Are you and your partner fighting over the same silly things over and over? What can you do?
With Reid Mihalko from ReidAboutSex.com and Cathy Vartuli from TheIntimacyDojo.com.
Reid: It’s Reid Mihalko from ReidAboutSex.com.
Cathy: And Cathy Vartuli from TheIntimacyDojo.com.
Reid: OK, so Cathy are you going to try to put the camera over here and try to film us both at the same time.
Cathy: I will do my best.
Reid: Good luck. Now what are we talking about?
Cathy: We had someone write in and say “We always fight about the same silly things. What can we do?”
Reid: Kind of like us.
Cathy: We fight over the same silly things.
Reid: Yeah. We’re screwed. We have no advice for you. Thanks for watching.
Cathy: But what do we do when we fight over the same silly things all the time?
Reid: I don’t know.
Cathy: Usually we talk about what’s behind them. They’re usually a symptom of a problem that we’re having deeper that we haven’t been talking about, we might not have been aware of, and once we can identify what the problem is, the deeper problem, then we can often solve and find an agreement that will fix that.
Reid: What you’ll also find out is that sometimes conflicts are coming from unmet needs and that you really shouldn’t be trying to get your needs met solely from each other, so if you can outsource what the needs are, you can identify what the needs are, communicate that “This is the need I have” and then support each other and the person who has the upset getting those needs met, then that can often dissolve the conflicts because the conflicts coming from the unconscious “Need not getting met” and that person’s feeling powerless.
Cathy: It can also sometimes be where one person thinks they’re doing something really nice for the other but the other person’s misunderstanding where the intention is, so one scrabble that Reid and I have is he’ll sometimes want to be efficient about our time so I’ll be finishing up dinner or whatever and he’ll say I’ll run upstairs and get something done. Whereas I love to eat together so that doesn’t feel good to me. Once we identified what we both intended, what the goal was behind what we were doing, I didn’t feel as rejected or not wanted and he didn’t feel as frustrated about me not wanting to do something that was efficient.
Reid: Cool. Thanks for the comments. What do you think about that? What kind of needs are you trying to get met that are actually doing the conflict dance?
Cathy: Yes and if you like these videos subscribe to the channel. We’d love to let you know when new things come out.
Reid: Bye!
Cathy: No music this time.
Reid: Damn.