Work The Problem, Not Each Other*

 
When faced with difference or conflict, it’s very easy to get tunnel vision about our individual agenda. If we’ve never had the experience of negotiating through a difficult decision with another person, we tend to assume that the only way not to lose is to win. The power over rather than power with paradigm infuses most modern cultures—from families to organizations.
 
Remembering and repeating to yourself inwardly “work on the problem not on each other” can return you to a collaborative mindset that allows for more complexity so that two (or more) different experiences can be included in a decision making process without anyone feeling burned, abandoned, or overpowered.
 
A “problem” here is any topic or situation that asks you to arrive at some kind of shared understanding, decision, or plan.
 
You have to decide where to send your kid to school, but you don’t agree; one person wants more sex, the other isn’t as into it—how will you work with this together?; you have different hopes about the holidays and have to make your thanksgiving plans—where will you go, and how will you get through the meal so you end up feeling good together?
 
Working the problem means you position yourselves together on the same team with the shared goal of coming to an outcome that works well enough for both of you.
 
Even though you have different perspectives, feelings, or hopes relative to the issue, you keep your eye on the fact that you want to find somewhere to land that works for both of you, and doesn’t compromise feeling fundamentally caring and connected.
 
Working the problem rather than each other means the process feels fair and just to both of you. Both people respect and try to understand and care about the feelings, perceptions, desires of the other, even if they don’t like them or agree. The outcome might not be ideal (rarely is it). It might be closer to one person’s preferences than the others and involve more disappointment for the other. But both people give and take along the way. And you land together in a place where no one’s feeling dropped, excluded, missed, or holding resentments that will fester.
 
When we work a problem rather than each other no one feels more or less important than the other. There’s a back-and-forth negotiation where nobody collapses into agreement too quickly, or gets stuck in a rigid, unmoving position. Even though things might feel tense, or intense, there is an underlying atmosphere of mutuality, respect, and cooperating to work towards a solution rather than making each other enemies.
 
When you veer off track and start working on the other person you forget you’re on the same team with a shared goal, which is coming to an agreement, a decision, a path forward that works for both for you. You argue for your goal at the expense remembering and expressing your care for your person and the relationship. You start to make your partner wrong or bad for their experience. You make each other into adversaries and you’re both left feeling frustrated, disconnected or disillusioned. The original problem remains no closer to being solved, and now you have the additional problem of feeling alienated from each other.
 
When we start to feel tugged into the habit of trying to control or change the other person in an aggressive way, we have to remember that our larger priority is to emerge from the conversation connected.  Remembering is a practice. We have to do it over and over again. There’s another saying that can be a reminder of this priority which is “act with the results in mind” (I heard this from couples therapist Jeff Pincus). Again, the practice is to notice when we’re slipping towards forgetting our deeper intention in relationship, and return our attention on the ultimate effect we want our actions to have.
 
To act with the results in mind, we have to stay in touch with the bigger picture—our larger goals for the relationship. In the immediate moment, we’re often pulled towards doing or saying something that feels easier in the short term (for example, saying something snarky or unskillful, remaining frozen or withdrawn while our partner’s dysregulation spikes). Making a different choice that acts with the results in mind will feel like letting go, which usually feels pretty uncomfortable right in the moment.
But beyond that feeling of doing something hard there’s the bigger win of feeling connected and synchronized with your most important person—of the flow of love between you not getting unnecessarily gunked up.
 
Letting go, which involves releasing our grip on something precious (being right, getting our way at the expense of the other, being understood first) is supported by breathing, especially by allowing longer, slower exhales. It’s harder to get stuck in rigid patterns if our breathing is flowing. Breathiing out intentionally helps remind our tense muscles and thoughts that it’s possible to soften, to keep moving, to stay “light on our feet” as we work the problem rather than each other.