Let’s look at the following scenario.
A husband and wife argue about cleaning the kitchen. They have an understanding that when one cooks, the other cleans. Tonight, it was the husband’s job to clean because the wife cooked dinner.
Wife tells husband: You do the bare minimum of just loading 75% of the dishes. I then have to do a whole second job of finishing the dishes, cleaning the table tops and the high chair. Why do I have to supervise you? We agreed, you would clean if I do the cooking.
Husband says: You have a ridiculous standard for cleanliness. And you fail to appreciate that I also have to walk the dog and go back to work in the evening.
Wife: You “work” with the basketball game on in the background. What happens is you’ve come to expect that I’ll pick up the slack when you sit back and relax. You’re being lazy. I don’t get to be lazy.
Husband: I’m lazy?! If it’s so easy to make a living, you go ahead and do it. Last I checked your salary barely pays for the kid’s summer camp. The reality is I could do the kitchen perfectly and you’d still nag! You love to micro-manage me! Nothing is ever good enough for you.
In this vignette, what husband and wife consciously experience is a back and forth of what they believe to be their genuine thoughts and feelings. These attacks escalate, polarizing the couple and moving them further away from understanding and solutions. They each storm off and feel overcome with a piercing disappointment that verges on a sense of betrayal. Each one thinks “You hid your true self from me. You’re not what I believed you to be. You don’t even know me.”
The damage happens fast; the repair will take much longer. They are left wondering “how did this all happen?” The answer lies in a hidden process which occurs below the level of consciousness, based in the brain.
In a regulated state our brains employ perspective taking, long term views, and balanced thinking and reasoning. These are necessary for interpersonal success. When we begin to enter a state of high emotional arousal we lose these faculties which are critical in relationship management.
High emotional arousal is followed directly by biased thinking: our thoughts become overwhelmingly negative and imbalanced.
Next, we produce negative judgements and assumptions about our partner. The negative judgements and assumptions are what lead directly to misunderstanding and high conflict.
This process is automatic. The dangerous thing is not that this happens; there are many strategies for self-regulation which aim to bring our reasoning faculties back online. The dangerous thing is that we are mostly unaware when we are under the influence of biased thinking. We tend to think we are governed by reason when reason has long left the building. And the deeper (higher emotional arousal) a couple gets into the fight, the more indignantly each believes that their judgements and assumptions about each other are objective, verifiable fact. One partner’s brain supplies the missing parts (assumption) to the other person’s story and then the brain reacts to that story (judgement).
In the example above, we see it happen right away. Both make assumptions about the other: she assumes he’s only pretending to work. He assumes she doesn’t appreciate all he does for the family and that she has it easy. Both make judgements: she calls him lazy and he calls her critical. The frustration she felt over the incomplete kitchen put her in a state of high emotional arousal and from there they were both off to the races in creating narrow and inaccurate narratives.
Developed chiefly by Marsha Linehan in the field of Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, an antidote to this automatic process is to employ a deliberate method of thinking we can call “Notice and Describe.” You might like to think of it as relationship mindfulness.
In this mode a person notices and describes what is going on around them, much like a sports event announcer does on the radio. This means sticking purely to what is noticeable in the environment, noticeable about our partner, and noticeable inside our body. We pay attention. We notice. We describe. We do not engage in making any interpretations in this mode. This helps keep arousal at a manageable level and keeps us from straying into judgements and assumptions.
In the book “The High Conflict Couple” Alan Fruzzetti writes: “When you assume what his feelings are, interpret or evaluate her response, question his motivation, or focus on how illogical she is being, you have stopped paying attention to your partner, lack awareness, and are not being mindful of him or her. Mindfulness of your partner is the gateway to listening and understanding, and eventually to collaboration, support, conflict resolution, and closeness.” (p. 26).
The notice and describe mode leads us to curiosity and wanting to understand more. It highlights the parts of the context that we are missing and invites the other person’s experience to fill those blanks. It creates open thinking instead of closed thinking.
So what does it look like in practice? Let’s revisit the couple from above.
The wife says to herself: “I notice the dishes haven’t been completely finished. I notice he put all the food away. I notice he changed the lightbulb that I asked him to change. I notice myself feeling upset that he hasn’t wiped down the high-chair or the counters. I notice he looks tired. I notice he hasn’t changed out of his work clothes. I notice my own fatigue too. I notice how the fatigue feels in my body next to the frustration.”
This is an example of more balanced thinking. The wife can then share with her husband what she’s noticing without attacking.
Wife: “You look tired. Did you have a long day at work?”
Husband: “I did. The performance evaluations are really stressful this year. I have 3 more to write tonight.”
Wife: “I’m sorry. I know this has been a big project.”
Husband: “How was your day?”
Wife: “All good, I’m just really overtired. Baby has been waking really early. And I know when I get overtired it can lead to me being impatient with everyone. We are both working really hard for the family right now.”
Husband: “I know. Everyday is a marathon.”
Wife: “You had a long day and I don’t want to pile on but I have a quick request. When you clean the kitchen would you mind doing one final sweep to pick up any dishes you may have missed? And can you wipe down the high chair. I clean it using the Mrs. Meyers spray that’s under the sink.”
Husband: “Did I miss some dishes?”
Wife: “Yes.”
Husband: “Ok. Sure. I think I don’t even realize because I’m still thinking about work.”
Wife: “I get that.”
Husband: “Yeah I have to be honest, I don’t think to clean the high-chair because you always feed the baby. Like, I don’t even look at it. Generally, I do the kitchen kind of rushed because I still have to get the dog out and, on a night like tonight, there’s more evaluations I have to get done tonight.”
Wife: “That makes sense. I will leave the high-chair next to the sink so it’s right in your sight line. Also, on the nights when you’re doing the kitchen, I’m happy to take the dog out. I can’t believe I haven’t thought of this before. I would actually love some fresh air. For me, on the nights where I’ve cooked and done the kids dinner, the thing I just can’t stand is spending more time in the kitchen. If I take the dog could you do all the clean-up and close up the kitchen.”
Husband: “Definitely.”
In this version of their interaction, we learn about his context, her context, and each one’s needs and worries. They have come to a solution that works by redistributing tasks and making expectations explicit. They have communicated successfully by keeping emotional arousal low through the notice and describe approach. Neither asserts themselves to be an expert on the other person’s experience (as they did in the high arousal version). They do not load meaning into each other’s actions. They seek to understand what meaning, if any, should be made.
In this version, they walk away feeling a boost in relational competence. They worked together in solving a problem, and in doing so came to understand each other’s inner worlds more intimately.
References: Fruzzetti, A. (2006). The High-Conflict Couple. New Harbinger, CA.
