How to keep your man. How do you have those tough relationship conversations?
Today, I want to show you an essential relationship communication skill to keep your relationship
amazing. Don't forget to download the first chapter of my book from the link in the description,
and I'll see you on the other side of this.
[Music]
Jermia: Okay. I absolutely have nothing to wear tomorrow night. I'm just going to go
to the shops.
Mark: Babe, we don't want to be spending money on clothes. Let's find you something in the wardrobe.
Jermia: No, I've looked through literally everything. I have nothing. I'm just going
to go to the shops.
Mark: What are you talking about? You went clothes shopping last week. You have so many clothes.
Jermia: I bought a pair of shoes. It's been like over a month since I bought a new dress.
I'm allowed to spend money on things that make me feel good.
Mark: This is so stupid. We don't have money for this.
Jermia: Oh, so it's stupid for me to want to feel good and look nice. Seem to recall
that you had money to spend on video games, which you care about more than me apparently.
Mark: Sorry for wanting to relax once in a while.
Jermia: Sorry for wanting to f*cking feel good!
Mark: Don't be a b*tch.
Jermia: Don't be a d*ck.
Okay, so the conversation you've just witnessed is a cliche example of how
downhill some relationship discussions can go. So what I want to do in today's video
is dissect a little bit what happened here, and how you can prevent conversations like
this eroding your relationship. Now, I want to talk about a critical concept when you're
having these tricky discussions with your partner, it's called a goal shift point. When
you enter a conversation with your partner, you each have some sort of goal that you want
from it. In this conversation, Jermia's goal was to look good for her partner on a Saturday
night, to look good for herself on a Saturday night. Mark's goal in the conversation was
to save money. At least that's how it started. And then something interesting happened that
neither person was aware of as it went on - their goals changed.
A goal shift point occurred quite a few times. We know this because if you look
at the statements that were made in isolation, they don't make sense relative to the original
goal. Remember Jermia's goal when she started the conversation was to look good on Saturday
night and yet by the end of the conversation she was making statements like, well, sorry
for wanting to feel good and what are you thinking buying that stupid video game. Neither
of these statements lead her to feeling good on Saturday night. The same was true for Mark.
Remember, Mark started the conversation with the goal of saving money and yet he found
himself making statements like, wow, sorry for wanting to relax and what are you talking
about? Neither of those statements helped him save money. In fact, that dare I say pissing
off his partner is probably going to cost him money in the long term. So what happened?
What I'm going to do now is replay the conversation and I'm going to highlight the goals as they
shift and you're going to see exactly when each partner's goal shifts in the conversation.
Jermia: Okay, I have absolutely nothing to wear tomorrow night. I'm just going to go to the shops.
Mark: Babe, we don't want to be spending money on clothes. Let's find you something from the wardrobe.
Jermia: No, I've looked through literally everything. I have nothing. I'm just going
to go to shops.
Mark: What are you talking about? You went clothes shopping last week. You have so many
clothes.
Jermia: I bought a pair of shoes. It's been like over a month since I bought a new dress.
I'm allowed to spend money on things that make me feel good, Mark.
Mark: This is so stupid. We don't have money for this.
Jermia: Ah so it's stupid for me to want to feel good and look nice. Seem to recall that
you have money to spend on video games, which you care about more than me apparently.
Mark: Well, sorry for wanting to relax once in a while.
Jermia: Well, sorry for wanting to f*cking feel good.
Mark: Don't be a b*tch.
Jermia: Don't be a d*ck.
Hopefully you can now see how their goals shifted throughout the conversation.
They started out with one target in mind and ended up pushing each other on two completely
different tracks and making statements that were not relevant at all to their original
goals. So how do you fix it? Well, it's simple. It's not easy, but it is simple. You just
have to ask yourself, does the statement I'm about to make still put me on track to my
original goal? If it doesn't, then you've got to put your ego aside and say, well, what
do I need to say now that gets me and this conversation back on track to the original
goal and the things that we wanted. I'm going to replay this conversation twice now and
I'm going to give you an example from both sides where one partner tries to drag the
conversation away and talk about different goals and the other partner is just rock solid
and keep bringing the conversation back to the original goals.
Jermia: Okay, I have absolutely nothing to wear tomorrow. I'm going to go to the shops.
Mark: Babe, we don't want to be spending more money on clothes. Go to your wardrobe. You'll find
something there.
Jermia: No, I've looked through literally everything. I have nothing to wear. I'm just
going to go to the shops.
Mark: What are you telling me about? You went clothes shopping last week. You have so many
clothes.
Jermia: Yeah, I bought a pair of shoes, but I don't have anything that goes with them.
Mark: This is so stupid. You have so many clothes. We don't have money to be spending
on clothes.
Jermia: Look, I understand that you're concerned about money and I respect that and I appreciate
the fact that you're bringing up because you only want what's best for us, but can you
also appreciate the fact that if I don't feel good in what I'm wearing then I am not going
to have a good time, and let's face it, and neither are you.
Mark: Yeah.
Jermia: Okay. Well, we can work out it like a budget or a plan or something, so that way,
I can feel good but you don't feel like we're burning money either. So come to my wardrobe
and I'll show you what the problem is and then we'll sit down and sort it out after that.
Mark: Okay. Come on.
Jermia: Okay. I have absolutely nothing to wear tomorrow, I'm going to go to the shops.
Mark: Babe, we don't really want to be spending more money on clothes. Let's go to your wardrobe
and see what's there.
Jermia: No, I've looked through everything. I have like absolutely nothing to wear. I'm
just going to go to the shops.
Mark: What are you talking about? You went clothes shopping last week. You have so many
clothes.
Jermia: I bought a pair of shoes, but I haven't bought a new dress in like over a month. I'm
allowed to spend money on things that make me feel good, Mark.
Mark: Okay. I guess that's true. Yes you are. I guess like you know me, I just, I stress
over money. I get worried. I just want us to have that deposit together so we can start
our lives and I just get concerned that these random expenses that we're having are going
to stop us doing that.
Jermia: Yeah. Well maybe if you weren't such a stinge we would probably take more risks
with money and then have more.
Mark: Okay. My goal here is not to fight with you. That's not going to help us. So why don't
we go and have a look at your closet. We'll see what's going on. Like I can help you throw
out stuff that you don't want to use anymore. And then maybe if we like set aside some money
each month, like a closed account or something, we can sit down and do that. And then like
we can have new clothes and stuff and you can feel good, but it won't be these random
unpredictable expenses like it has been cause it just stresses me out this way. Could we
do that?
Jermia: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. No, that sounds fair.
Mark: Okay, let's go have a look.
Well, hopefully now you've seen some good examples of how that works and how
you can help bring conversations back to the original goal. Show this video to your partner,
discuss it with your partner. Always go, is this statement still working towards the goals
that I, and he came to the conversation with?
Well, that's the video. Thank you for watching. Let me know your thoughts,
comments, questions, et cetera. I'd love to hear them put them in the space below. You
know what to do. Give the video a thumbs up, hit that subscribe button and the little bell,
so you get the notifications and I'll see you in the next video very soon.
[Music]