We have all had them. You know … the conversations that you rehearse over and over in your head 1000 times before you actually face the person you need to talk with. The conversations that you dread so much that you would rather clean your entire basement, and your garage, rather than have them? You know what I’m talking about – the difficult conversations.
Why Difficult Conversations are so Difficult
Difficult conversations, especially ones with your ex, can bring up a whole range of unpleasant emotions. They can make you feel anything from mild annoyance and discomfort, to all out terror. They are the conversations that no one really likes to have. But, yet, from time to time, particularly when you are divorced, and especially when you are a parent, you have to have difficult conversations. You simply have no choice.
A lot of factors contribute to making conversations difficult. Analyzing why difficult conversations are so difficult would take far more ink (digital space?) than I have in this blog. But, fortunately, there are things that you can do to make difficult conversations with your ex less difficult.
Before we talk about how to make your difficult conversations with your ex less difficult, though, it helps to zoom out and take a broader view. What do I mean? Simply this: before you dive into any difficult conversation, you need to figure out whether having a difficult conversation is really necessary. Ask yourself 2 questions:
1. What do I want?
2. Will having this conversation help me get it?
If you don’t have a reason to talk with your ex, particularly a difficult, demanding or intimidating ex, then why are you talking? Unless you are a masochist, there is no reason to open up a conversation that has no point.
Now, if you and your ex are on friendly terms, and you get along well enough to have pleasant conversations about everything, talk all you want. But, if your ex is difficult, or, even if your ex is reasonably ok, but the subject matter of the conversation is difficult, it really helps to know, before you start talking, what it is that you want, or are trying to accomplish.
Why Talk to Your Ex at All?
There are lots of reasons to have a conversation with your ex. But, when we are talking about having difficult conversations, there are really only two reasons to start them:
1. You need to convey unpleasant or challenging information (i.e. your child needs braces and your ex needs to pay a portion of the cost); or
2. You need to solve a problem that requires your joint input or cooperation (i.e. your child is acting out at school and you need to figure out, as parents, what to do about it and how to help your child.)
If you limit your difficult conversations with your ex to those that involve conveying necessary information, or solving a problem that requires both you and your ex to solve, you will eliminate an enormous amount of unnecessary grief and aggravation from your life. You will also go a long way toward making the difficult conversations you do have more productive, because you and your ex will (hopefully) have far less negativity built up from a mountain of other conversations.
How to Make Your Difficult Conversations Easier
So what do you do when you do have to have a difficult conversation with your ex? Here are 5 tips that can help:
1. Keep your eye on the goal! Remember, the only reason you need to have a conversation with a difficult ex is to convey information and/or to try to solve a problem that requires your joint input. To do that, you need to focus on the topic of the conversation and only the topic of the conversation. Resist the urge to dredge up your past, your divorce, or anything else that doesn’t involve what you actually need to discuss. Otherwise, you are going to find yourself falling down the rabbit hole and arguing about stuff that happened ages ago. Don’t go there! Talk about what you need to talk about and leave the rest alone.
2. Listen! If you want your ex to listen to you, you have to listen to your ex first! Why do you have to listen first? Until your ex feels like you have heard him or her, s/he is not going to be able to focus on what you are saying. So you have to listen.(Note that I didn’t say that you have to agree with your ex. I just said you have to listen.)
What does listening mean? It means that you genuinely try to hear what your ex is saying and understand your ex’s point of view. It doesn’t mean that you tune out and start daydreaming when your ex is talking, nor does it mean that you use the time when your ex is talking to plan in your head what you are going to say next when it’s your turn to talk.
3. Acknowledge everyone’s feelings. That means acknowledging, not only your feelings, but your ex’s feelings as well. (And, yes, believe it or not, your ex does have feelings!) So many times we make difficult conversations way more difficult by beating around the bush. The conversation will be so much easier if you say, right up front, “Hey, I know that this subject is hard for you ro talk about, and that you feel really strongly about it. I feel strongly about it, too.” You are not fooling anyone or helping anything if you pretend that you and your ex are emotional cyborgs without feelings.
At the same time, you don’t have to get into a long, deep discussion about how each of you feels about the subject at hand. Remember, this is problem-solving, not therapy. All you need to do is admit that feelings play a part in the discussion, and that how each of you feels matters.
4. Keep an open mind. There is usually more than one way to solve any problem. If you focus on just solving the problem, rather than solving the problem the way YOU want to solve the problem, you are going to get a lot farther, than if you insist that the problem has to be solved YOUR way.
5. Stop trying to be right! If you haven’t been able to convince your ex that you are right by now, do you really think that one more conversation is going to do it? Your goal in having the conversation is to convey information and to try to solve a problem. That’s it. If you focus on that you have a shot at having a decent conversation and actually getting your problem solved. But, if you feel the need to convince your ex to do things your way, chances are that the conversation is going to turn into an argument, and you are not going to solve anything.
No matter what you do or how hard you try, you are still going to have to have difficult conversations from time to time. That’s just life. And, in spite of your best efforts and intentions, not all of those conversations are going to go well. But, hopefully, by limiting your difficult conversations to those which are truly necessary, and by using these tips to help keep the conversations on track, the difficult conversations you have with your ex will be a lot less difficult.
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If you want to get more information about difficult conversations, get Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most
I have an issue letting go. I love my wife but she doesn’t love me. She said she was mad at me for several years but when I ask her why… she just says she isn’t mad at me no more. she moved out, then got evicted and still didn’t come home.. she went to live with a girlfriend and still just the kids and I AT THE HOUSE.
Letting go is so hard! But, you can’t begin to heal until you let go. You can’t begin to create a new life for yourself and your kids while you’re still trying to hang on to the old one.
You can work on letting go by talking with a therapist. If you are a reader, you might try reading “How to Survive the Loss of a Love.” It’s a bit old now, but is still full of great advice.
You could also do some self-discovery work and try to figure out for yourself what is holding you back from letting go. You also might want to try shifting your focus from looking at the past, and what you’ve lost, to looking forward to your future. What might you be able to do now that you are alone? What are your goals?
If you find that you have no goals, or that you can’t stop thinking about your wife, I really suggest you find a good therapist to work with. S/he will gety ou going on the right track much faster than trying to slug through this tough time yourself.
Hope that helps.
What if you tell your ex everything on how you feel and he is just quiet on the phone?
Without knowing more about him and your situation, that’s really hard to say. His silence could mean a thousand different things. I don’t want to guess, so I’m afraid I can’t answer this for you.
Sorry.
Karen
My wife and I are divorced. We have a son who will not talk to his mother about things that bother him about her, and life in their house. He has no problem talking to me however. I never ask about what is going on in my old house, it’s really none of my business. He tells me things that bother me though. When I ask if he’s talked to his mother about them, he tells me no he hasn’t. I used to let her know about issues he was having until she accused me of putting our son up the those things. Our son is in therapy to try and help him be able to talk to his mother. Since it’s been 6 months, she is pressuring him now to be able to talk to her. Saying things like, “It’s been 6 months. You should be able to talk to me about more than the 1 or 2 things that you have talked about”. Their relationship is very important to me. Her brothers have a very strained relationship with their mother and I do not want that for my son. I’ve told my ex from before our son was born that I will not accept him having that kind of relationship with her. How do I get her to see that her past actions and her current actions are the reason he wont talk to her? For almost 7 years, from the time he was 3 till he was almost 10, she was a weekend visitor in our home because of her job. When she was home for the weekends, she spent her time playing games online instead of engaging with me and our son. The truth is that she’d spend about 36 of the 48 hours she was home playing those games. I would try to get her off the computer by asking for months and months, then I went to telling her get off the computer. All to no avail. She ignored my requests. How do I help her repair her relationship with our son without it sounding accusatory? As far as the situation between my ex and I, it is very antagonistic. I can’t do or say anything without it starting a fight.
I’m afraid I don’t have very good news for you. So, if you’re not up for a little “tough love” you may want to hit the back button on the browser now.
I understand that you want your son to have a good relationship with his mother. But, unfortunately, that’s not something you can control. Their relationship is THEIRS. Not YOURS. You can encourage them to have a good relationship. You can make sure your son has access to counseling and you can even pay for a family counselor for your son and his mom. So you can help facilitate their relationship. But you can’t force them to have one. You also can’t force them to have the kind of relationship that you want them to have. (Sorry!)
You will never change your wife. If you could have done that, my guess is you already would have done that.
What’s more, the more you pressure your wife to change and your son to talk to her, the less either one of them will feel like doing what you want. Maybe your son will do it for you for now – but he’s also likely to resent you for it later.
The best thing you can do is take care of your son. Help him as much as you can. Love him. Encourage him. Give him the tools he needs to help himself and repair his relationship with his mom. Then give him the space to work this out for himself. And most of all, accept his choice.
Hope this helps.
Karen