How NOT to Spend Quality Time Together!

It was a beautiful, crisp fall day. Suzanne and I had enjoyed a walk down the woodsy trail to Denny Park on Lake Washington, our Australian sheep dog trotting along beside us. The Park was beautiful, the lake serene, and we had it all to ourselves. How did we spend our time there and on the picturesque walk back? Arguing!

What subject could be important enough for us to waste all that ambiance by passionately disagreeing? We were arguing over the right way to tell the dog to fetch a ball! Our dog would drop the ball about five feet away, jump up and down and bark incessantly. (This dog has enough energy to power a small city if we could figure out how to harness it.) Suzanne suggested I gesture toward the ground in front of me to get him to bring it all the way. So I patted the side of my leg, to which he barked and jumped, dropped it six inches closer, jumped and barked, another six inches, more barking and jumping. This dog was getting on my nerves big time. Then Suzanne said, “Do you understand what I meant when I told you to point at the ground?”

This was the final straw. My dog was scolding me, my wife was telling me I was doing it WRONG. I pushed the ball dramatically toward her and said, “Here—you do it!,” thereby fueling an “energetic conversation” for the next 20 minutes or so. Then Suzanne finally got through to me that she had been training the dog, unbeknownst to me, to sit quietly and put the ball at our feet. The signal was to point at the ground. She knew I liked to throw the ball for the dog and had thought of it as a surprise gift to me.

Suddenly, everything changed. Where a moment ago I had seen Suzanne as an adversary who was trying to prove I was wrong, she was now an ally who was trying to do something special for me. The unsettling thing is, this transformation had nothing to do with Suzanne’s behavior, but simply how I interpreted it. The next thought that came to me: why couldn’t I give her the benefit of the doubt more often and choose to see her as an ally rather than an adversary? What a concept!

Stressful periods can magnify our emotional inconsistencies. During holiday times, for example, we are reminded more of the importance of friends and loved ones, but the stress of the season can make it easier to alienate those very people. If I have any credibility left after my dog story, let me offer the following suggestions for maintaining healthy communication, even in stressful times. Then the next time you go for some "quality time" with someone special, perhaps you can handle it better than I did!

For good communication in stressful times:

1. Remind yourself to see the other person as an ally, not an adversary. Whether you feel like it at the moment or not, choose to see the both of you as being on the same team. If one of you wins, you both win. If one of you loses…you guessed it.

2. Don’t assume too quickly you know what the other person is trying to say. When life is busier, we tend to give less time to listening. It is a false economy. That is when we need to listen more.

3. Before investing time and energy in a disagreement, ask yourself, as with any investment, if it is worth the potential return and the risk. (Arguing about ball fetching is probably not.)

4. If more than one interpretation is possible (and it usually is), assume that the other’s comments are not meant to be negative toward you personally—if the other person truly wants to insult you, make him or her work harder at it!

5. Remember that what the two of you express to each other is probably the smallest part of the communication; what you each say to yourselves (sometimes called “self-talk”) during and after the encounter will have the most impact. This greatly influences what you each will remember and how you will remember it. Try to guide your own self-talk in a healthy direction.