"You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometimes you find
You get what you need."
~ You Can't Always Get What You Want, Rolling Stones

In a previous blog post titled What Do You Need?, I outlined three steps to follow in order to improve communication with your partner.

In this post, I will delve into Step 3: Talk to Him and explore how Nonviolent Communication can help us ensure we get what we need out of our partner, our relationship, and just life as a whole.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Non Violent Communication, it is a system introduced by Dr. Marshall Rosenberg in the early 1960's. Non Violent Communication, or NVC for short, centers on determining one's needs and then making specific requests to get those needs met. In NVC it is your responsibility to determine what your needs are and then communicate those needs in a clear and precise way, usually in the form of a request. Not easy!

The reason NVC is so challenging to implement, according to Rosenberg, is because we as a society have been trained to judge and evaluate everything around us and then act on these judgments. For a more detailed meditation on the impact of this non-stop judgment, please read my post Reserving Judgment I posted two weeks ago.

So you've read What Do You Need? and are sitting together on the couch. You have something you want to talk to him about, but you are worried he might take it the wrong way and get defensive. You are seriously considering forgetting the whole thing and just dealing with the issue on your own, but this doesn't seem like a great idea.

So you take a deep breath, gaze deeply into his eyes, and say, "You are a shitty husband, Barry. I feel like you don't love me anymore!"

Can you imagine what happens next? Barry probably replied with, "What are you talking about, I do love you! What's wrong with you? Why would you say that?"

And now we have a fight on our hands.

Now let's take a look at how this can be approached NVC style.

The first step in practising Nonviolent Communication is to separate observation from evaluation. Observe what is happening in this situation. What is she doing or saying that is enriching or not enriching her life? Being able to observe without adding judgments or evaluations keeps the behaviour free from our feelings about the behaviour. When we add in an evaluation of that behaviour it increases the chances of the other person hearing criticism which can invoke the fight or flight response.

We are seldom at our best when we feel ourselves to be attacked or judged, yet that is often what efforts to communicate become unless we strive to do it differently. It is not that we are bad people, it is just that is how our society has functioned over the centuries. The English language itself is also partially to blame, as it is easier to communicate in a judgmental way because of the structure of the language itself, but this is for another blog post.

"I can handle your telling me
What I did or didn’t do.
And I can handle your interpretations,
But please don’t mix the two."
~ Dr. Marshall Rosenberg

So, going back to you and Barry sitting on the living room couch. You clearly have something important to communicate, and kudos to you for taking the steps to initiate this conversation. However, let's see how that first statement could have been said differently. First, the words "You are a shitty husband" are pure judgement, what Rosenberg would describe as "jackal speak". It is aggressive, and declares that your partner is a poor husband in all ways and at all times. It is an absolute declaration of his incompetence as a romantic partner, and does not offer any room for change. It is the way it is.

Could you blame him for getting upset?

But what lies behind those words? The first step in Nonviolent Communication is to observe without evaluation. In the above example, this could be the fact that your partner has been spending less quality time with you. When you first moved in together you used to sit together and have coffee in bed Saturday mornings, but for the past several months he has been getting up early and leaving you alone with your coffee. You sit there, hearing the keystrokes from the home office or hearing him on the phone, and wishing you were spending time together like you used to. You feel alone and rejected.

You considered asking him to come back to bed and sit with you, but you don't want to interrupt his work. Besides, the last thing you want is to appear needy.

But when he forgot your anniversary, that was it. You felt unloved and neglected, and decided you had to take action. How else could you have framed it, though?

How about this.

"Barry, for the last 6 Saturdays you stopped spending time with me over coffee and instead went straight to work. Also, last week you forgot our anniversary."

See the difference? Instead of coming at him with a judgement, you have instead given him an observation of fact. It is harder to feel defensive or attacked when offered a fact, because facts carry much less emotional weight than judgments. Barry may try to explain or justify his behaviour (ie. "I have crazy deadlines" ), however things are much likely to erupt into a fight.

Once an observation is made, you can then follow up with how the event made you feel. For example, you might say,

"When you stopped our 'coffee time' and then forgot our anniversary, I felt neglected and un-loved".

As you see from this example, you are stating how you felt in response to his actions. It is very important to note here, however, that you are not blaming him for how he made you feel. In NVC we take complete responsibility for our emotional reaction to events around us. No one can make us feel anything - we are in full control of our emotions and how we choose to react to those emotions. Outside events may be a catalyst to an emotional reaction, much like a spark can set off a stick of dynamite. But how big the stick is, or even the presence of the dynamite at all, is up to us.

In other words, what others say or do may be the stimulus of our feelings but not the cause. Our feelings are what we choose to receive from what others say and do and our particular needs and expectations at that moment.

When we hear something and it causes a response in ourselves, we are most likely to assign blame either to ourselves or the other person. Another, perhaps more positive option would be to sense our own feelings and needs that have arisen.

"Don't think, feel! It is like a finger pointing a way to the moon. Don’t concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory!"
~ Bruce Lee

In the above quote, taken from the film Enter the Dragon, Master Lee is teaching a student how to properly use his emotions in Kung Fu. Interestingly enough, King Fu and NVC have a lot in common. From an NVC perspective, the finger is the emotion and the moon is the need. To focus exclusively on the finger is to miss the moon's heavenly glory, which is the point of it all.

Here are some examples of how emotions can lead us to need. Do these make sense to you?

Non-NVC -> NVC
She made me mad -> I chose to be mad by that
You disappointed me by not coming over last night -> I was disappointed when you didn’t come over, because I wanted to talk over some things that were bothering me.
Him cancelling the contract really bothered me. -> When they cancelled the contract I was disappointed because I wanted to re-hire the employees that we laid off last year.

See how it works? The structure of an request in this context could then be,

I feel _____ because I need ______.

Observing an event, followed up by how you felt as a result of the event, is a great start but it is not enough. The purpose of NVC is for you to get what you need, and if you were to stop here you are placing the burden on Barry to figure out how to make you feel better. Now he may guess right or he might not, but wouldn't it be better if you suggested to him exactly what he could do to help meet your need for love and communication?

What would that look like? How about,

"So, would you agree to spend 30 minutes drinking coffee in bed with me on Saturday mornings before starting work?"

Barry now has very clear instructions as to how to meet your needs. Of course this is a request, not an order. Orders, or commands, have only two possible outcomes: submission or rebellion. For most of us, submitting to an order leaves us feeling resentful, a feeling that can grow fetid over time and eventually cause us to explode. Rebellion, on the other hand, will probably lead to a fight which brings us back to the beginning of this post.

A request, however, has no such expectations. The recipient is free to either agree or disagree of his own free will, which preserves his independence and his dignity. Should he choose not to fulfill the request, the discussion can then shift to what needs are preventing him from agreeing to the request. Maybe he has clients overseas who can only speak to him early Saturday morning. In that case, a counter-request can be made where he can come back to you and share a coffee after his morning phone calls so he can be fully relaxed and present.

If you are communicating and want to know further why someone cannot fulfill your request, you can inquire as to which of their feelings and needs may be preventing them from saying yes. Most of us want to say yes and to have fulfilling relationships. As in Barry's case, it could be a scheduling issue that can be adjusted so both your needs are being met.

When we make a request that is clear, positive and has concrete action the listener is more able to understand what we are asking them to do. A request is not a demand, you may not get the answer you were hoping for. If this happens you can explore as to why they cannot fulfill your request, but at the end of the day their answer is one you accept.

The core belief of NVC is that there should never be any compromise. Everyone should get what they need.

So, to recap the NVC path to getting what you want is,

Observations: Barry, for the last 6 Saturdays you stopped spending time with me over coffee and instead went straight to work.
Feelings: When you stopped our 'coffee time' and then forgot our anniversary, I felt neglected and un-loved.
Needs: I need to feel an emotional connection with you and spending quality time with you gives me this.
Requests: So, would you agree to spend 30 minutes drinking coffee in bed with me on Saturday mornings before starting work?

This not an easy path to follow - if it was we would all be doing it! It is, however, worth the effort and can lead to a much higher quality of life for both yourself and your partner. Pick up a copy of Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life by Dr. Marshall Rosenberg and practice, practice, practice. It will be fun, and you will be much happier for it!

Love & Light