“You could just ask me to be better about closing the cabinets, you know,” he calmly retorts.

He’s right. I could. But my go-to crap-tastic relationship behavior is Criticism, one of Dr. John Gottman’s Four Horsemen. That’s my family’s native tongue, and I’ve learned to speak it at a very young age.

Complaints Vs Criticism

What Mark points out to me here – without even knowing how proud Dr. Gottman would be of him – is that there is a difference between a criticism and a complaint. It’s okay to complain! We need to be able to file a complaint with the marriage gods once in a while, so to speak. 

But, instead of saying, “You ALWAYS leave the cabinets open,” which is a criticism of Mark as a PERSON, I could have said, “I get frustrated when I walk into the kitchen and all of the cabinets are open. It would make me feel like our home is in order if the cabinets were closed,” which would be a complaint about an ACTION Mark takes sometimes.

Mark could have jumped to Defensiveness here, one of the other Four Horseman that Gottman discovered are the root of most unhealthy relationship patterns (and sometimes he does). “I’m still cooking, so I haven’t closed the cabinets yet. Why don’t you just close them if it bothers you so much? Gees.”

I wouldn’t have blamed him if he reacted that way. Defensiveness is a pretty natural response to criticism. Who doesn’t feel a twinge of defensiveness when someone waltzes in a room just to pick apart your character?

See how this can become a recipe for disastrous marital communication? 

Instead, Mark says, “I don’t notice things like the cabinets being open, but I know you do, and disorder bothers you, so I’ll try harder to get better at it,” and he gives me a pat on the butt.

Butt pats aren’t a required communication tactic in a romantic relationship, but they don’t hurt. 

I’ve never been a physically demonstrative person, but Mark is. Physical Touch is his love language for sure (more on the 5 Love Languages here ) so I make an extra effort to give cuddles, hugs, and kisses even though it doesn’t come naturally to me. I have to keep his love tank full!

And if you know anything about the 5 Love Languages, and you’ve read this far, you can probably guess what my language is: Acts of Service. When Mark does an entire sink of dishes or makes the bed, that feels like the equivalent of a big bear hug to me.

But TALLY-HO! Back to the Horsemen!

We’ve discussed Criticism and Defensiveness, but what other foundational relationship mistakes could we be making? What other Horsemen could be trodding all over our relationship?

We’ve probably all shared dinner or drinks or a night of midnight glow-in-the-dark bowling with a couple who seemingly hates each other. One rolls their eyes at everything the other says. They call each other names like “idiot” or “asshole,” and maybe it’s with a hint of sarcasm, but the only laughs they are getting are uncomfortable and awkward. 

This is Contempt. And if you recognize it in your relationship, get rid of it fast, because it’s the greatest predictor of divorce or a split.

Contempt can also weaken your immune system. Yes, you read that right. All of those cheap shots and character attacks can make you physically ill! If you’re in a relationship filled with contempt, you better load up on your zinc and Emergen-C because you’re more likely to catch infectious diseases.

How do you break the cycle of contempt? 

Dr. Gottman recommends you create an environment of appreciation and respect. Of course! How could your partner feel anything more than worthless when you are rolling your eyes at every joke they crack or when you mock them in front of your mutual friends? 

On the AoC podcast episode #769, Laura Heck, couples therapist from the Gottman Institute recommends putting a post-it note next to where you and your partner keep your toothbrushes. Each day when you get up and brush your teeth, think of something you appreciate about your partner and write it on the post-it. Then, put it somewhere they will see it as they start their day.

Now you just have to make sure you brush your teeth every day. Hopefully, this habit is already fully ingrained.

Doing this simple exercise helps build a habit of seeking out the best in your partner and showing them gratitude. (Reminder: Tell Mark how much I admire how he can come up with joke after joke on twitter. He always makes me laugh!)

The Fourth Horseman: Stonewalling

Oftentimes, in a response to contempt, the other partner will stonewall. Physically they are present, but emotionally they have shut down. It is literally like trying to communicate with a wall. You get nothing in return.

Remember how I mentioned that contempt can cause physical responses? Stonewalling is often in reaction to those physical responses in the body. Emotions swell inside of a stone-waller, raising their heart rate and sometimes rendering them speechless. It’s what Gottman describes as physiological flooding.

He suggests that the couple takes a 20 minutes break to calm down. Here’s what’s important to make that break work:

• You both have to agree on it
• You both have to agree that you continue the conversation after the break
• And you spend those 20 minutes apart from each other

This is a much better alternative to one person spewing venom, following their partner from room to room while the other tries to ignore them.

Which Horsemen rides through YOUR kitchen?

I know what you are thinking… which of the Four Horsemen does MY partner do the most? 

But the real question is: which is YOUR go-to Horseman? 

As we often repeat in our programs at the Art of Charm, the only person you have control over is you: the way you speak, react, process your feelings – all of it! 

So the first step is to be honest with yourself and think about which of these behaviors you tend to lean toward.

No one is perfect. There are going to be days when you’re exhausted because the baby or your new puppy kept you up all night; you’re waiting to hear about test results; you got a terrible evaluation at work; I could list a million scenarios that would put a person in the position of not behaving in a way they are proud of. But if you go into those days armed with the knowledge of how you will most likely react, you have a much better chance of keeping that Horsemen reined in.

What’s your Horseman? 

• Criticism 
• Contempt
• Defensiveness
• Stonewalling

What’s one thing you could do to create new communication habits with your partner TODAY?

Drop your answer in the comments below. 

And if you’re curious what Laura Heck, a marriage therapist from the Gottman Institute, has to say about avoiding those four Horsemen, point your ears this way:

If you want to learn more about the 5 Love Languages, this is the blog post to read:
The 5 Love Languages

Or check out this podcast episode on effective communication in ANY relationship (hint: it’s all about love languages – but you probably guessed that)

BRB… gotta go lovingly close some cabinets and pat a butt. 

The post My Partner Feels Criticized appeared first on The Art of Charm.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. You’re heading home for the holidays and your parents can barely contain their excitement. But your excitement level doesn’t quite match theirs. I mean, they’re awesome, or at least awesome-ish. They raised you well, have sacrificed everything for you (as they’re all too happy to remind you and your new spouse), and can’t wait to have you snuggled up in your old room again. Only problem is, you’re bracing for 7 straight days of being watched like a hawk and having every comment met with thinly-veiled criticism. It’s like a week-long festival of passive-aggression – maybe one that’s slightly more comfortable than Coachella, but leaves you feeling just as drained and dehydrated by the end.

So what do you do? I guess some people might make alternate holiday plans, or read their parents the riot act anytime they say anything even mildly objectionable. But if you’re like me, or like I used to be, you obsessively try to explain to them why they can’t continue to treat you like a 7-year-old child, while cultivating a huge resentment as your self-esteem deflates at a rapidly increasing rate. ‘Cause you know, that’s how we co-dependents roll.

Today, I’ve learned that situations like the one above can be handled peacefully and gracefully by implementing one simple practice: setting boundaries. Of course, it really isn’t that simple, especially for folks battling codependency issues.

The Declaration of Codependence

As defined by one of my gurus, Melody Beattie, author of the co-dependent’s bible, “Codependent No More”, a codependent person is “one who has let another person’s behavior affect him or her, and who is obsessed with controlling that person’s behavior.” For me I would get fixated on trying to change the behavior of people who I know deep down will never change. If this sounds like you too, have no fear. You’re not alone and, more important, help is just a boundary (or two) away.

Ever since I was a teenager, my biggest pain points have come in situations with family, friends, co-workers and romantic partners that required me to set boundaries… and I simply couldn’t. Or I didn’t know how to. Fortunately, after a decade of working with life coaches, therapists, and conducting countless hours of trial and error personal research, I’ve overcome a lot of my old issues, and become something of a master at setting boundaries.

I’ve also experienced a lot of success in the last few years sharing my knowledge with the folks in the Art of Charm boot camps, many of whom showed up on day one just as clueless as I once was about setting boundaries. But after going through our comprehensive program, they emerged with the tools and newfound confidence to take a new approach to some of the most challenging relationships in their lives.

Here now is my five-step plan on how to set effective boundaries. Let the liberation from being walked all over begin now!

1. Recognize the need to set boundaries

You need to understand first where boundaries are needed, before you’ll be able to set them and avoid being manipulated. In the case of my parents, I knew that I couldn’t keep subjecting myself and my husband Mark to the same dynamic that had been driving us crazy for years. We love my parents and definitely wanted to spend the holiday with them BUT… we always seemed to end up in a blowout with them. (Ok, so it was usually me in the blowout, with my husband watching from a ringside seat!) The solution? Staying at my cousin’s house, and avoiding the triggers and close physical proximity that always led to conflict.

Pro tip: Key into the emotion that makes the boundary necessary to set. For me, the emotions were frustration and sadness; frustration at continually feeling criticized, sad about how this made it harder to connect with my parents.

2. Communicate the boundary (and the emotion behind it)

This can be a tricky one, because there’s always the chance that toes will be stepped on and feelings will be hurt when a boundary is being set. Honestly, it took me two months to have the conversation with my mother about staying at my cousin’s house. I knew it could hurt her, and I knew she might try and lay a guilt trip on me for not staying at home. That’s why it’s so important to communicate the feelings behind the boundary as well. Actually, there are two reasons, so let’s go ahead and give them each their own bullet point:

1.  A person can’t argue with an emotion.
2. It lets the other person know how their actions affect you.

When I finally spoke with my mother, I approached the conversation gently and compassionately. I told her it was difficult for grown children and their parents to stay under the same roof and not argue. When arguments do occur, it makes me sad because it puts a damper on the trip, especially if I get heated and wind up saying things I regret. I will be happier if Mark and I have some privacy and space. What do you know? Because I didn’t simply criticize her parenting or lay out my list of grievances, my mother had a much easier time accepting my boundary.

Pro tip: Allow yourself to be vulnerable when communicating your boundary, then be prepared to listen and empathize with how it makes them feel.

3. Respond with positivity

This is a loved one after all, right? So it’s important to make sure you accentuate the positivity this boundary can generate. I let my mom know, for instance, how much I loved her and looked forward to having a better, clearer, more communicative relationship with her, one where we’d both feel more honest and open with each other. She may not have wanted me to stay at my cousin’s this year, but she was able to respect my decision to do so. I was able to set the boundary AND let her know I cared enough about her to set it in the first place.

Pro tip: Remember, we’re changing our behavior not theirs. We’re allowing them to change if they choose to, but we’re no longer trying to control them!

4. Stand your ground.

This step is your opportunity to make like Teddy Roosevelt — speak softly and carry a big stick. That means communicating your boundary with compassion, clarity and positivity, and firmly holding to it no matter what. That no matter what is super important, because if you don’t stand your ground, you’ll continue to be taken advantage of. R&B legend James Brown called himself the hardest working man in show business and he expected his band to live up to that promise. That meant imposing fines on band members for being late to practice. (Thanks to my fellow AoC coach Johnny for that nugget of rock and roll boundary history!) Where my parents were concerned, I committed to completely breaking with longstanding family tradition and staying somewhere else on vacation. If I caved, my parents wouldn’t respect me OR my boundary.

Pro tip: If you encounter resistance or an argument, return to step 3 and remind them (your partner, colleague, or parent) of the benefits this boundary will bring for all.

5. Cut ties when necessary

And now we come to perhaps the toughest, but most important step of them all. If your boundary is not being respected, you have to be willing to walk away from the relationship. This may mean avoiding all contact, even blocking your boundary-disrespecting friends on social media if necessary. With parents or other blood-related family members, this can be difficult of course. And please know that although some friendships and romantic relationships are worth walking away from, I’m by no means advising you to run out and cut ties with your family when things get tough. But no matter how deep your bond, even if it’s thicker than water, the boundary must take priority. If the prospect of cutting ties is causing you distress, ask yourself this question: is it worth holding onto the relationship, but losing your self-respect and selfesteem in the process?

Pro tip: Hide them from your FB or Twitter feeds (this wouldn’t work with my parents!)

As you contemplate where, when, and how you might need to set boundaries with the people in your life, always remember: you’re changing your behavior, not theirs. Because at the end of the day, that’s really all you can control. As the serenity prayer puts it so well, “grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change (other people’s behavior), the courage to change the things I can (your own behavior).” That’s why I like to think of setting boundaries in your life as you exercising the courage to change!

If Mark and I had tried to stay at my parents’ house over this last holiday… again… I would’ve gotten caught up again in trying to change them. By staying at my cousin’s house, I changed my own behavior – setting a physical and emotional boundary in the process — and gave myself the literal and figurative space I needed to have a successful vacation. And guess what? Mark and I had our best holiday ever. I’m pretty sure my parents did, too. After all, it takes a lot of energy to monitor your grown kids’ every move all day long. 😉

Turns out a well-set boundary can bring serenity for all!

The post Five Tips on How to Set Boundaries appeared first on The Art of Charm.