Communication 101: Miniskirts, Truth, and The Right Way

Communication 101: Miniskirts, Truth, and The Right Way — thinking you are right gets you precious little. Learning to look for what works — as opposed to what’s right — is a winning strategy.

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A major issue, both in relating and with life in general, is the expectation that there is a “right” way of doing things.

Even more remarkable is the thought that “my way” is always and ever the “right way,” and that my partner needs to get on board.

If they don’t or won’t, it’s because they are stu­pid, or pur­pose­ful­ly thwart­ing us.

As opposed to, “There is no “right way.” There’s just “what works, this time.”

I think it’s a gen­er­al rule that, when 2 (or more) peo­ple are fight­ing, the bat­tle is over who is right. A dis­cus­sion, on the oth­er hand, presents the two view­points as view­points only.

When our egos are not invest­ed in being right, it is easy to step away from the diver­gent view­points, eval­u­ate them clean­ly, and even gen­er­ate new, untried options.

From this per­spec­tive, the prob­lem with “right way” think­ing seems obvi­ous. If you argue for right­ness, as opposed to exper­i­ment­ing with options that might work, you’re stuck.

Huge blow-ups always fea­ture two peo­ple locked in a “right­ness” bat­tle that can have no winner.

The issue, if we dig a bit, is nev­er “right­ness.” The bat­tle is a strug­gle for pow­er: the real game is, “If you love me you’ll as I say.”

The fight is a battle between two Egos.

Your Ego has invest­ed a lot in “win­ning,” and also has a bad habit of per­son­al­iz­ing “stuff.” By this, I mean that the thing being argued over stands in for the per­son. This is the basis behind fights over “inci­den­tals” — cof­fee cups left unwashed are no longer dirty cups. They are “You, dis­re­spect­ing me.”

Pret­ty ani­mat­ed for a cof­fee cup, eh?

Per­son­al­iz­ing the imper­son­al is quite com­mon. A pop­u­lar one: choos­ing to have a bad day because your favourite team lost a game. Sad face, end­less dis­cus­sion of plays, and, always, “We lost!!!” Well no, “we” did­n’t lose, unless per­haps you are a play­er on the team.

The people who lost are the players who played the game. People who get this say, “They lost!!!” 

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Here’s my favourite therapy tale about the “right way.”

I was just into my first pri­vate prac­tice office, in 1982. This guy was my client. He was in his late 30s, and worked at a local record store (remem­ber them???) He had an issue or two at work and didn’t feel “like a grown-up.”

He also said that he was dat­ing a “hot girl in her ear­ly 20’s.” That they had an excit­ing time—concerts, danc­ing, and lots of sex.

After some months, they moved in together.

He was almost imme­di­ate­ly mis­er­able. “Her dress­es are too short. Guys look at her. She always wants to go out. She always wants sex.”

Short ver­sion, when she moved in, he decid­ed she should now set­tle down, and, like his moth­er did, look after him. Act matron­ly. Dress “prop­er­ly.”

When she did­n’t, he went from try­ing to per­suade her to demand­ing that she change. His tone shift­ed from “nice guy” to angry father.

After a week or so of lis­ten­ing to him gripe, I sug­gest­ed that he invite her to some sessions.

She showed up, and no ques­tion, she was gor­geous: long blonde hair, and incred­i­bly short skirts. It was a bit dis­tract­ing, but that’s who she was.

He’d sigh and say, “See. Look how she dress­es. Every guy in Kitch­en­er is after her.” He’d try to get me on his side, and I’d say, “She is an adult and adults pick their own clothes, and pick are how they are.”

He’d then turn on her, and switch to “angry dad­dy” voice, demand­ing she behave and, (believe it or not!) be in by cur­few. (She’d tak­en to going out alone when he refused to go with her.)

Trig­ger­ing her­self upon hear­ing by “dad­dy voice,” she’d imme­di­ate­ly shift to petu­lant teen. “That’s not fair! You can’t tell me what to do! I got in on time; you’re just try­ing to pun­ish me! If you don’t stop, I’m going out every night!”

And from there, in their roles (Egoic states) they’d stake their ground and demand the other change.

This was­n’t the whole story. 

• I found that the guy absolute­ly refused, in all areas of his life, to let go of his upbring­ing. He’d had a demure, stay-at-home mom, who had looked after, and pam­pered him. He expect­ed the same form “his woman.”
• The wom­an’s dad had been demand­ing and intol­er­ant, so when he used “dad­dy voice” she short-cir­cuit­ed and revert­ed to 16.
  She’d been on her own since she was 16, and liked hav­ing fun, she loved short skirts, and she hat­ed “staid” sex. She could­n’t com­pre­hend the change in her partner.

Both wanted me to declare the winner.

Nope.

I simply went to, “There are better options than fighting”, AKA Communication 101

• They could go their sep­a­rate ways and find a part­ner more to their lik­ing. Or,
• They could drop the sto­ries, and work with the per­son they are with.

Because she wasn’t suddenly a staid housewife, and he wasn’t her dad.

Those roles were the issue.

Inter­est­ing­ly, most of the dra­ma was on his side. From what I could tell, she was act­ing exact­ly as she had before she moved in. She got into trou­ble when she revert­ed to 16.

I worked with him on let­ting go of his staid house­wife fan­tasies so that he could go back to hang­ing out with the woman who, pri­or to mov­ing in with him, was his best friend.

Not easy, as the guy saw “broken girlfriend” every time he looked at her.

He was total­ly bogged down with “edu­cat­ing, demand­ing, and res­cu­ing.” If only his poor, piti­ful, inde­ci­sive and now ungrate­ful and angry girl­friend could see that he was doing this for her own good.

She had dared to grow up, expect to be treat­ed as an adult, and began act­ing out in ways he did­n’t approve of! Espe­cial­ly those short skirts!

I spent a lot of time encour­ag­ing her to stop revert­ing to her teen years, and to state, “I’m glad for your opin­ion, but I’m an adult, and I get to choose for me.”

Now, it may sound like I’m “blam­ing” him for the prob­lem, and in a sense I am. I’m not blam­ing him per­son­al­ly, though.I’m blam­ing his approach. The woman was pret­ty flex­i­ble (she had to be, just to sit in one of those skirts. 😉 )

She tried different approaches. She reasoned. She made requests for change. She got good at the Communication Model.

I urged him to grow up and leave his child­ish vision of adult­hood behind. He was adamant and entrenched. This was how “all” men were, this was how men “deserved” to be treat­ed. To him, her skirts were dis­re­spect­ful of him.

They were nev­er sim­ply short skirts.

They end­ed ther­a­py, and a few months lat­er she came back in for some fol­low-up ses­sions. They’d split up, and she want­ed to learn to fig­ure out how to get what she want­ed in her next relationship.

As a general rule, right / wrong discussions are irresolvable.

As soon as either party thinks that there is only one way of seeing or doing things, dialog and creativity are over.

And yet, it is human nature to both nor­mal­ize our think­ing and uni­ver­sal­ize it into “truth.”

So, in a sense, in order to move beyond think­ing there is only one “right way,” (and isn’t it fun­ny that the “right way” is nev­er the “oth­er per­son­’s way” — how “inter­est­ing!”) we have to be will­ing to let go of our inter­nal frame­work and let go of certainty.

That’s scary. The stuff we believe in most firmly is “old, old” stuff.

As soon as we mut­ter or shout, “That’s just the way it is,” we know we are stuck in the mouldy past, reliv­ing and re-stat­ing what we were taught as a child.

I know that, when I am over­tired, I revert to a whiny 6‑year-old, who sim­ply wants mom­my to show up and make it all bet­ter. I think I also expect that the “make it bet­ter” part is either: a hug, a cook­ie or a present (because that’s what mom­my did.)

So, you might look at what I just wrote and won­der what’s “wrong” with my expectation.

Well, what’s wrong with it is several-fold.

1. First, I’m expect­ing some­one else to race in and res­cue me. Thus, I’m let­ting myself off the hook for resolv­ing my own issues.
2. Sec­ond, I expect who­ev­er res­cues me to act like my moth­er did.
3. Third, I’m look­ing for a bribe, not a res­o­lu­tion of the issue at hand. “Cook­ies” don’t resolve — they distract.

If I think that what my internal 6‑year-old wants is “the right way,” I am doomed.

If I see this reac­tion as old behav­iour, and there­fore one pos­si­bil­i­ty among many, then I allow myself choice.

And notice: I’m not judg­ing the 6‑year-old in me to be bad or wrong. I am judg­ing that act­ing like a 6‑year-old is “dumb and imma­ture,” in that it does­n’t get me what I real­ly want.

I can’t tell you how many people I know who are smart enough to understand this principle yet refuse to change a behaviour that doesn’t work.

The thing to remem­ber is that there real­ly is no “right way.” There is just what works, this time. There is no “one, true thing.”

Truth is rel­a­tive, expand­ing and chang­ing, all the time. Truth is “this way, today.” Truth is, “Let’s try this a dif­fer­ent way and see what hap­pens.” Truth is, “I don’t have a clue. Let’s look for anoth­er way.”

This week, look at the sto­ries you tell your­self about your “truths.” About how the world “should” be. About how oth­ers “ought to be” act­ing or treat­ing you. Then, have a breath, give your­self a shake and do what you can.

Let go of your rules and look instead for anoth­er way.

“This way, right now.”

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