helpful tips for difficult conversations with your partner

{4 minutes to read} Going through hard times in your relationship with your partner? Incidents keep coming up, end up in fights, and never get resolved? Time and time again, your attempts to resolve issues turn sour, and resentments build up as the list of grievances grows? How does one take a step back, address issues, and work through them without attacks (which lead nowhere)?

Last year, I published an article based on a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) piece on this topic. Here are 10 additional tips which you might find helpful when facing a difficult conversation:

1. Tell your partner that you would like to set aside some quiet time for the two of you to have a conversation. Pick a time and space where you will have privacy and will not be interrupted.

2. Prepare a list of the different topics that you would like to address and ask your partner to do the same.

3. At the time of the meeting, exchange your lists. You will both have to accept that all will not be resolved during that first meeting. As if you were given a menu, each of you should pick one topic to address from the other person’s list. Take turns, each picking one topic from the other person’s menu.

4. Start the conversation positively: appreciate your partner’s willingness to discuss this issue with you; emphasize the fact that it always feels better when you can think things through and find solutions together.

5. Do not make accusations and please give up the need to be right. This is not about winning or losing but about finding a way to improve things as a team.

6. Stay focused on the one issue that was selected. At the end of that time, you must refrain from bringing up all the other grievances you have against your partner.

7. When it is your partner’s time to talk, do not interrupt. Reflect on what you hear. Reflecting does not mean that you agree, but it lets your partner know that you have “heard” him or her.

8. Tell your partner that you want to find a way to work things out. One or both of you may have to make a compromise. One person wants option A and one option B. You might have to find an AB option that blends some of what each of you wants. If an AB option is not viable, then the person who is giving up on what they want could have the first choice on another issue that comes up.

9. Take a time out if things get too strained. Hopefully, you can resolve one issue on that day but if not, agree to schedule another time soon thereafter to wrap it up.

10. Don’t forget to thank your partner for cooperating.

In some instances, these conversations are not possible or you may be concerned about having them on your own. Feel free to reach out to me. As your mediator, I can facilitate the dialogue between the two of you to help you find solutions.

If you would like to read my previous article about facing difficult conversations, click here.

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Jennifer Safian

jennifer safian. divorce and family mediator
divorce and family mediation
upper east side of manhattan (nyc)
new york, ny
(917) 881 5206
jpsafian@gmail.com