I'd like to keep doing it. Or you could accommodate and say, no worries, let's just tell them we're busy. Let's just do it at our house, let's just do something else. The compromise is the split the difference. Look, we don't have to go every week, but would it be okay if we go one or two times a month? How does that sit with you? And it's the middle ground, it's not being necessarily assertive or not. It gets you to a quick resolution, which is good, but nobody's 100% happy with what they want, with what they get in that case. Now that's not technically true when we're dealing with relationships in our marriage. Obviously, if we compromise, hopefully your wife at least wants to see your parents a little bit, even if it's there's also some frustration that comes along with it as well. But she's agreeing to go and have dinner at their house just less frequently. And on your end, that might be something that you would ideally like to be more frequent, but you're willing to accept it. As a mediator, I often use language like, is that something that you can agree to? Is that something you can live with? Is that something that you can accept when we say you're happy with that? Surely that's reasonable, isn't it? Obviously, the invitation there is why don't you have a debate with me and argue the other side of what I'm claiming is true, my um sort of statements that I think is the way that uh things are. Now the fourth option that we've got is avoiding the conflict. You could just walk away. Sometimes that makes sense if you're just so fuming and angry that you're not seeing clearly. I think just saying, I'm sorry, I'm not in the right headspace, could we circle back to it later? Um, I don't think obviously it's going to be an effective long-term way of dealing with conflict with your wife, though. And then the fifth option that we've got is collaborating. This is where we might sit down and see if there is some kind of a win-win option that might work for everyone. So with the the your wife doesn't want to go to your parents for dinner, you could say, well, what if they come here instead? Like that would be an example of collaborating. You're still going to see them as frequently, so your husband gets what he wants, or you get what you want as the husband, but you don't have to go to their house. So that sort of meets your wife's needs in that respect as well. So that sounds great. There's this win-win kind of solution that I think a lot of people inherently aspire to. They want this collaborative way of working with their partner. There's a few challenges with that approach, though, the same as all of the other five types of conflict that I've outlined there. It delays getting to a decision and it delays getting to a resolution. So if you say to your wife, look, thanks for flagging it with me, let's both have a think about it. Maybe we can talk about it again tomorrow, uh, maybe in the ARVO. Maybe, I don't know, maybe some options have come up to one of us. What do you reckon? But it might not. Maybe there's no win-win. Maybe your wife has just decided that she does not want to talk to these people and they're always at the family dinner, and they're not going to be welcome in your house because there's a similar reciprocal antagonism on the other side or something. So it might not be possible. You might also be dealing with someone who's very, very assertive naturally. And sometimes you do need to be a bit more firm, you do need to stick to your guns, especially if it's the first time talking through an issue, or like when your kids are starting school, how the pickups and drop-offs, all of these kind of things that you didn't need to navigate that stuff before. And now all of a sudden there's a norm that's developing. I know some people, almost strategically, they want to make sure that everybody's chipping in here, I'm not the single person that's doing all of the work or whatever. So whether or not you think about it in that transactional kind of way, of I don't want to do more than my fair share, or it's more about we're aiming for a healthy family, we're aiming for a healthy relationship. It really does then give you a bit of direction in terms of which of these five approaches is going to make sense. So it's not that there's a right and a wrong, it really depends on the situation and the context. Even collaborate. Like it delays getting to a decision, there might not be a win win that's possible in every situation, and it might be. That you end up getting taken advantage of if I'm fully transparent. If you really aim for that collaborative approach, there's going to be some situations where you end up just accommodating regardless. And that's an interesting thing to reflect on. Is that a big problem? I think sometimes in some ways it is. In other situations, it's fine and it it feels gross and it sucks if we think about it. But actually, we're in a dilemma in that moment. There was really no option there. We ended up having to just say yes because otherwise it was going to be a massive argument in front of our kids who have been through a difficult situation that day or whatever else was going on, right? So the fourth approach is that the fourth mistake that husbands make is that they take the wrong approach. They're too assertive or too accommodating or they constantly avoid, they always look for a win-win when it might not be possible, etc. So each different conflict that you're in with your wife might warrant a different approach. The final mistake that I think a lot of husbands make is that they don't repair the relationship well. After the conflict, after there's been an issue that you've navigated, there's no resolution that's achieved. These things often just get filed away in the filing cabinet of resentment that a lot of husbands and wives keep about each other. And it's like ammunition later to justify why they were feeling like this, or they think I'm going to show you that it's a pattern or whatever. And so there's something that's left, there's some residue from the conflict that often affects both of them. There's a stickiness, I think, to everybody that's involved when it comes to conflict, unless you're able to process it or deal with it effectively. So I've talked about processing conflict and a lot of times on this podcast. There's particular reflective practices that I find helpful. I've even demonstrated a few of those even while I was doing a recording a couple of times, which I remember was quite fun. Here I'm going to focus more on apologies and then how do we move forward? How do we turn the page? How do we begin a new chapter in a relationship? When it comes to apologies, I find it very helpful to thinking about, to think about five general types of apology that exist. The first type of apology, the first way that we could, you know, demonstrate that we're sorry is simply to say, I'm sorry. If you're dealing with a business setting, I guess it's probably something like I apologize. Uh with your wife, it's probably more like I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so, so sorry, whatever the thing is that you're wanting to express there. And it really is about I want you to know that I'm repentant. I want you to know that that was a big mess up, wasn't it? The second type of apology is a bit different to that, it has a different focus. Here we might say something like, I was wrong, I shouldn't have done that, um, I overstepped the mark, I should never have made that comment, something along those lines. Now, depending on who you are, each of those first two options would resonate a little bit more or a little bit less. Some people really want the apology. You never apologized for that, and that really does matter to them. Other people want you to admit that you were wrong, or want you to admit that it wasn't their fault, or want you to admit that you've contributed to the conflict instead of painting it like it's all their perspective or something. The third type of apology that we've got is saying something along the lines of I won't do it again. I've changed. I think the less effective versions of this is I've changed, I'm different. The more effective versions of this type of apology are this is what I've done to help me not make the same mistake again. This is what I'm doing differently. This is the structure that I've put in place. So I'm not talking to that person anymore that you're upset that I talked to. I'm not going to that bar where this thing happened. It's kind of like some kind of a demonstration of repentance. So I'm sorry is that I'm repentant. I was wrong, is what I'm repentant about. Three, that I won't do it again. That's how we can demonstrate that difference in us. The fourth way of apologizing is something along the lines of let me fix it. What can I do to make it up to you? There might be a practical thing that you need to do to fix it. If you've created a drama within your family, maybe that is appropriate that you call a family member and talk to them about the issue or something, maybe. Or it could be more like, can I take you out for dinner? I'm making you your favorite meal, something else. It's like I've been thinking about you. And I actually usually like to say it in the opposite way. It's like, I know this can't take back all of those comments that I made last night in the heat of the moment. Um, I've been feeling very upset about it today. And I thought this at least might give us a bit of a chance to reconnect. What do you reckon? The fifth option is, would you forgive me? And with your wife, that is the way that you say it. Could you forgive me? What would it take for you to forgive me? With a business partner or a professional context, it's probably more along the lines of, what would it take to move forward? Now, a very common mistake that husbands make here is can't you move on? Won't you move on? The phrasing that they use is this idea of move on. And similar to grief, that's something that people don't like getting told to do. If there's something that's been happening that they're upset about, they don't like this sense of dismissing it. So move on is like you should change, you should be different, you should stop caring about this. Whereas if we can phrase it like, what would help us to move forward? What would help us to move forward in terms of trust? What would help us to move forward in terms of being on a common goal? Like what do you think would help here? Now, depending on who you are, listening to me go through those five options, I'm sorry, I was wrong, I won't do it again, let me make it up to you, let me fix it, would you forgive me? Each of those will resonate with all of us differently. And so if you've been apologizing, quote unquote, and you feel like the other person's still upset, maybe choosing one of the other approaches would would be better. And you can kind of supercharge your apologies by including all of them, like a combination move of including a few of them. I'm so sorry I was wrong. Look, I mean, I know that there's not much I can do to make it up for you, but I'd love to maybe hang out this evening if you'd like. And I just want you to know that that's not going to happen again moving forward. I don't know if this is gonna fix it or not, but I'm wondering if this might be helpful at least for us to move forward. What do you think? As well as apologies, there's this moving forward in itself, like how can we get on a new page? How can we get on a new chapter? How can we stop all of the previous negative history that we've been through from constantly bubbling up? I really like this book, A Power of Mo The Power of Moments by a couple of guys, Chip and Dan Heath. It's a really lovely book, an excellent audio book as well, if you prefer to listen to listen. But they talk about how to make these significant moments, like you're going out for dinner to celebrate the graduation of your kid or your son or something, like how to make that a really special night that we would remember, what an 18th birthday party looks like that you're likely to remember. From an organizational perspective, how can you do things that make stuff feel important, that make them feel valued and acknowledged, for them to remember the off-site retreat that we went to in a positive kind of way? So there's many different applications to all of this, of course, but one of the things that they talk about is breaking the script, going to a new place that you don't normally do. If your wife normally cooks, maybe you cook for her. Uh if you normally go to your parents on a Friday night, maybe go out to dinner and have a private, you know, time alone instead. Um, bring your kids along when you go out for dinner or something, if that's going to be a positive thing, that's nice. Like go for a picnic on the weekend instead of just hanging out at home watching screens like you might normally do. Engaging your senses is another point that they raise. Like doing something that's multi-sensory, like cooking, I think is great because it's got the smells, the taste, the touch, all of it really. Uh, it might be though going for a bushwalk together and noticing the smells of the nature that you're going through, swimming at the beach if you live on the coast, something like that. And then make it personally meaningful. Like cook the meal that you had on your first date, or cook the meal that her mum taught her to make, or that your mum taught you to make, or something similar. But it's what's special for them, it's what's important for them. You could write a little thank you note, something like that. I really appreciate these few things that you've been doing over the course of the last week, or something similar. I've really noticed that you've been putting a lot of effort into this and this and this. Like, thank you. So cooking food, going to a new place together, printing a little card with old happy photos of the two of you, hanging out. These are all just different ideas. And obviously, your approach is going to be very different to mine. I'm a sort of weird introvert mid-40-year-old who works from home most of the time. So you're going to be very different to me if you're a construction worker or you're in your 20s and you're still going out clubbing together or something. I don't know. There's just so many different possible contexts. But I think those same steps often help break the script, engage the senses, make it personally meaningful. So I don't know, how does that resonate with you, fellow husbands? Do you make any of those mistakes that I've listed? Are you prone to not repairing? Do you sometimes take the wrong approach and you're too accommodating or too too assertive? Maybe it's the wrong type of conflict. You approach things as factual disputes. So you want them to understand the facts, especially if you're an analytical, sort of detail-oriented person yourself. Or maybe you make the mistake of just bartering, oh fine, I'll just compromise because you're a solution-focused kind of person and you deal with it mainly as interests. Or maybe from your perspective, this is all about a clash of different values, different ideas about how men and women should act, for example, different ideas about expectations of one another in your relationship. I think parenting often is a very unique kind of challenge that people need to navigate, and marriages that were previously incredibly positive and um probably quite fulfilling for both of the people that were involved, all of a sudden can become a lot more challenging. Just before I wrap up though, I just wanted to talk about oh sorry, those other two types of conflict, not staying calm or being a bad listener. So before I finish, I just wanted to say, for me, the way that I think about conflict, and I'm like I'm the worst of the worst. I'm the biggest sinner. I've done all of the worst things that people could possibly do. I justify myself more so probably than most people, but at least as much as most of the people that are listening. So I look back on conflicts when I've done something wrong, or at least done something that I would have done it differently now. And the way that I approach it is that I don't want to get stuck in this self-flagellation of beating myself up about previous mistakes that I've made. It's just not helpful. For me, I look at it as learning opportunities. And it's a little bit because I want to be a good husband, I want to be a good parent. But a lot of it as well is for me. Like I want to support the people around me, I want to not have a lot of tension and stress in our home environment. So if I can learn and do something differently, it's not this purely altruistic kind of thing. I really like that. It's like almost a mindset that you need to adopt, and then you're the one that instills that in the people that are around you. We co-regulate each other's nervous systems. So your idea of them, like, how is that also an idea of you? That's a very common point that I reach after a lot of reflection. How does what you keep thinking of saying to them apply to you? How does the judgment you're making about them also or actually apply to you? Aren't you both trying to control the communication? Aren't you both insisting that you adopt the other person's norms in terms of family dynamics? Aren't you both assuming what the other person thinks in terms of household chores? Don't you both have a level of risk tolerance when it comes to finances? It's just that you've calibrated them slightly differently. Like you they keep doing this, you keep doing this. Whenever we come to conflict in this very adversarial kind of way, we're just going to get back a very adversarial kind of response. So even in the heat of the moment when I mess up or do something wrong, I'm constantly trying to remind myself that this all begins and ends in my head. It's all mental. This idea of relationship or their idea of me isn't my idea of me. So I really do need to cultivate a healthy idea of them. I need to remind myself why I love my wife sometimes when I'm feeling frustrated. Or remind myself of just how much I'm going to be proud of being flexible and supportive later on, even if in the heat of the moment, I'm tired and they need to understand, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. This is all about our broader goal. What are we aiming for here? What are we working towards? What is your actual ideal of a healthy relationship? What is your actual ideal of healthy parenting? Conflict seems to show up and help us to identify problems, help us to identify challenges that we're going through. It helps us to identify issues in our relationship. So, in a sense, then, even the conflict itself isn't necessarily something that we should catastrophize. It's probably normal and to be expected. And so, given the fact that it's happened and it when I'm able to take that more neutral kind of approach, I guess the question then is well, how am I going to choose to understand it? What bits and pieces of my perception am I going to focus on? And where am I still open? Where am I still genuinely curious? Like when do I still really want to understand what's going on from my wife's perspective? It's this almost mindset that we need to develop in terms of the approach. And then whether or not it's me against you or me and you in this together, if we can begin from that mindset of I'm trying to support you as best I can here, I'm going to be calmer and wiser and bigger and more patient than you. I'm going to really do my best to do that because it's important in the way that I want to support you, and because ultimately that's important for me, becoming the kind of person that I want to be as well. I don't know. Obviously, for some people listening, that's probably taking all of this reflection far beyond what is useful. Some people just want the very practical kind of protocol and methods. Some people I know just want the scientific understanding of it, the details around the mechanisms of our behavior and our thought patterns and human perception and all of those elements. For me, though, it is much more about I hopefully showing up as a better person after engaging in this kind of reflection. As I mentioned, though, I'd love to hear from you. If you found this podcast episode helpful, please consider pressing a comment. If you'd like more resources and tools for dealing with conflict, whether it's as usual in the workplace conflict setting or more on the personal side, please consider pressing subscribe. But otherwise, thank you very much for watching. Hopefully see you again or listening. Hopefully see you again, meet you again, connect with you again in a future episode of the Conflict Skills Podcast.