​I hear stories about verbal abuse and the person who is being abused does not realize it is abuse. They think the person is doing it by accident. No. There is a different fix when they do it on purpose, when they do it to control. There is a difference when the language is violent, belligerent, hostile, aggressive, damaging, destructive and then they insinuate or explicitly say that you are being too sensitive. The opposite of sensitive is insensitive.
We are describing emotional abuse. That takes years of work to heal and may take as long to stop the behavior. Know what you are dealing with.
 
Want to attempt to work through it? Please get professional help because it is insidious.
Look at the Four horsemen (Gottman’s work) and see if the behavior stops when asked. If not, ask yourself why it is not stopping.
 
Gottman also talks about Softened startup as a way to address difficult language during an argument.
 
“Needs language” is another way to see if you can bypass the difficulty.
 
Gottman writes about Compromise and what area you will not compromise. Do not compromise with abuse. “You may not talk to me like that consequence free. I cannot control the word that come out of your mouth, I can control what I do when those words come, though.”
 
If you think it is not abuse but a misunderstanding of good parameters or boundaries of communication, you can negotiate for shared rules of engagement- what can and can’t be said and why.
 
Negotiation, using Bayes Rule and Nash Equilibrium could help, if they are able to negotiate in good faith.
 
Can you get both partners to express themselves with “Need vs complaint”? Instead of complaining, tell the person what you need. This communication is significantly more respectful.
 
Read Marshall Rosenberg’s Non violent communication book- you will have a bunch more tools and insight.
Read Sue Johnson’s book, “ Hold me tight.”
 
There is another book about discernment, “Too good to leave too bad to stay” which will help you make the decision about the relationship.
 
Now, let’s cut to the chase:
We dishonor ourselves when we argue like that, when we are abusive.
 
Regain your honor and both follow through with healthy, successful behavior. There is never ever justification for behaving like that. Not acceptable, no excuses and it can’t happen ever again.
 
Similar to justifying breaking her arm because he was mad at something she did. You can tell me why, you can never justify the behavior.
 
With proper communication, you can get your point across without destroying or harming someone or the relationship. You can say things that might sting as a side effect. If your goal is to hurt them, hold your tongue.
 
If your goal is to give them a message, be clear and direct, without vitriol, without extra, and check your motivation.
 
Does what you have to say need to be said that way?
 
Are you trying to get information across or are you trying to hurt them?
 
When you find that your motivation is to hurt someone, hold your tongue.
 
If you are unskilled with communication and you don’t know how to get your point across without hurting them or harming them or destroying some thing, work on your communication.
 
Don’t get your point across until you can do it with honor.
 
Think about your motivation for saying it the way that you did. I guarantee there’s a better way for you to have said that. Take the time to say it the better way.
 
In the military they talk about “death before dishonor.”
 
 Imagine if we instituted that in this relationship.
 
You would have to change the way that you are speaking. If you feel you have to bludgeon your partner in order to force them to do what you want them to do, perhaps there are other conversations that need to be had first.
 
For example, you could say to them, “I don’t feel like you understand the gravity of the situation or how desperate I feel. I’m getting incredibly discouraged with this and I’m telling myself that I would be better off not in this relationship. I need you to do certain things. You say you will do these things and then you don’t follow through. I’m growing exasperated with this. My patience has run out. I need you to either do it or not do it and accept the consequences.”
 
Notice how you got your point across without being abusive.
 
When you get that same point across with abusive language, you become the target of the intervention.
 
The harm that you did with your communication now outweighs any harm that you are complaining about.
 
You have made the situation about you and your poor behavior instead of focusing on what you wanted to focus on. That’s a failure of communication. We can do better.
 
There is simply never a reason to be abusive. You’re trying to get information across.
 
I can request that you speak to me differently and better, and with more skill. I can tell you what my preferences are for our communication.
 
At the end of the day, I have no power over the words that come out of your mouth. The only control that I have in that situation is what I do when the words come out in a certain way.
 
If you persist in talking to me in an abusive manner, I have choices and there are consequences.
 
That is what we call boundaries.
 
I can’t control what you do, I can control my response to what you do. Just like building a fence. I can build the fence, but I can’t stop you from climbing it. What I do after you climb the fence and then are in my backyard is what is in my control.
 
If someone is not doing what you would like them to do, what are your options?
 
Can you force them to obey your will?
 
Can you ask them to do it? Can you have them agree to do it through negotiation? Now once you have buy in and agreement, you have to monitor to see if the behavior is happening, if there is follow through.
 
If there is not follow-through, what is the agreement for consequences?
Just like in a legal agreement you do not have to follow the contract, you do accept consequences when you don’t follow what you agreed to do.
 
Have the consequences upfront and negotiate effectively.
 
Beating someone into submission verbally is never the correct strategy.
 
It is likely that you have heard the joke, “the beatings will continue until morale improves.”
That is something that people talk about in the workplace. What they are demonstrating is that the manager does not know how to motivate or to get the desired behavior.
 
Instead of taking responsibility for lack of motivation, and lack of ability to get things done, the manager projects his inadequacy onto the worker, and blames them for his own inadequacy.
 
What would be more effective is saying to the manager “own what is yours. If you don’t know how to motivate, you can learn. If they are not motivated, figure out, what would get there buying or change what needs to happen.”
 
We can apply that same principle to a relationship.

​When someone says that they hurt, you can focus on how you feel or how they feel. That choice determines the trajectory of the conversation and possibly the entire relationship. Imagine this is the first argument you have in your relationship. You don't have a store of good will yet. You don't trust them yet because you don't have enough history to trust them, maybe.
 
Were you listening to understand them or to respond? Hey, we are all selfish at times. Just own it and accept responsibility and correct it. Sometimes the emotions take charge and you need a quick break.
 
Was your first instinct to reach out with empathy to someone in pain and do compassionate action? “I am sorry you are hurting.” In the next blog, we might consider an array of responses that would have conveyed this. You do not have to be perfect with your wording, but you also cannot be harmful with your wording and expect it to go well.
 
Was your instinct to talk them out of their feelings?

Personally, I do not like when someone is mad at me and my reflex is to talk them out of being mad at me. I know I do that and I want to stop and I have been in counseling to stop that and yet, I find myself still slipping back into that habit at times.
 
Was your first move to justify yourself, rationalize, excuse or defend yourself? Notice how easy it is to make it about you instead of the person talking.
 
Did you struggle with your own feelings when you realized they were in pain?
 
Did you mock, belittle, berate or call names? They were telling you that they are in pain, and your response was to hurt them. Maybe the intention was not there, but that is how it landed.

Think that through, all the way through. Please work on that pattern and change it. To be perfectly honest, this pattern is concerning and more common than you would imagine.

You are not a bad person because you do this, it does destroy/harm the relationship to the core, though.
 
Did you interrupt or tell them their motives or define their reality? Did you make it about you?
 
Whose needs did you put first in your relationship, when they said they were in pain? Notice how that lands for the person telling you something vulnerable and painful. When I tell you about me, can I rely on you to listen and allow it to be about me? Do I need to take care of your feelings when my feelings are already hurt?
 
Remember that the talker and listener take turns, in successful relationships.

If you both felt pain, you can default to the talker having the first turn.

Or you can ask to have the first turn. Denying a turn at all is not fair.

Take turns being talker and listener. If you talk and the person does not clarify or validate, then tells their perspective- that becomes Talker-Talker instead of talker-listener and that creates arguments.
 
Please consider how this choice impacts the relationship.

If you consistently find yourself going first or making it about you, next time, choose differently.

​

​When someone is saying that they’re hurting, you have a few options.

You can make it about you by not listening. You can say, “I’m saying that they’re hurting.” That way your needs are primary and you feel heard, maybe.

 Or you can allow it to be about them for their turn (implying that you hear them out, you clarify and validate) and then you can have a turn after their turn.

​You don’t have to agree with them. You don’t have to see it the same way, but if you immediately talk, rather than listen or invalidate them and make it about you, that is a disruption or a rupture. It was an unnecessary complication because you chose to not listen to understand, you listened to reply/respond.

That is not always a bad thing, but the most successful couples rarely do it that way.

Imagine she doesn’t respond in a timely fashion. You are upset, frustrated, irritated, annoyed, feeling rejected a little bit…

What do you do next? You have not met in person, yet and have been trying to meet for a couple weeks, to not avail.
First, I would have you define “timely fashion.” Do you know what she is going through today? Do you know her well enough to ask her what is happening in her life or well enough to judge her?

Should you chastise her or punish her in some way for what she is doing, hoping that will help your potential relationship?

What do you owe her and why?

What does she owe you and why?

Is this something better left unsaid?

Online dating helps you get to these frustrating situations much faster and allows you to see what is not good and then make a decision with this information.

​You could clarify and talk about how it felt, that would be the healthiest option and I don’t see that being chosen as often as I would have guessed.

​Imagine the barista calls my name for the order and I go and get it and let her remain seated.

Some women would interpret that as a kind gesture.

Depending on their baggage, context or culture, that might be a bad thing.

“The man is not supposed to serve the woman,” was a new one for me. The rest of the date went poorly as she looked at me differently. I had defied an unwritten rule from her culture and could not be forgiven.

There is no way to know all the rules someone else has, unless they tell you.

Yes, behavior is primary in relationships and yet, without good communication, behavior does not have context and making repairs after such a rupture is not likely.

​Please talk about what you expect and why.

Self-Awareness

​What is your conflict style?

What is your attachment style?

How do you feel about feelings?

If those three do not line up with your date, your potential partner, I sure hope your negotiation skills are top notch!!
You will definitely need them.

​One of the reasons I have so much about conflict on my website is that if you can’t handle the conflict basics, your relationship will suffer.

Because we can predict that you’ll experience conflict, we can prepare ourselves.

Can you imagine yourself feeling confident that no matter what comes up, you have the emotional wherewithal to handle it?
​That you have mastered the necessary skillset?

Have you ever been chatting with someone and they put words in your mouth? Maybe it was not intentional, but you would never say what they just said you said. Worse yet if they don't have good conflict skills and/or they are verbally aggressive. I hear that in my office more than you might realize.

Now imagine that you are a subject matter expert and they didn’t hear you clearly and thought you said something way off. Or what about when someone is telling you something about your field and you realize that they are taking a position that they know more about your field than you know about your field. Not just an opinion or perspective, but the novice knows more than the expert.

Those types of interactions don’t go well. They don’t land well. "Check out your assumptions," I say almost daily in my office.

Let’s face it, communication is a bear. Sometimes we don’t hear the actual words or sometimes we hear the words but through a filter that is skewed. Sometimes the words trigger past emotions that do not belong in the current conversation, but here we are.

You might have the skills. It is not about intelligence, it is about the emotions hijacking your brain. Your neocortex shuts down and you need time to process what happened. You quite literally are not able to think straight.

Process your own emotions, communicate with this person what is going on and figure out what you need right now.

Oh, and in the context of online dating you are  trying to determine if the relationship might work beyond simple attraction.

"Rocket science might be easier at that point," he says with hyperbole.

What would you think about receiving a text like this?

Been mulling this over-Which awkwardness do you prefer? Asking tough questions and having deep conversations early on (feels like an interview sometimes) or finding out later that you don’t really know the person you are with (if I don’t ask and they don’t offer it up- I might have spent more time than necessary to determine a good fit)?
 
Seems appropriate for online dating, a little risky and it eliminates guesswork or at least reduces it.