The Art of Conversation - Catherine Blyth [70]
These approaches work because resolution is not essential for conflict to be good, since airing problems releases tension. But two poison heart and health: carping, the steady drip-drip of contempt; or ignoring, denying a partner’s point of view by withdrawal into silence. Although superficially different, both attitudes deny intimacy by attacking the central idea of a relationship: the shared bond. And by extension, immune systems, according to Gottman, with the attrition of stress leaving the henpecked and the cold-shouldered more vulnerable to disease.
Watch your argument tactics. There are six:
Pass: the complained-at ignores the complaint
Refocus: the complainer or complained-at shifts the subject of complaint
Mitigate: the complainer downgrades the complaint
Respond: the complained-at acknowledges the complaint’s merit
Not respond: the complained-at denies the complaint’s merit
Escalate: the topic of complaint expands, hostility rises
Hell-bent on breakup? Adopt either of the last two.
Otherwise, dilute gripes with positives—ideally, reckoned Gottman, a cocktail of five nice comments per negative. To me, this sounds as random as governmental exhortations to eat five fruit and veg a day, but can’t be any more harmful. And stand back and pick a technique for difficult conversation (see Chapter 13).
➺ Rule ten: Know when not to speak
Happy couples may duet, like Simon Cowell’s mum and dad, from dawn to dead of night, but the least happy I know also keep babbling, like two-headed monsters; deaf, dumb, sadly not mute.
The difference is in imaginative sympathy, as defined by counseling service Relate: “Good communication, empathy, caring and emotional intelligence.”
Which is why the faith that fostered a million therapy sessions—that if we have a problem, we must discuss it—should, in my opinion, come with a health warning.
Take the biggest interactive challenge a couple can face: when two become three. A study found that new parents routinely kept quiet on issues causing them grief, discussing only those on which they agreed. Initially researchers were shocked, but why deplete yourself quarreling over minutiae when huge change is already upon you? Partnership is a three-legged race that should make clearing obstacles easier—but will not if you keep stopping to debate whose leg goes where and why.
Relationships stumble if we forget that how we relate, converse, keep in touch, are their very substance. If there’s a secret, it’s the same as for any conversation: You get what you give. Negative, positive, at least 50 percent is up to you.
Spies set honey traps because love loosens lips. So relax, and if your pillow talk keeps you awake, I hope it’s for reasons other than nightmares.
TYPOLOGY OF BORES, CHORES, AND OTHER CONVERSATIONAL BEASTS
BITCH Canicula
Bitch is a spin doctor by another name. Her smiles are sabers, her words knives, and her sallies detonate, like good jokes, moments after delivery.
Consider this, from hardy music perennial Keisha Buchanan of Sugarbabes, a charm fiesta in person, but who has the publicity savvy to rib her popstrel rivals in print:
Being famous, there’s pressure to stay thin, but thankfully I’m in a group where we sell records based on our music, not what we look like. It’s much harder for Girls Aloud.
How brilliant to suggest their asset, pulchitrude, is mere camouflage for other failings.
Bitching isn’t exclusively female. Rap music proves men love doing it, if only beefin bout their bitches, and entrepreneurs and Ozzie cricketers excel. These gabsmiths prove the panoply of skills bitchcraft involves.
There are two branches: direct (vituperation, laceration) and indirect (rearview stilettos). The latter is great for bonding, bringing us together by focusing on a usually