The following excerpt is taken from the new book The Relationship Problem Solver: For Love, Marrieage, and Dating by Kelly E. Johnson M.D. It is published by Hay House, Inc., and will be available June 2003 at all bookstores, by phone
800-654-5126, or via the Internet at: www.hayhouse.com

THE NATURE OF RELATIONSHIP CONFLICT

Why do you fight with the person you love?

I never used to understand how two people could fall madly in love, pledge their lives to each other, and then spend the rest of their time tearing the relationship apart. One day I was talking separately to a couple of friends when the truth finally hit me. You see, their relationship was on the rocks, and both of them had recruited me to save the day, albeit on the sly. I spent several hours talking to the wife and became convinced that her husband was the problem; then I spent some time with the husband and was sure that she was in the wrong. As a psychiatrist, I pride myself on objectivity and the ability to see all sides of a given situation, but I was really confused here.

Then I figured it out: I was trying to identify the "bad guy." Each person in this couple saw the other as the villain, but the truth was that they were both individually very bright, wonderful people. They both had great careers, lots of friends, and supportive families. Their wedding was beautiful, and it seemed that the sky was the limit. They’d purchased a beautiful home, and on the surface, seemed to settle comfortably into their new life together. There really was no bad guy, yet the relationship crashed and burned. The problem was that this couple just couldn’t overcome their personal differences.

The moral of this story is a powerful lesson in relationship dynamics. This is something that you should remember throughout the rest of the book as we look at specific relationship problems that can get in your way.

I’ve noticed three particular things as I’ve counseled couples, and they’re what I call "Conflict Points." Here’s Conflict Point Number One:

An intimate relationship is an extremely stressful experience
that can bring out the worst traits in two otherwise reasonable people.

Most people who end up in failed relationships are, for the most part, decent and kind—but you wouldn’t be able to tell it by the crazy and off-the-wall behavior both sides exhibit when the relationship hits the skids. I’ve had couples in my office screaming so loudly at each other that everyone down the hall could hear their entire exchange. A guy who had the office next to mine would occasionally pop his head in and ask, "You okay?" before realizing it was just another couples-therapy session.

After many years of seeing relationships with fantastic potential come to an end, I finally put it all together: Great people can have horrible relationships because they can’t handle their differences of opinion and conflicting needs. And remember this other little caveat of human behavior—success at work or with friends has virtually nothing to do with success in an intimate, loving, monogamous relationship. The reason is simple, as stated in Conflict Point Number Two:

All of our unresolved issues from childhood and other difficult
relationships will be magnified tenfold in the context of intimacy.

It’s relatively easy to keep things nice and light in the boundaries of work and friendly acquaintances, but it’s nearly impossible to do this within the confines of love and commitment because the stakes are much higher. Deep emotional feelings can lead to a lifetime of happiness, but they can also breed insecurity, fear, and resentment over time. Visually, think of it this way: You unpack your emotional baggage, your partner unpacks their emotional baggage, you mix it all up…and that’s a lot of bags to sort though and carry around.

Realize that your partner is going to push your buttons sometimes. What this means in practical terms is that it really doesn’t matter how nice you both are individually—what counts is whether you can sort out problems and still be nice to each other. This leads us to Conflict Point Number Three:

Like it or not, you and your partner will have different views and opinions on
important relationship topics. If you can’t tolerate and embrace these
differences, then you should have stayed by yourself. Negotiating around
these differences is the real challenge of the relationship.

A System to Finally Stop the Fighting

I’ve been asked just about every permutation of relationship question over the course of my career, but the one I’m asked most frequently is the following: "How do we stop fighting?" You name the type of disagreement, and I’m sure I’ve heard about it over the years. That’s why I’ve devoted entire chapters of this book to the main topics that people fight about.

However, if you think about it in a general sense, there are only a few basic different reasons why we don’t always get along (outlined in the next chapter). This is extremely important, because if you and your partner are able to understand the basic root cause of any particular conflict, then you’ll have completed the first step in solving the problem. So let’s look at a general system to deal with relationship conflict.

Step one: Make an ironclad agreement with your partner to stop yelling at and berating each other; instead, agree to use a basic system to solve your differences every single time. You can stop the fighting if you make a pact to talk in calm, restrained voices. Don’t tell me that this is impossible, because anyone has the capability to hold their temper if they put their mind to it. The next time voices get raised, just think, We’re getting nowhere fast. This won’t solve our differences; it will only make things worse. I can assure you that repeated episodes of verbal abuse and arguments with no end in sight will destroy your relationship, or at a minimum, make each of you incredibly unhappy. If you both aren’t willing to do this basic step right at the beginning, then the rest of the steps are really meaningless. You may as well put this book down right now.

If you’d like to continue, then in the next day—that’s right, within 24 hours—I want you to meet with your partner and agree that all yelling and screaming will stop, if for no other reason than it’s the respectful thing to do. Sit right across from each other and say these words: "I will try at all times to be nice to you and do whatever I can to avoid an angry outburst." If you say it out loud, it will have more power as a promise to be upheld! I know of many couples who always talk things out in a reasonable manner—you can adopt this way of interacting, too.

Step one is the foundation on which everything else is built. Step two (identifying reasons), step three (negotiating) and step four (resolution) will be described in detail in Chapters 2, 3, and 4, respectively. The issue you disagree upon simply doesn’t matter—it could be something as small as who washes the dishes after dinner or as big as a decision where you’ll live or how many children you’ll have. The process should always be the same:

Step one: Agree not to get angry and not to yell at each other (Chapter 1).
Step two: Identify the real reason why you or your partner is angry (Chapter 2).
Step three: Negotiate and compromise in a cooperative spirit (Chapter 3).
Step four: End the disagreement and resolve the issue (Chapter 4).

Before you read any further, take a second and memorize these steps. Now let’s go on to the second step and identify the four main underlying reasons why you and your partner have conflicts that could threaten the very fabric of your loving relationship. Keep them in mind as you read the rest of the book.