Couples Conflict Transformation Work
Love More… Hurt Less..
Couples Conflict Transformation
Transforming conflicts between couples involves 7 key elements - Inner Work, Open Communication & Quality Listening, Different Machinery, Radical Forgiveness, Resolving Unexpressed Anger and Hurts, Playing on the Same Team, and last but not least - Fun and Enjoyment. Conflict Transformation Couples Work (CTCW) will take partners through experiential exercises, practical skill development and effective processing in each category to assist you in Returning to Love.
The 7 Keys to a Couples Conflict
KEY 1)
Inner Work
The first and most important step for successfully transforming couples’ conflicts involves both partners participating in their own Internal Conflict Transformation Work. Often, at the root of couples’ conflict are unresolved internal issues that are acted out unconsciously by both partners. Even a couple’s style of working with conflict is often a result of past conditioning. Examining this conditioning and both individual’s “expectations” and “shoulds” is crucial to resolving them. Improving skills and getting better at working effectively with conflicts can also make a huge shift in the frequency and intensity of couples’ disagreements.
If you haven't already please read the Internal Conflict page first
KEY 2)
Open Communication & Quality Listening
For many reasons, couples can stop talking to each other. They may share their daily “to do" list but they stop sharing from the heart. Keeping vulnerable and honest communication open is critical for a successful relationship. Having regular opportunities to sit down and talk is important in keeping the connection in a relationship alive. Both parties need the opportunity to express what is on their mind and to feel like it has been really understood by their partner.
Conflict Transformation for Couples Work will create a safe space for both people to speak and be heard. Oftentimes, this involves further developing skills that enable both parties to share honestly as well as to listen to their partner with their full attention. Sharing honestly takes courage, skill, and practice. CTCW will help couples become more aware when they are speaking from a pre-set agenda or judgements. It will assist couples in cutting through unhelpful beliefs and instead finding their coherent felt truth that wants to be shared.
Learning to share honestly is only half of the recipe to successful couple’s communication. Learning to become a good listener is equally as important and a lifelong practice and discipline. While we often assume we are listening when our partner is talking, much of the time we are thinking, evaluating, judging, associating, or crafting our response to their words. This takes us away from truly being present. CTCW will help you learn how to give your full attention to your partner and listen to them with your entire being rather than being partially pre–occupied with your own thought processes.
KEY 3)
Different Machinery
Every human being has their own type of “inner machinery.” Many times in relationships and life we make the mistake of relating and reacting to our partner as well as other human beings as though their machinery was exactly the same as ours. Although we all share vast similarities, we also have different inner workings and nuances. Many times what seems obvious to us is completely invisible to our partner. Through CTCW we will take the time to get to better know both partners’ “machinery.” We will learn that it is okay and even helpful that couples don’t always see things the same way. CTCW will help us clear up and learn how to work through situations when conflicts are simply misunderstandings and misinterpretations around what was said and meant.
KEY 4)
Radical Forgiveness
We are all flawed beings that make mistakes. Many people haven’t been taught how to work through hurt feelings and anger productively. Years of being together can create greater and greater distance. It is essential for any healthy relationship to clear hurt and anger in order to get back to love. Radical Forgiveness begins with Radical Acceptance. CTCW will help couples come to grips with the current situation despite all its imperfections. Rather than being miserable, stuck, and “right,” couples will learn to embrace the starting point of their journey knowing there are no “take backs” or “do-overs” even when truly desired. From this place of acceptance, both partners can start the process of clearing the deck by beginning the hard work of releasing past anger and hurt feelings in the relationship.
KEY 5)
Unexpressed Anger,
Hurt Feelings
Over time, withheld anger and hurt feelings can cover up the ability to feel
love for one’s partner. Part of being honest is expressing to our
partner what we are mad or hurt about without being mean, blaming, punishing, or abusive. Conversely, being willing to allow our partner to share their feelings of anger
and hurt is necessary for maintaining a connected and loving relationship. While this can be challenging at times, CTCW will assist couples with their ability to express and listen to hurt feelings and anger and get over them.
Expressing anger and hurt feelings can sometimes be taboo in our culture but people can get over being hurt or mad. Even though it sometimes feels like it, it’s far from the end of the world. CTCW will enable couples to experience staying with another human being while they are hurt or mad and eventually getting to the other side. CTCW will help couples discover the gift to a relationship that is often hiding inside of their conflict. Couples are likely to experience a new level of intimacy and love in their relationship after working through their conflict and pent up feelings.
Ground Hog Day
(Repeat Fights)
Unresolved conflicts tend to repeat themselves. Many times couples have been having the same fight for over 20 years and don’t even realize it because the content is slightly different. But at its root, the problem is coming from the same place. CTCW will help you identify these patterns of arguments and interrupt the dynamic by finding a fresh approach to working through the couple’s underlying issues.
KEY 6)
Playing on the Same Team
Do you play on the same team as your partner? If you see your partner as being on the same team, when you have a conflict, it becomes a challenge for you to work together to resolve, because the conflict is outside of the relationship. However, if you see your partner as your opponent, then the conflict has moved inside the relationship and the problem becomes one of you against your partner. At this point, the conflict often becomes a battle about winning rather than about resolution. CTCW will help couples identify when they are battling each other and help them to refocus their efforts on cooperative strategies for resolving problems. It is reminiscent of the difference between playing a competitive versus a cooperative game.
CTCW will also assist couples in creating a relationship where each partner is engaged in team play that contributes to the other. Choosing to play consciously together as a team shifts the focus from individual needs to the larger needs of the relationship as a whole. When this happens, there is an increase in the intimacy, openness, and love available. On the individual level, when you are working with your partner as opposed to working against your partner, you may discover that many other aspects of your life will also be elevated.
Giving Up Blame
The closest of teams will lose unity under the destructive force of blaming. If a couple is experiencing problems, it is both people’s fault. Many times, one or both partners blame the other person for all the difficulties in their relationship. This destroys the couple’s unity, making them opponents rather than teammates. CTCW will help you realize that your life is 100% your responsibility. If it’s not working out the way you think it should, it’s not your partner’s fault. CTCW helps couples realize that blame is a waste of time game that alienates and distracts from improving conditions. Blame becomes the action. CTCW will give couples the opportunity to improve their relationship by working together to find real solutions to their conflicts rather than taking a ride on the blame train.
7)
Love and Fun!
When you are having fun, love has a chance to spontaneously move through your relationship! When you stop having fun together in your relationship, it will often go stale or feel flat. So how do you experience more love and fun together? What are ways to create more opportunities as a couple for fun and love to flourish? Believe it or not, this is a skill that can be developed. CTCW will help couples learn to create more positive shared experiences that can add significantly to the quality of their relationship. Creating these fun experiences will also make it easier to work through challenging issues because when you are having fun together, it is easier to let go of the small irritations and annoyances. Playing and having fun together will help deepen a couples bond.
Best Friends
It takes time, work, and trust, to build a best friends relationship with your partner where you can fully drop your mask and armor with each other. In a best friends relationship, you can simply be yourselves with one another, and that is a special and rare place in this world. The work that CTCW asks you to do in steps 1-7 will put you in a position to have this type of “best friends” relationship with your partner. If you have truly worked on yourself, learned how to honestly share and listen, learned each other’s machinery, learned how to accept and forgive, learned how to play on the same team, and learned to have fun together, this is the likely gift of all your hard work!