Myth: Mediation won't work if we can't even talk to each other, Fact: When spouses can't talk to each other without their conversation turning ugly, the mediator often serves as the listener for each spouse. In that case, the speaking spouse directs him or herself to the mediator; the other spouse listens. Believe it or not, this role played by the mediator allows each spouse to speak freely, without interruption  and, as important, allows the other spouse to simply listen.

In a recent mediation, neither John nor Sarah could open their mouth without the other jumping in. So I suggested that they not to talk directly to each other, but only to me. I asked if they'd be willing to proceed in that fashion, and they agreed. After one spoke, I asked the other to tell me what the speaker had said. I then asked the speaker to confirm if correct, or clarify if not correct or not complete. That process was unfamiliar to each of them and it took some time before they began to listen for the sake of hearing the other, rather than preparing a response. In fact there were times during the beginning stages of learning this process that the listener would turn to me and say, "I have no idea what she/he just said." Listening to understand the other is hard; it's not our habit.

Instead, it's our habit in our relationships to assume we know what the other is saying  sometimes before the other has even finished speaking. We come by this habit honestly. We have been well-trained in this assumption-based process from the moment we began to speak. But, if you've ever been a parent, think back to the days before your child could speak. Think about how you responded to your child's cry. It was pretty simple: generally your child was either hungry, tired, had a dirty diaper, or needed to be held. If you picked one of those options and the crying continued, you simply tried one of the other options. Most of the time it wouldn't be long before you'd hit on the right one.

But here's what you didn't do: you didn't assume you knew which issue your child faced, then address it (give your child a bottle, for example, assuming he was hungry), and then get upset with your child if he continued to cry. You didn't argue with your child and say that, despite his continued cries, you knew what he needed, you'd taken care of his needs, so be quiet. You didn't tell him how he felt, how he should be dealing with his issues, or what was best for him. No. Instead, you looked to you child for feedback. And your child was always willing to give you feedback  he'd either continue to cry or quiet down. You never wasted your time trying to convince your child that you knew what was best for him, that you knew, for example, that he simply needed to eat even though he pushed away the bottle you offered. You kept focused on your child and tried to understand what he was crying about. And until he told you, by quieting down, that you had understood and addressed his needs, you kept trying to understand.

But as soon as that child started talking, things changed. As speaker, it's our well-trained habit to assume two things: 1. that the listener hears what I am saying; and 2. that the listener understands what I am saying. As listener, it's our well-trained habit to also assume two things: 1. that I hear what the speaker is saying; and 2. that I understand what the speaker is saying. Those assumptions simply get us into trouble in our relationships.

If I act on what I decide you mean when you don't mean it, you will not be satisfied. When I get it wrong, I'll get upset with you because I put time and effort into pleasing you and you aren't pleased. I'll try to convince you that you're wrong, that you should be pleased, that my intentions were good. You will feel like you don't matter much to me. And our relationship will slowly, often without our awareness, be compromised.

We can learn a lot from how parents interact with their infants. We can always choose to listen to each other, to seek to understand each other. We can always choose to look to the other for confirmation of our understanding. Treating each other this way is the most direct and powerful way we can exp

Dear Philip,

For reasons unknown, my wife feels that it's her role in life to tell me what to do.I can't stand it! When I bring it to her attention she denies doing it and defends herself with an excuse like "It was just an idea, do whatever you want" followed by her going off in a huff or acting like a victim (how dare I suggest to her that I am perfectly capable of making my own decisions?). Quick examples: "You should call your mother" (I'll call her if and when I chose.) "You shouldn't eat that; it's not good for you. Remember what the doctor said?" (I'd like to eat what I chose without a running commentary.) "You should spend more time with the kids  they miss you" (I work long days, coach my kids sports teams, and I need to spend more time?)

I feel like I'm under constant evaluation and no matter what I do, it's never enough. Any ideas would be most appreciated.

Sincerely, Tom

Dear Tom,

Thanks for writing in. Whenever I am doing a couples communication workshop or working with couple individually on marital communication, I ask everyone to close their eyes when answering these two questions. 1. "Do you like being told what to do?" If the answer is "yes" raise your hand. As you can guess, I have never seen a hand raised in all my 21 years of working with couples. Then I ask (with eyes still closed) "Have you told your spouse what to do, in any way, shape, or form?" I suggest telling your spouse what to do could, but doesn't always include, the words "Do this...," but it also includes criticism of any kind (criticism is telling someone they should do it differently); it includes "suggestions," "opinions," or what the other should do, think, eat, believe, feel (how many times have you told someone "you shouldn't feel this way?"); and it includes all of the above even if offered with polite niceties  ("please don't do it that way.) By the time I describe all the ways we "tell each other what to do" every spouse has his or her hand raised. Me too  Both Hands.

So here we are, recognizing that we do to each other something that we don't like being done to us. And we do this to each other all the time and we often justify it as "intended with love."

Why don't we like being told what to do? I think its because that regardless of the good intentions, we effectively, even if unintentionally, send the message "You are nto acceptable to me the way you are." And we send that message with every "opinion," "suggestion," "criticism," "you should...," "you shouldn't...." If poisons our relationships. We each want to be loved, unconditionally, by our spouse. Not one husband or wife has ever told me the reason he or she got married was to be "fixed" by the other. Never. It's always with an underlying premise of being accepted as in, unconditionally, forever.

That's the issue. Here's my advice, become aware of how often you tell your wife what to do, you may be surprised, and stop doing it. Tell your wife what you are choosing to do and why. ("I'm going to stop telling you what to do, how to feel, what to think because nobody likes being treated this way")

If she chooses to do the same, great, if not, the next time she tells you what to do, tell her how it makes you feel. < suggestion "When you tell me XXX, it really makes me feel like you don't trust my choices and you don't respect my ability to do XXX" > no longer will you tell her to stop telling you what to do (-that's her choice, and that's you telling her what to do). But you can certainly share with her the impact on you of her telling you what to do.

There is doubt in my mind that you can do this and that the change this will make in your relationship will be powerful, wonderful. I wish you all the best,

Philip

Dear Philip:

I'm a stay-at-home mom, with 3 kids, ages 7, 12 & 14. My husband and I have been married for 16 years. It seems like the last couple of years my husband always has something more important to do than be involved in our marriage. Most nights he comes home from work and checks out on the couch with the paper. Weekends are no better; he always has something on his calendar. I work hard making sure everyone is taken care of - meals, laundry, errands, the demands of the kids' busy schedules - you name it, it all falls on my plate. It's like we're living separate lives. When I try to talk to him about it, he accuses me of nagging and we end up in a fight. I'm fed up and hurt.

Peggy C.

Dear Peggy,

Thank you for writing. What you describe is probably the most common issue I see in my mediation practice. Don't get me wrong, everyone's story is different and unique, as is each individual and couple, but the underlying issue is the same - two good people, trying their best, taking on the "role" each assumes is important to the other and to the marriage. Your role of "making sure everyone is taken care of" and his role of "providing financially for the family" are not uncommon, however, problems often arise when one spouse's behavior doesn't fit the other's picture of what it should be - and both spouses end up angry, unappreciated, misunderstood, and hurt.

So let's take a step back. Remember when you were dating? My guess is you each made the other your primary focus - checking in with each other often, perhaps even several times a day just to hear the other's voice  to feel connected; giving deference to the other's preferences without evaluating or judging the other; willingly adjusting your schedule to fit the other's. Remember those days? You probably also noticed and enjoyed your differences and much as your similarities. So what happened?

Simply put, the mission changed. Prior to your marriage, your mission was him  and his was you. When you married, each of you took on new roles and responsibilities that didn't necessarily best serve your pre-marital mission. Your new roles as spouse, and eventually as parent, were each demanding. The specifics of your new roles were probably not mutually defined by you as a couple, but by each of you independently. You trusted the other to know what to do. You probably didn't talk a whole lot about how you saw your new role with your spouse, or he with you. Neither of you were trying to make the other secondary; you probably assumed the other would simply understand that whatever changes were occurring had to occur for you to accomplish your new role.

Is it possible that for you to feel successful in your new role as wife/mother you "knew" and assumed your husband also "knew" that you needed to be a stay-at-home mom which meant being the housekeeper, meal preparer, laundry cleaner, kids' chauffeur, on call, all the time, 24/7 - meaning less time for him? Is it possible that for your husband to feel successful in his role as husband/father he "knew" and assumed you also "knew" that he needed to be the financial provider which meant long hours at work, maybe a long commute, dealing with pressures from his boss, co-workers, and clients, perhaps traveling away from home at unexpected times, and basically doing whatever it took to keep his job and get the next promotion so he could make ends meet as your family grew from two to five - meaning less time for you?

I'd guess neither of you had much, if any, input in what the other's role would be and how it would play out in your lives together. I'm betting you don't have much say in your husband's daily job decisions. I'm betting he doesn't have much input on how you run the house or parent your children. In fact, if you ever suggested he approach his job differently, he'd likely resent your suggestion and feel you were involving yourself in "his business," just as you might be taken aback if he ever told you how to run the household.

It's easy to take your spouse's efforts for granted while feeling your spouse is taking you for granted, especially when you're giving your heart and soul to accomplish all that you do for your spouse and your family. The feeling of being taken for granted can easily become the feeling that you're not important to the most important person in your world. That's an awful feeling.

So what can you do?

First, know he's doing the best he can to perform his role as he sees it; as I'm sure you're doing the best you can to perform your role as you see it. Next, reevaluate your own role: assess your individual, parental, and marital priorities. It's so easy to get caught up in the demands of our busy lives and lose sight of our priorities. If you were to decide that your spouse and your relationship were going to again be your priority, then career, parenting, and household decisions could be made in the context of what's best for your relationship. It's been my experience that when you put the relationship first, everything else is well-served. If, instead, you make parenting your mission priority, you may be a great parent, but it would be at the expense of your relationship with your husband. If you refocus on him and adjust your role to serve your mission, you can make parenting decisions that will meet the needs of your relationship and serve your children well.

This concept of reestablishing mission priority applies not only to the big decisions in life, but also to the seemingly insignificant ones. For example, recently my wife yelled out for me while I was behind the house trying to fix our riding lawn mower. By the time she was close enough for me to hear her, her tone and volume sounded urgent. When I heard her, I quickly crawled out from underneath the tractor wondering what was wrong. When I discovered she was yelling for me just to let me know she was leaving to run some errands, I got angry  she'd interrupted my "tractor fixing role" for "no good reason." Little did she realize that I was doing something "very important"  that fixing things is one of the critical components of my "husband/father" role. Without even thinking, I instantly evaluated her need for me and judged it unnecessary. I judged the process she used to find me as uncalled for. In my mind, she had acted thoughtlessly. Maybe it was my frustration with the tractor, maybe it was simply another opportunity for me to impress her with how important my role was, but I got angry with her for interrupting me. Sounds like I overreacted a bit, doesn't it? But it seemed she deserved my anger at the time and I felt entitled to give it to her. Of course, she had no idea why I was so angry. She just felt mistreated. Why had I behaved that way? Because I'd made fixing the tractor my priority. I'd made my role as "tractor fixer" more important than my mission. That allowed me to judge my wife's needs and feel entitled to be angry with her for "unnecessarily" interrupting me. In the process I hurt her and did damage to our relationship. That wasn't my goal, it wasn't my intention, but that's what I accomplished.

Even though I want to give priority to my wife and my marriage at all times, it's hard. Work, parenting, and life in general demand so much of us. But if performing my role as husband/father means getting angry with my wife when she interrupts my efforts at fixing the tractor, then my mission, my relationship with my wife, will be compromised. If I want to make my relationship with my wife my #1 priority at all times, then to accomplish that goal, I have to stay on mission. Whenever I put something else first, I will always be putting my wife second and fail in accomplishing my mission.

This doesn't mean I don't fix the tractor. It does mean that when my wife calls, I'll respond with tender words and a gentle tone consistent with my love, honor, and respect for her  even when her tone is unnecessarily urgent. The tractor can wait. It'll still get fixed, but maybe with an unplanned break to simply say, "Love you. See you later."

By the way, this doesn't stop me from letting my wife know that she worried me when she called me the way she did. It also doesn't stop me from sharing with her where I'll be when I go out to fix the tractor so she won't need to search for me.

So, be willing to tell your husband that you want to make him your #1 mission again, that you've lost sight of him in your efforts to parent and run the household, and that you want to make some changes in your life. Share your perspective with him about your role - not about his - and about the impact performing your role is having on you. Believe it or not, you are both most likely motivated, in all that you do, by your love for each other. And remember, there's nothing wrong with anything you're doing, but it's just not serving your relationship the way your relationship needs serving. Express your appreciation for all that your husband does. Refocus on your pre-marital mission  him.

Of course, everything I'm suggesting goes for him, too. If you're not happy in your relationship, then no matter how successful his career, no matter how hard he's working, he's not accomplishing his most important mission - you. Just don't tell each other what to do. Share your respective thoughts and feelings, but let each decide what to do to complete the mission. And then appreciate the other's efforts with the peace of knowing that you each are doing the best you can.

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