In The Possibility Podcast with Mel Schwartz episode number 124, I take a look at why arguments trap us in the need to be right, how that drive to be right hamstrings communication and intimacy, and most importantly, how to move past the argument and re-establish truly empathic communication in the relationships you care about.
Listen to learn about…
- The five percent rule
- Shared inquiry
- Coherent communication
- How to mitigate anger
In the episode, I provide a few examples from my therapy practice, and have a brief interview with my guest, Claire, who brings her own struggles with conflict to the table.
Be sure to leave a comment with your own thoughts and questions!
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Transcript of The Possibility Podcast with Mel Schwartz #124
MEL: Hello everybody and welcome to
The Possibility Podcast. I’m your host Mel Schwartz. I practice psychotherapy,
marriage counseling, and I am the author of the book
The Possibility Principle, the companion to this podcast. I hope to be your thought provocateur and I’ll be introducing you to new ways of thinking and a new game plan for life.
MEL: Today we’re going to look at why we’re so driven to be right, what inclines us toward arguments in our relationship, and how that leads to the death knell of vitality of relating. We’re also going to look at a couple of techniques that I’ve developed, which I’ll be sharing with you as to how we can break through that impasse.
MEL: In
marital counseling or couples counseling, when I see couples engaged in argument, I sometimes find myself stopping and asking them, would you rather be happy or would you rather be right? Although everyone says I’d rather be happy, not a moment passes until we default into the right versus wrong battle.
MEL: We’re kind of hardwired in a way, although I hate that expression wired because we are not machinery, but our nature, our acculturation is to try to win. After all, if I’m right, that means you have to be wrong. How do you think that’s going to work out in a relationship? It’s an insane way of operating.
MEL: This need to be right is rooted in either or thinking. The need to win an argument assures that no one’s actively listening. We’re not learning anything. We’re not validating, having compassion or empathy, and it’s destructive, of course, to romantic relationships. This compulsion to be right sidetracks our lives and then impedes our happiness. The need to be right is antithetical to enjoying empathic and compassionate relationship.
MEL: I’m going to share a number of stories with you in my work as a therapist. Long time ago, when I first began practicing, I was working with an older couple and every session would kind of look the same. She would come in and start to complain about her husband, indicting him and throwing the book at him about everything. I would intervene and say, listen, I’m not the judge and this is not about right or wrong. We need to turn towards your perceptions and feelings. And no sooner did I intervene, she would go right back into her assault.
MEL: I think it was about the third session that we had when I realized I needed to do something different. I was not all that experienced yet in this practice of therapy. So I paused and I said to her, Emily, you’re a hundred percent correct. I agree with you completely. You win. John, you’re absolutely wrong. Emily is right. You wanted me to render a verdict. There you have it.
MEL: She paused. He looked unfounded. A moment or two went by and she started to go right back into the assault. I stopped. I put my hand up gently and said, you won. The debate is over. Now what are we going to do?
MEL: I’m not proposing that we made great progress then, but it was a detour from the right versus wrong battle. As I began to notice my frustration in my attempts to assist couples with whom I was working, I needed to develop a new approach. I was watching as couples were tirelessly mired in their argument and listening to them was like watching a ping pong ball being knocked back and forth. Only nobody was scoring any points because no one was listening. I was searching for a way to help people slow down and listen to each other and to get past their gridlock.
MEL: Some years later, after that first anecdote that I shared with you, I was in the middle of a session reflecting again on how I could help people approach this impasse differently. I began by asking the husband, let’s call him Joseph, Joe, can you try to find a just a small percentage of what Helena is saying to you that you might agree with? Let’s just look for arguably 5% that you can acknowledge and try to temporarily suspend the 95% that you’re sure she’s wrong about. I was asking Joe to act counterintuitively by neither defending himself nor trying to score a point. I explained to him that he wasn’t pleading guilty or surrendering his point. The goal was to simply establish a rapport so that they can begin to truly hear each other.
MEL: Their energy started to coalesce as they moved away from the competition of being right into a collaborative effort to empathize and connect. It began to shift back toward connection moving away from the separation that was driving the argument. I found that I had started a new technique for me. I now call that technique the 5% rule.
MEL: If you can affirm that there’s 5% and of course I’m just making up the number five, but if you can find some small part of the other person’s argument that you can agree with, in no way have you abandoned your position regarding the 95% you disagree with. You’ve simply laid the groundwork for them to take in what you have to say. You’ve disengaged from trying to win an argument and the energy can shift. The 5% rule permits us to halt our addiction to being reactive, which we’ll be talking about in just a bit. And it moves us toward being responsive, present, listening. The next time you’re engaged in a disagreement or a confrontation, challenge yourself to resist the argument and search for a small piece of what the other person’s saying that you can affirm. Once the other person feels heard and validated, he or she will be in a better position to take in what you have to say.
MEL: Timing is essential here. If you rush to reframe or assert your position, then your affirmation will appear disingenuous. You can’t just say, yes, but, going right back into the argument. That is actually the process of invalidating. Be cautious about yes, but. Instead, validate something, pause, and let the conciliatory spirit fill the space that would have otherwise been occupied by this noisy, mindless back and forth argument. That shift of energy now becomes fertile ground for a meaningful transition and a constructive exchange.
MEL: Remember, even if you disagree with the vast majority of what you’re hearing, you can usually find some small content to acknowledge. Ordinarily, we marginalize or ignore the small part because our default position is grounded in winning the argument. We have a cultural mandate to be right, regrettably, and so our thoughts automatically seek to refute the other rather than confirm. Even though we say we care about each other, we don’t act careingly. If you need to win, the other person has to lose. How does that work out?
MEL: You know, we m
United States
