420 - Courage for Hard Conversations
Why are some topics difficult to talk about?
In any relationship, whether it’s romantic, familial, friendly, what have you, there are difficult conversations we have to have from time to time. Some of the most common subjects or scenarios we tend to avoid discussing because of discomfort are:
Any conflict or disagreement.
Making a request.
Stating a boundary.
Disclosing information (i.e. sexual health, STI status, safer sex practices).
“Taboo” topics such as sex, money, etc.
Coming out conversations.
Talking about the current state of the relationship.
Ending or de-escalating a relationship.
Discussions around these topics often take a lot of courage, for a variety of reasons. Macro and micro culture can affect social convention a great deal, for instance:
Americans are often raised to feel discussing money is rude.
Growing up in a family that never discussed sex or sexual health.
Coming from a past relationship where it wasn’t safe to talk about vulnerable subjects or communicate feelings in an honest way.
Monogamous culture’s dictation that we don’t acknowledge or discuss past relationships, sexual experiences, or partners.
We also may fear the impact the discussion might have on the other person. Often we’re naturally averse to:
Potentially causing conflict.
Hurting feelings.
Rocking the boat.
Potentially setting off a big or dangerous reaction.
There’s also the possibility of embarrassment and shame. Some things may make us feel one or both, like:
Having to be vulnerable and expose our weaknesses or mistakes.
Exposing what we really want or really feel.
Having to come clean about dishonesty.
Having to admit that you were wrong or mistaken.
Lastly, we may just simply fear rejection or abandonment, and that can be more than enough to discourage tackling hard conversations.
When we don’t want to have these hard talks with someone, we often exhibit quite maladaptive ways of avoiding them, such as:
Perpetual avoidance.
Passive aggressive communication.
Dropping hints.
Giving brief or non committal responses.
Distraction.
How can we better approach hard conversations?
Figure out your why. For instance,
Why is it important to have this conversation?
What are the pros and cons of having it?
What are the pros and cons of not having it?
Write a letter ahead of time.
You can have multiple drafts.
It may help you get your thoughts in order.
Aim for physiological calm for both yourself and the other person.
Acknowledge feelings up front, using I-statements:
“I’m feeling really nervous about this conversation, so bear with me.”
“I feel a little scared to say this out loud, but I’m gonna do my best.”
“This may be an uncomfortable conversation, but we’ll get through it.”
Follow a formula, like:
RADAR.
Non-violent communication.
Reid Mihalko’s difficult conversation formula.
Be clear on what you’re hoping for from the conversation. Use the Triforce of Communication!
Change up the format or setting:
See if the other person would be willing to discuss via text, even just from the other room.
Create a nest for yourself.
Go for a walk together.
Consider talking in a public place such as a café (it’s best to negotiate this ahead of time with the other person, since some people may feel supported in public areas and others may feel trapped).
Remember repair (even pre-emptive repair!):
Pre-emptive repair might look like: “I know that you’ve tried really hard to make me feel safe to be honest, and I still feel scared having to be honest right now.”
Repair is particularly important if you are the one receiving disclosure or communication from the other person. Even if you have a lot of feelings come up, make an effort to acknowledge the other person’s effort in this conversation.
Take breaks as needed.
Get professional help.
Practice affirmations. Vulnerability and honesty builds closer relationships. Affirm your identity and values.
Transcript
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Jase: On this episode of the Multiamory Podcast, we're diving deep into the world of uncomfortable conversations. We all know that in relationships, we often face the challenge of navigating through awkward discussions, dealing with topics like conflict resolution, boundary setting, vulnerability or taboo subjects like money and sex. Today we'll explore why these conversations are often uncomfortable, some of the maladaptive or bad ways we try to avoid difficult communication and then discuss some strategies that can help you develop the courage to tackle awkward conversations in a healthy way.
Emily: A couple of weeks ago, we were doing an episode with our researcher Kiana, and she uttered the words that I think so many of us fear in our relationships and those words are, "We need to talk about something." This reminded me of what we're about to talk about today, which is how scary it can be to just even go there with a partner, to just even sit down and want to have a conversation with them that might be uncomfortable and challenging because truly, yikes, it's not a good feeling often. It's really rough.
Dedeker: How many problems in this world could have been prevented by people just willing to have an uncomfortable conversation?
Emily: Probably many.
Dedeker: For me, a lot of my job is working with clients who don't know how to have a particular conversation or they know they need to have this conversation, but they're not sure how or their relationship is falling apart because no one is having certain uncomfortable conversations. Much of it comes down to just the inherent difficulties of communicating.
Jase: I'd say another way to ask that question is, how many TV shows and movies would have their plots completely removed if people had the courage to have challenging conversations?
Dedeker: 90%.
Jase: At least
Emily: These challenging conversations aren't just with our romantic partners, but it's also with family and friends, with neighbors, with coworkers, and a lot of them really boil down to just the need to work through conflict and disagreement. Also, dealing with things like making a request of your partner, that can be really challenging and really difficult to feel like you're able even to go there and make a request of someone else. Also, things like stating a boundary, yikes even knowing what your boundary is in the first place, but then being able to relay that to a partner or a friend or a coworker.
Dedeker: Yes, with the whole boundary thing, sometimes I think that we can end up in this weird super hyper boundary that I'm going to bludgeon you with this boundary conversation situation because it's been a little too awkward or uncomfortable to state our boundaries or our preferences earlier on. Now we've just felt we've been taken advantage of or ignored or neglected or we've built up resentment until you reach a point where we can't deal with it anymore. Now we have to do the, in my opinion, much more awkward interaction of suddenly swooping in with a super harsh boundary.
I think that's a product of just not being sure how to have a slightly uncomfortable conversation. I think a lot of awkward conversations sometimes come out of just needing to disclose information. This comes up a lot in non-monogamous relationships in particular regarding how do I disclose about other relationships, about what's going on in other relationships, because again, this is something we don't get a lot of social scripts to follow. It can be tricky to know how to navigate those conversations.
Could just mean having to disclose some vulnerable information or embarrassing information. I work with a lot of clients who struggle with-- I have a chronic illness, or I have a chronic mental illness, and so when do I disclose that when I'm first starting to date somebody, for instance? How do I know that it's going to be safe and that they're gonna receive that when I don't know this person very well?
Or something that comes up a lot is people needing to disclose things regarding their sexual health, their STI status, what safer sex practices they're using, what their sexual landscape looks like. That also intersects with the fact that sometimes when we are disclosing information or working through conflict or making a request, it can also layer and get even more awkward if we're also having to tackle taboo topics or topics that we've been socialized to think are taboo, things like money or sex or race or privilege or class or any number of these things can just be uncomfortable to dive into.
Jase: Another one is the coming out conversation that we just talked about a few weeks ago with Martha Kauppi, but if that is a decision that you want to have that conversation with someone, definitely there can be a lot of nerves and fear going into that, which can sometimes make that conversation more difficult than it could have been otherwise, as we talked about a little bit in that episode, or talking about the current state of the relationship. I think this gets to what Emily was mentioning of that, we need to have a talk about what is our relationship, what's about? What are we doing here?
Emily: What are we doing here?
Jase: Yes, exactly. Then similarly, ending a relationship or de-escalating a relationship or just dropping some big news on the relationship. Something about maybe I have to move for a job or I'm going to start traveling, I'm not going to see you for months. Those big relationship-changing things can be scary to talk about, can be hard to receive and can also be hard to be the one to start that conversation.
Emily: When we're looking at all of these things, I think it's super important to ask the question, why are these conversations so uncomfortable and hard to even begin, hard to even put out there into the world with a partner? Dedeker touched on this momentarily before, but there are a lot of social conventions that are different based on macro and microculture.
We, here in America and in a lot of Western cultures, American specifically, very much are taught, don't talk about things like money. Don't have a frank conversation about how much you make. It's rude to tell people how much you make. It's rude to discuss in any way that you're wealthy or that you are not. Or maybe I feel I should be making more money. Even your employer doesn't want you to talk about how much money you make in relation to someone else.
Dedeker: This is so funny, I was just thinking about this the other day, but I use the Wealthfront app for managing retirement investments. The Wealthfront app has this funny mode on it where when you're looking at all of your accounts, you can shake your phone and if you shake your phone, it will populate your accounts with different balances, different numbers, fake numbers so that you can show someone, "Hey, this is the Wealthfront app and this is how it works. Look, if I do this slider here--" so that you can show the off the app to someone without showing actually how much money you have in different accounts and it's so I'm like, oh, that's brilliant.
I guess from a marketing standpoint, from their side, right if you want people to do good word-of-mouth marketing and show the app to their friends and things like that. Then also I'm like, how silly is that? How weird. We have such a convention around you can't be transparent about how much money you have or don't have. We need to build in a feature so that you can hide that, which is so funny.
Emily: In your microculture, you may be coming from a past relationship where it wasn't safe or okay to talk about vulnerable subjects or to communicate feelings honestly. Maybe a partner really didn't make it safe for you to do that. That could be a thing that going into a new relationship, you just choose to not do simply because it doesn't feel safe to do that. Also, in your family life, you may have grown up in a family where no one ever talked about things like sex.
Jase: If they did it was awkward. You're like, "Well, that's always an awkward conversation to have."
Dedeker: Or shaming
Emily: Or shaming
Jase: Or shaming.
Emily: That I think there's a big macroculture in terms of religion, which the two of you have talked about. That's the thing that maybe you are shamed for and that you shouldn't be thinking about or doing. I'm just not even going to go there in terms of sex.
In monogamous culture, they really value and dictate that we don't discuss or acknowledge other relationships or past partners or past sexual experiences. It may be hard to undo that thinking and to even want to go and discuss a new partner that you're really excited about or if you have escalated that relationship in some way and want to go and tell your partner about that because that's probably the right thing to do and may be really difficult to just because you haven't ever done that before.
Dedeker: Then we have to acknowledge that on the flip side, again, based on the macro or microculture that you came from, some of these topics may feel totally comfortable to you and that's totally okay. It's okay for us to be different. Just want to acknowledge that these factors can really influence a lot how comfortable or uncomfortable we are with certain subjects.
Another thing that goes into making these conversations awkward is, I think it's quite natural to come in with fear that it's going to impact the other person in some negative way. Whether it's, I need to disclose my actual opinion about your cooking and I'm afraid that's going to cause conflict or I'm afraid that it's going to hurt your feelings or I'm just afraid of rocking the boat. Maybe it is, I'm afraid of really setting off a big reaction possibly an emotionally or physically dangerous reaction if that's been something that's either been present in that relationship or sometimes if it's been present in past relationships as well.
Where again, if you're coming from a romantic or a family relationship where disclosing vulnerable information has never been received well or there's been a lot of blowback, that is going to affect how you handle disclosures even in relationships where the other person is a safer person to talk to.
Jase: To tie this back to the microculture thing, it's also interesting to realize that our fears about the impact on the other person may or may not be true for them based on their own macro or microculture that they came from. This can happen both ways. One is I don't think this will affect the other person at all and it really does or thinking, oh, they're going to have a hard time with this and actually they won't because maybe their past relationships were different or their family was different or something like that. A lot of this is coming from these internalized beliefs that we have about these things and not necessarily even in reality, which is an interesting part of it too.
Then speaking of those deeply ingrained feelings, a lot of it comes down to embarrassment or shame, which are very powerful meta complexes of emotions when we come to embarrassment and shame. This could be something having to be vulnerable and expose our weaknesses or our mistakes. To admit that we did something wrong or that we are wrong about something can be really scary, especially if that's been our experience in the past.
Maybe exposing what we really want or feel. Emily mentioned earlier making a request and that seems easy. It's just like, "Oh, yes. I'd love it if we could have pasta tonight" or something. If it's a request of like, I really wish that you would do this thing sexually, if it's not something we've done before and I'm embarrassed to ask you about and maybe I feel some shame about wanting it or I'm worried that you'll think I'm bad for wanting that or something like that. Maybe I'm being needy if I ask for this thing. We can really internalize those embarrassment and shame reactions.
Having to come clean about something that not only did we do wrong, but then we also lied about and misled someone about. With a lot of these, the longer it goes on before you have the difficult conversation, the harder it gets. Sometimes those situations where not only did I do something wrong, but I also made it worse by keeping up that lie or just not disclosing it. Now time's gone by, and it's gotten harder.
A lot of this comes down to ultimately this fear of rejection or abandonment. That not only do we have shame and embarrassment ourselves, but it also could just come down to this person might stop loving me or stop liking me or stop caring about me if I'm honest about these things. That's a very central human fear and desire, which is why it can be really hard to overcome.
Dedeker: To tie all this together, our researcher for this episode, Em, found this 2011 study titled, "Let's not talk about that. Bridging the past sexual experiences taboo to build healthy romantic relationships." Now really the most interesting part of this study was the reasons that they found that people listed for specifically avoiding talking about past sexual partners or past sexual experiences. Again, this is a sample size of people who are mostly in monogamous relationships.
I just thought this list was interesting because I think it can be extrapolated to almost any awkward topic. It's not just about talking about past sexual experiences, but those reasons for avoidance included what they termed relational protection against harm that might befall the relationship, which just feels like a very Tolkienesque of stating it. Relational protection against harm, reluctance to expose themselves or their partner to a negative emotional experience such as embarrassment and humiliation, harsh judgment, vulnerability and fear and stigma around things like having "too much sexual experience".
Emily: God, I got shamed from that-- Sorry. I got shamed for that as a young person really, really early on for having had sex with three people. My partner was like, "Wow, that's a lot for a woman."
Dedeker: Jeez.
Jase: Yikes.
Emily: Yikes is right.
Dedeker: That's the standard. Is like any number is going to be too much to somebody. To some jerk, any number is going to be too much. To some jerk, any number is going to be too little also.
Jase: That person maybe is still carrying that guilt and shame around in their own relationships because you know it's tied to some of that too.
Emily: For sure.
Jase: I'm glad that you've at least gotten to move on from that person.
Emily: Me too.
Dedeker: This got me thinking, have the two of you ever experienced-- been in a relationship where there was that taboo of, we can't talk about past partners, we can't talk about past sexual experiences?
Jase: Yes. All of them before 10 years ago maybe. I just think that's just the normal way you did it, was you just wouldn't talk about that. It wasn't even like we intentionally avoided it because you just don't.
Emily: There definitely were some of those. I think in some of my relationships, I did discuss some of my exes and some other people that I had dated. I don't know, it's interesting that on one side, there were people that really didn't want to speak about that and then there were certain people that were okay with it. It was like, "Oh, yes. I had a great relationship with this person, and they were the only other person I've been with besides you."
Dedeker: Have you ever been on the receiving side where you felt awkward or uncomfortable having to hear about a partner's past relationships or past sexual experiences?
Emily: If I have, it's been a long time since I've felt uncomfortable about that subject, but maybe.
Jase: It has been a long time. I'm also realizing now that I'm thinking about it, that I'm bad at time, which you all know about.
Emily: Yes.
Dedeker: Yes. Correct. You're bad at time.
Jase: When I said 10 years, I'm thinking maybe 15 would be more accurate. Anyway, some amount of time. I can absolutely recall some relationships where a partner has told me about their past sexual experiences. It's like I feel weird about that or I have to compare myself to it or that somehow those reflect badly on me or all baggage that I was given culturally or whatever.
Dedeker: I'm glad you put it that way. All the baggage that I was given because I was sitting here and reflecting on it and thinking about a pretty early relationship. Probably early 20s, late teens in college, having much jealousy of the past with my boyfriend at the time. I couldn't even explain why because it wasn't even like I perceived this past relationship to be much better or more intense or whatever. I think it really was that was the message that I got. The idea that I have to grapple with the fact that this person has dated before, that's just rude. Just having to even have the information felt rude and unnecessary to me, which is baffling.
Emily: I remember being really upset at Jase when we had started dating but then didn't, weren't going steady yet. You slept with someone right in between the time when we became official and weren't. I felt upset and so jealous of that person that you had slept with another person. Now I don't give a fuck, but .
Dedeker: That's so common. So many people got into a situation, the weird in between. We haven't had the courage to have the uncomfortable conversation of defining the relationship and therefore we don't say anything and therefore we run into hurt feelings-
Emily: I was so mad.
Dedeker: -when expectations are different. Then it all just implodes because we didn't communicate about it. That brings us to the next section, which is talking about what are the things that we do instead of actually communicating? When something's uncomfortable or awkward, what are the maladaptive ways that we try to get around that?
Emily: One of the ways that we just leave this uncomfortable conversation for another day is to perpetually avoid it. That avoidance may happen until we hit a really big moment of conflict or the situation just implodes like maybe it's little, tiny irks that happen over and over and over again, until one day, the straw that breaks the camel's back, and all of a sudden, it ends in a humongous blow-up.
Dedeker: Speaking of, I need to know what the past Goss was. Emily, how did you even find out that Jase has left with somebody else? What was the implosion like?
Emily: He told me or something. I don't even .
Dedeker: How did you all sort it out? I want to know all the gossip from 200 years ago.
Emily: I think I just remember my reaction to it and how I think it's really asinine now.
Dedeker: Hold on, did you find out or did Jase tell you?
Emily: I think Jase told me some way.
Dedeker: Do you remember any of this, Jase, by the way?
Jase: I remember this, yes.
Emily: I know that I was upset because I was like, "Oh, if we ever get married then there's no neat-cute story," because it will remain that Jase would have slept with someone else in the middle of us starting to court and date and fall in love.
Dedeker: Well, because you were plotting it out onto a rom-com.
Emily: Apparently, that was where--
Jase: a different movie of our lives.
Emily: It's tainted in some way. I remember having that fricking, ridiculous thought process and discussion with Jase which I'm sure he was like, "Wow, calm down." I don't know. Now I to myself I'm like--
Jase: I felt bad about it.
Emily: Thanks for feeling bad. No, I'm kidding.
Jase: Geez.
Emily: Looking back at it now, I'm just like, "You need to chill the f out, truly."
Dedeker: I think it makes sense. My read on it is my assumption is that, Emily, you had one expectation of what the relationship was now and, Jase, had a different one, right?
Emily: Yes.
Dedeker: You both acted accordingly with what that expectation was.
Emily: I was dating a bunch of people when I met Jase, like four or five people. Then when I met Jase, I stopped dating all of those people. I think my expectation was that he would not be dating anyone else either because we really liked each other.
Jase: I did stop dating other people just more slowly then Emily stopped.
Emily: There you go.
Jase: This was back when we were still monogamous. We did end up in a monogamous relationship.
Emily: 100%.
Jase: I more slowly closed other relationships, you could say.
Emily: There you go. He had a fun time in Seattle, going home for the holidays and I--
Jase: Oh, that's what it was. Gosh, I forgot what story that was.
Emily: You had sex with a bass player or something that you saw at-
Jase: The way you say that, Em, a bass player.
Emily: No, that you--
Jase: As the bass is right here behind me in my room.
Emily: I know, like a fellow bass player I guess-
Dedeker: How incestuous.
Emily: -that you saw at a club or something.
Jase: That was at a New Year's Eve show, I think.
Emily: I knew it was on New Year's.
Dedeker: He does remember.
Emily: Guys, this was like 12 years ago or 14.
Dedeker: No, I know, but had the two of you had any discussion about what the relationship was at that point?
Emily: I think at that point, this was what I found out when we were in a monogamous relationship and already--
Dedeker: Or way after the fact you find out.
Emily: Yes.
Jase: This was before we had--
Emily: Made that decision.
Dedeker: Defined the relationship. Got you.
Emily: I found out.
Dedeker: I think there's a lot of different opinions on that out in the world.
Emily: It's retroactive anger . That's all right. I think this is interesting because when you're upset about something, you could just avoid it or you could nurse resentment indefinitely and just quietly be upset about something and never discuss it. I'm glad, at least, that I discussed it because I was upset at the time. Even if in retrospect, it was silly. Also you can also do things like lie or tell lies of omission and never really get into what it is that you need to discuss.
I think this happens a lot in maybe infidelity situations where you just aren't completely 100% straight with your partner about what's going on, and that becomes lie of omission, and that becomes, I'm going to hand wave it away and not talk about it.
Jase: That's when I see come up a lot and I've done myself a lot in non-monogamous relationships, especially when you're new at it, but even after having experience, because it's that weird line of how much am I supposed to right away after anything happens, go tell my partner and then when do I cross this weird threshold into now it feels like I've been withholding it from them? I've just not been saying it when I should have.
Sometimes that's a hard thing to figure out where that line is, and then it can get weird once you're past it. That's one that I've definitely run into many times and I see this happen a lot, especially with people when they're new but even when you've been in a relationship for a while. I think the main difference is, if you've been either in that polyamorous relationship for a while or you've just been polyamorous longer, getting back out of that that's a little bit easier because you have more experience and more of a sense of it will be okay. Even if I should have said something a little sooner, it's still going to be okay. We'll get more into that later when we talk about the better ways to handle this than these.
Some other examples of not great ways to get around uncomfortable communication are passive-aggressive ways of communicating. This is if you have something that you need to bring up that is maybe really should be a boundary or is a request of I do want this thing for my partner or I want you to stop doing this thing or I want us to maybe have that define the relationship talk and we haven't is to make these little passive-aggressive comments.
That could just be little weird comments but it also could actually become nasty making actually biting personal remarks or insults, maybe even in front of other people or it could just be shutting down and giving someone the silent treatment with that classic sitcom like, "You know what you did" kind of thing or just pouting and acting out about something. All of these, assuming they must know, they have to be forced to get, is the thing that comes behind a lot of this.
Dedeker: I see this play out often in modern dating culture with the whole, he took two days to respond to my text so when he texts me, I'm going to take three days to respond to his test.
Emily: It's tit-for-tat bullshit.
Dedeker: I can't just say to this person, "Hey, I like you and I'd be interested in maybe communicating with you more frequently. Would it be cool if we're more on top of texting each other or whatever?" Like, yes, it's uncomfortable. We're not trained to have those conversations in the early stages of dating. Instead, we're trained to do the tit-for-tat and play the game with people.
When people complain about the dating game or playing games or whatever, I do think it is often the result of we can't just have plain ass conversations with each other or frank conversations with each other about what it is we want or what we're looking for or oh, that thing you did disappointed me or oh, I was hoping for something different.
Jase: Yes, definitely. Then, in a similarly passive way of communicating is the old dropping hints. I think that the stereotypical example of this is the woman wants her boyfriend to propose, and so instead she's dropping hints rather than, I don't know, have a conversation with each other about what you might want to do with your lives or how you feel about each other and what makes sense. Instead, it's like, "I'm just going to keep dropping hints because that's how it's supposed to work." Again, that macro or microcultural conditioning that makes us think you can't talk directly about a thing and so what else am I going to do but drop hints?
Dedeker: It reminds me of something that Eve Rodsky says in her book about the Division of Domestic Labor Fair Play, which is a book that I highly recommend, and I cite quite often that she makes this argument that if you are too uncomfortable to have a conversation with your partner about domestic labor or about what you would want to see, or if you're operating under the assumption of what he should know, I shouldn't have to be the one to bring up this conversation, he should just know and that's frustrating.
The argument she makes is, "Yes, sure you can choose to go this passive route of not bringing it up and not communicating, but the way you feel, you are going to communicate it in some way, as in, you're going to communicate it when you heave a heavy sigh, when you notice that your partner has left dishes in the sink again or you're going to communicate it when you go to fold the laundry and you're huffy around the house. You're going to communicate it in some way. Why not do it in a way that's proactive and empowered?"
Again, I think this is something that, Jase, we do. We choose different discomfort in order to avoid the other type of discomfort that comes from communicating frankly and directly.
Emily: Well said.
Jase: Right, which then can lead to that blow-up like Emily talked about, where it gets to this point where you just can't handle it anymore, or in those situations with any passive-aggressive or dropping hints or even that huffing and pouting behavior is that, yes, you're communicating, but the message is probably not going to be received accurately no matter how obvious it is to you. Your partner might be getting that message, but the message they might be getting is, "My partner doesn't like me anymore" not "My partner wants me to do the laundry." Those are two very different messages and there's no guarantee they're going to get that one if you don't have it directly.
Dedeker: Another way that people tend to dodge uncomfortable conversations is, this is maybe akin to shutting down or stonewalling, but it's giving really brief responses or really non-committal responses. Let's say if your partner has brought up an uncomfortable topic or a request, and you just deflect from it a little bit. I feel like this is like shutting down, but just one degree above shutting down, is really not fully engaging with the conversation.
Then closely related to that, I think people can also choose distraction or deflection as a way to get around awkward conversations or uncomfortable conversations. That could look like switch tracking away from the topic. As in, your partner comes to you and says, "Hey, I really want to sit down and talk about money stuff. You make more money than I do, I make less. How do we handle going on dates together and splitting the cost of that?"
Then you respond with, "Well, no, now is not the time" or "No, I feel really uncomfortable talking about that right now" or maybe it's like, "I don't like that you asked that question. I don't like that you came in this accusatory way. I don't like that you, yada, yada yada." As in switch tracking away from the actual topic into having a meta discussion about how the person brought up the topic or things like that.
This could quite literally just look like distraction, diving into literally anything else in order to avoid having this conversation. We dive into our phones, we get stuck just watching Netflix together every night. We decide we're going to get married. Yes, really, I've seen this happen where maybe our relationship isn't working and both people know that, but then it's like, "Well, maybe if we do this other factor, maybe getting married will add in the thing that we're looking for in this relationship." I think that we can distract and avoid topics for years.
Jase: It's not only getting married, it's also things like having a kid-
Emily: Having a baby.
Jase: -or getting a pet or moving to another country. I remember when I first studied abroad, we were assigned some books to read, and one of them was about basically dealing with culture shock and also reverse culture shock and how to prepare yourself for that. One of the things that that book talked about, which to my college sophomore brain was shocking, had never even occurred to me, was talking about don't move abroad if you're doing it because your relationship is struggling. This is not going to make it easier, it's actually going to make it a lot harder.
That, to me, was just that, gosh, yes, that wouldn't have even occurred to me that someone would do that but I could also see, "Okay, I guess I could see how someone would do something like that." Any of those big decisions, they're this extreme distraction from the actual things that we don't want to talk about. Oh, boy, let's try to avoid that.
To that end, we're going to get into some better ways that we can tackle these awkward conversations. First, we're going to take a quick break to talk about some of our sponsors for this show and ways that you can support this show if you do value this information and it's meaningful and important to you. We love the fact that between our sponsors and our supporters, we're able to keep putting this podcast out there in the world for free every week, which is just such a fantastic thing to be able to do.
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Dedeker: We're back. Now is the time to get the courage for uncomfortable conversation. We're going to be talking about the better ways, the more adaptive ways to tackle awkward conversations. We have a big list of tools for you. You don't have to use all of them. Take the ones that resonate with you and that work for you.
Now, for myself, if it's a particularly daunting conversation that I need to have with somebody, I like to start by figuring out my why, my why behind having the conversation at all. This can be a good prompt for some journaling. It could be a good prompt for a dialogue with your therapist or a close friend, but I think making sure you have some time to sit on your own and really think this through can be helpful.
I like to ask myself questions like, why is it important to have this conversation? Sometimes you may come to the conclusion, "Maybe it's not that important to have this conversation. Maybe I don't actually need to confront this person on this thing. Maybe I can just let it go" or "Maybe it actually really is crucial to have this conversation."
To dive into that a little bit deeper, you can ask yourself, what are the pros and what are the cons of having this conversation at all and similarly, what are the pros and cons of not having this conversation? What might I risk if I choose to continue not having this conversation? What might I risk if I just neglect having this conversation? I think that can help at least put in perspective what's at stake here for you and can help motivate you to face that discomfort. I think you need to have a good reason to face the discomfort because it's always going to be a lot easier at the end of the day to just be comfortable.
Jase: I think that's such a great reminder of the fact that not having the conversation is also a choice. That sometimes we think, "Oh, I'm just going to avoid making the choice to have that conversation." By doing that, you're also making a choice to continue the life where you haven't had that conversation. Making those pros and cons is a really great way to make that clearer to yourself that by not having the conversation, you are choosing to keep going the way you're going right now.
Emily: This next way to tackle a awkward conversation is one of my favorites and one that I've done quite a few times. It's a classic. You could write a letter ahead of time. I have written letters to people regarding challenging conversations that I have both sent and not sent. I think that's really crucial because again, like Dedeker said in the last one, if you find once you've put your thoughts together in written form, and that's often how I really like to think is writing it down, it's a little bit easier for me than just talking it out one-on-one but to really get your thoughts together in a cohesive manner first and really know how you're going to approach this conversation.
Sometimes you might find when you do that, that it's not actually something that you are as upset about or really need to talk about and maybe just that simple act of going through getting your thoughts down and really being clear about what it is that you're upset about, that will relieve you of those feelings in a way or show you that, "Hey, I maybe need to work on this thing a bit myself and maybe what I'm really upset about is my own shit and not necessarily my partner's or this other person's even though I may be projecting it onto them that they're the ones doing something to me." I think that's really crucial to get a handle on as well.
Jase: Yes. It's funny. I remember a time years ago when Dedeker did something that upset me, and I don't even remember what it was, but I wrote down.
Dedeker: Could be anything, many, many things could.
Emily: Terrible
Jase: I wrote down. Just on my phone, wrote a note for myself in my little journal about it. It was paragraphs and paragraphs and paragraphs about how upset I was about this thing. I also knew, and we'll talk about this a little more in a sec, but I knew that we had a RADAR coming up in maybe a week or so. I knew there was going to be a time to talk about it, but wanted to make sure I wrote it down so I knew what I needed to talk about.
Two interesting things happened. One is that by the time that RADAR happened, I was much less upset about that thing and so it was actually a much simpler, easier conversation than I thought it was going to be when I had originally written it. Also was that having written it down did help me before that RADAR to check back in and be like, "Do I remember the things I did want to address?" and was able to evaluate which of these are the actually the important parts, and which was just me being upset in that moment?
I think there's both advantages that sometimes you're more calm afterward, but also you still remember, "Oh, yes, these were the thoughts that were important to me. Let's make sure we address the core of those to help make actual improvements moving forward." The fact that I don't even remember what it was, I guess means that it worked. It's not like that's enough over and over again now.
Emily: One of the, I think, great things about RADAR, is the idea that ideally you're coming into it when you are more physiologically calm and especially after a really big blow-up with a partner, it's so great to give yourself some time to chill the fuck out because really, that tends to be a thing. I think when we're going into conversations that are challenging when we're at our worst or when we are really emotionally charged in a physiological way, we can say things that we don't actually mean or that we could be putting better. Or if we have those underlying hurts, they may come out in those really vulnerable angry moments and that's probably not the greatest thing or time to do that.
If you can come to these conversations when you are physiologically calm, that is super ideal because you don't want to be adding more fuel to the fire when it's already going to be potentially challenging to even have this conversation in the first place.
Dedeker: As calm as you can get, right, because-
Emily: Sure.
Dedeker: -we can acknowledge that if you have something awkward or scary to share, like your body's probably going to respond, you're probably going to be at least a little bit sweaty or your heart might be racing a little bit, or your body might be fidgeting and like, that's okay.
I think we're just talking about distinguishing that little bit of adrenaline activation from, "I'm in the middle of a knockdown drag out, angry, tearful, fight with my partner, and now's the time that we're going to sit down to have this super awkward conversation or this really deep disclosure or things like that," but as many things as you can control for as far as getting yourself and the other person as calm as possible is probably a good approach.
Jase: Along those lines, if you are feeling that nervousness or you know tension or fear even, something like that, one thing that you can do is to just acknowledge that and be honest about it. It could be something as simple as, "I'm feeling really nervous about this conversation, so bear with me as I'm trying to gather my thoughts," and realize that that might make the other person also feel a little bit nervous knowing that you're nervous about it, but at least the fact that you're acknowledging it and being honest about it, I find takes the edge off a little bit. It's not like I'm picking up non-verbally on this person being really nervous to talk to me, but I don't know why and so now, I'm scared.
Them saying it upfront, at least, it's like, "Okay, we're acknowledging that we're starting from the same reality and that I'm able to get where you're coming from and not just be picking up on it through my mirror neurons, picking up on your nervousness and I don't understand why, and so now, I feel nervous and I don't understand why," that just saying it upfront can help.
Another version of that is to say, I feel scared to say this out loud, but I'm going to do my best, is another one, so then it's not so much nervousness, maybe that's there too, but this idea that you're acknowledging the fact that this is vulnerable and that this is scary for you to say, and so it puts them in the place of being able to support you more, coming knowing that you're coming from a place of being scared to say it is different because maybe you don't come across that way, maybe they're not getting nervous, scared vibes from you. Maybe you just always seem so confident to them, so they might react very differently to you than you expect because they don't pick up on that.
Again, it can be really helpful. Then it could be something like, "This may be an uncomfortable conversation, but we'll get through it," or maybe something like, "This is an uncomfortable thing to talk about, but I want to talk to you about this because you're important to me or because this relationship is important to me." Just something to both put you on common footing so you understand what's going on, but then also to just be clear so they're not trying to guess because they might guess wrong like we mentioned before with the size while you're doing the laundry or something like that.
Dedeker: I also like to give people formulas to follow. I know for myself, sometimes I'm just super overwhelmed by, "How do I even begin"? I get a little bit nervous that if I just head into an uncomfortable conversation without any prep, that I don't know, I'm going to babble or I'm going to clam up or I'm not going to say the things that I wanted to say, or I'm not going to hit the important points that I wanted to hit, or they're going to misunderstand me or maybe I'm going to get too nervous and not be able to speak, so I like to, at least, have some formula to follow to at least have a starting point. It doesn't mean you have to follow that formula when you're actually having the conversation.
Again, some of this can just be what you journal about as your prep for heading into this conversation, so there's a lot of great formulas out there to follow. I really like the difficult conversation formula that was developed by Reid Mako. Have your opinion about Reid Mako, but I really like the format which is basically, you write down at least three things that you're scared of happening as a result of having the conversation. Write down at least three things that you do want or that you're hopeful for as a result of having the conversation, and then write down what's the thing that you haven't been telling this person or that you want to tell this person.
You can choose just to do that by itself, just to get, again, a sense for yourself of, "What are the stakes here? What is my why here?" Or, "What am I actually hoping to get out of this conversation?" Then you head into the conversation, or that can be a format for a letter or that can be a format for what you say to the person. I do think there's something about being vulnerable enough to share what does scare you and also what it is that you're hoping for as a result of having the conversation.
That's one formula to try something like nonviolent communication or Clear Talk is also a good formula to start with so stating an observation, stating a feeling, expressing a need, and then making a request. You can go check out our episodes on NBC and on Clear Talk for that.
Then of course, we always have to give a little shout-out to our radar framework because again, we developed radar with specifically non-monogamous folks in mind, specifically with being able to provide people a rhythm for doing uncomfortable things like disclosing information about other relationships or checking in about money or checking in about sex or things like that within a container that you and your partner have agreed on as a team in order to make these conversations feel a little bit safer and maybe a little bit less uncomfortable. I think in doubt, find some kind of framework or formula that you can follow almost to give yourself like a, I don't know, like a guardrail to hold onto.
Emily: It's really important to get clear on what you're hoping for from this conversation. There's a lot of things that we talked about previously in terms of figuring out what it is that you're looking for in this conversation by journaling, by writing letters, by doing all of those things, but once you do figure that out, it's great to relay that to your partner.
Use something like our Triforce of communication to disclose and tell your partner, "Hey, I really would like some advice on this. This is really hard for me, this is really challenging," or, "I'm having a really tough time with this, so I just need to tell you and I hope that you can hear me and that you take this information, you don't need to say anything about it necessarily unless you really want to, but I just need to get it off of my chest," or, "I would really love some support from you on this because this has been a really tough time for me."
Jase: This next one I really like because it can be used along with any of these others. Say, for example, you do radar, which is really nice because you have it regularly, so you don't have to have that 'we need to talk moment' before you actually do the talking, because it's just, "Oh yes, we have this planned every month where we get to talk about whatever's on our minds, good and bad and all of that," but if you're finding that that's still challenging or it's just still, "We're falling into some bad patterns of either not communicating or communicating badly," is to change up the format or change up the setting.
This could be something, like for you, if communicating verbally is really hard, especially on this topic, see if the other person would be willing to discuss it via text or even just from the other room. Just you're texting each other from the other room, so if you need to run in and give a hug, you can, but that it could give you that way to gather your thoughts. Maybe it's even writing old-fashioned letters to each other, even if you're just walking to the other room to hand them to each other. It could also be making yourself feel more comfortable building a little nest for you to have that conversation in. It could be going for a walk and having a talk.
It's an interesting one because this is one that I personally really like because then it's like, "Okay, we're doing something. We're not just sitting here facing each other having this really difficult conversation," but then I did have one partner who, when I suggested that, she got really weird about it and she was like walks out when you talk about bad things in your relationship, that like she had that association with it.
Emily: Let's go for a walk.
Jase: Right. That really freaked her out about going for a walk, and so it's like, "Okay, that's not a good fit for us then." Or maybe it's like you've been having those hard talks on walks, maybe find something else instead. This is one that Dedeker and I have liked to do over the years, which is doing your radar or just having that talk out in the world somewhere in a park or a café or something like that.
Caveat here, of course, is be sure you talk about it beforehand. It's better if you both know what you're going to be talking about because some people might feel supported and more relaxed being outside of the house in this situation around other people, but for other people, they could feel trapped. Like, "I'm not allowed to react the way I actually want to react because I'm in public and these people are watching me." Just be sure you're communicating about that beforehand.
Emily: It's really important to remember repair, and I specifically I'm talking about pre-emptive repair. As in the ways that we preemptively, I don't know, try to create a sense of, "We're on a team and things are safe and things are okay,". It could be something like, "Hey, I know that you have tried really hard to make me feel safe, to be honest. I also still feel scared having to be honest with you right now," because I know some of the drawback of sharing feeling scared is then some people can take that personally of like, "What am I doing? Something to scare you or what have I not been safe enough?" Something like that can be helpful.
It can be helpful to bring good-natured fun and humor into these discussions. It's okay to laugh at the awkward nature of a conversation. It's okay to have that release. I think especially around awkward conversations like having STI or safer sex conversations especially if it's with a newer partner or someone you haven't had this kind of conversation before, I think it's to be playful as long as you're getting the message across. It doesn't have to be super serious doom and gloom necessarily.
Dedeker: If you are the one who is receiving the disclosure or the communication from the other person, if you're on the receiving end of this challenging talk, all of these things are really important as well. It's important that ideally, you are a person that your partner feels safe enough to come to when these things are happening. We talked about this a little bit in our Safer Spaces episode and I think that's hard especially if you have past instances of maybe that not going as well.
It can make it sometimes more difficult for you or your partner to want to come to each other and have these types of conversations. If you want to do better in the future, you can acknowledge that you have your own feelings that are coming up. Also, make an effort to acknowledge that the other person is making, an effort in this conversation and trying to tell you something even though it's difficult.
You can say things like, "I really appreciate you sharing this with me, even if you are having a hard time with it," or, "Thanks for bringing this up, our good friend, Phoebe Phillips, who does the Polyammering blog, she talked about this script which was thank you for your honesty." Even if something is really challenging to hear, just thanking your partner for them being honest with you about something because that's a nice acknowledgment. You appreciate that your partner had the courage to be vulnerable enough but also be honest with you about something that's challenging for them. Just acknowledge that even if it is difficult for you internally.
Jase: Yes, I love that one. Just, thank you for your honesty. Somehow to me works so well because it's true, and it is really the thing I appreciate is the fact that you were honest with me, but it's also neutral enough that it's not like I'm saying, "Oh, we're all good just because you told me," or, "I'm fine." It's like, "No, leave some room for I might be having a reaction but at the end of the day, I do want you to know I appreciate that you were honest even if I don't like it right now." I do think that's such a key part of that so I do really like that one.
To go back to something that Emily talked about earlier about, say you've had this big argument or this fight or something, giving yourself some time to regulate, calm down, things like that before you try to have the more serious honest conversation about it. The other is in the middle of that, if you start getting too activated to the point where you're just losing your cool or getting angry or sad or whatever it is, take some breaks. Maybe take five minutes or half an hour or whatever you need. As always, we recommend you don't take more than what is it, 12 hours is our usual.
Emily: More than 24 hours.
Dedeker: 24 hours, I think, yes, more than a day ideally.
Jase: Ideally, I think this would be a short enough break that you could continue that conversation so you're both not having to sit in that suspense of not talking about it. Unless you really need that time just logistically of, "Okay, we don't have time because I have to go to work," or something which sucks, ideally, you can time this so that you're not trying to have this conversation when it's going to be interrupted, but if you need to take a break. Then also, of course, get some professional help if you're able to, it really can go a long way toward helping with these challenging conversations to have that external point of view.
Dedeker: This reminded me of something that you actually talked about, I don't know, maybe at least five years ago now, Jase, but that you had a family member who was going to marriage counseling before getting married, and they realized, through that marriage counseling, that their lives were moving in different directions, and they ultimately decided to not stay together through that marriage counseling.
I think that that's a really important thing to realize, is that sometimes when you do get professional help, you realize that, "Hey, that really difficult conversation that we're now able to have because we're in this place with a professional where we feel vulnerable and good enough, and courageous enough to work through that, and we realize maybe this isn't the scenario that we want to be in anymore, the relationship that we want to be in anymore." It is okay to break up in those situations, but sometimes it's important to go through that because that may be the only way that you can even reach those times of, "I'm going to have this difficult conversation with a partner."
Jase: Yes, and that's something that a professional can also help you to get to that place for yourself too, to realize that perhaps this difficult conversation is one that either intentionally will end this relationship or has a possibility of causing this relationship to end. That even though that might seem like a failure somehow if you're looking at it from that outside point of view of any relationship ending is a failure, but actually, that might be the best thing.
It might even be your goal in this case, but being able to have that sooner and more honestly, is ultimately going to be better for everyone in that situation. Assuming that it is well thought out and that you're not doing it as a reaction to NRE as we've talked about before.
Emily: I wanted to drop in a caveat that if you're getting professional help especially if you're going to therapy with a partner, and if you have something that you'd need to disclose and you don't know how to tackle that conversation with a partner, it is good to enlist the help of the therapist. Bear in mind that certain therapists and counselors based on their training may refuse to keep a secret for you, so as in when you are ready to enlist their help, you need to be ready to disclose. It's probably it may be unlikely that you disclose something to a therapist.
I'm talking things like, "I've been cheating," or like, "I'm having an affair," or, "There's this big bombshell that I've been keeping from my partner," or, "Secretly, I want to break up with my partner but I'm not going to tell them," that a lot of therapists will not just be like, "Okay, fine, we'll continue couples therapy and I'll just hang on to that secret for you until you're ready". Just something to bear in mind that a good therapist will be there ready to encourage you to have that conversation and maybe even have that conversation while you're there with help.
Jase: With that said, getting professional help can also be a really great way for you to help figure out why this communication is difficult to have, and what it is that you are seeking to get out of it. All these questions we've been talking about, it can be really great to have that outside perspective to help you find that. Then, another thing to keep in mind with all of this is that even if you do all of this work and do your best to communicate honestly and clearly with the other person, whether that's a family member or a coworker or a partner, there is the chance that that person will be unwilling to communicate with you on that respectful honest level.
That might be something that they're just unwilling or maybe even unable to do. Then, just be aware that there's not some magic bullet way that you can phrase something that will always get the reaction you want. There's, at least, two people involved in this conversation when you have it, so just bear that in mind and that might be a deal breaker for this relationship or it might be something you need to work on together or that they need to work on individually with a professional. Just be aware of that, that this isn't something you can completely solve one-sided.
Emily: Last but not least, I like to do affirmations sometimes if I really need to pump myself up. I think this book ends nicely. We started this list talking about finding your why, and I think if you do that work of finding why it's important to you to have this uncomfortable conversation, that can help feed into what might be a good affirmation or a phrase that you can repeat to yourself, you can create something that affirms your identity and your values around communication.
Some examples may be, "I'm a person who communicates clearly and compassionately," you know super simple, and that's what motivates you to tackle this uncomfortable conversation. It could be something like, "I want to create a supportive environment in my relationships," or, "I'm brave enough to be honest, even if it's uncomfortable," or even something like maybe this truly, truly is scary, you don't know what the response is going to be, you don't know what the outcome of this conversation is going to be, maybe it's really a doozy, repeating to yourself, "I will make it through this conversation, whatever the outcome".
Finding something that's relatively neutral, even if you can't tell yourself, "Oh yes, it's all going to be fine. It's all going to be great. I'm going to feel so much better on the other side," you may not, right? If you can tap into that sense of your own resources and your own self-resilience, then that can help you to have the courage to tackle the conversation. For me, I really like that, I remember there was this particular passage in the ethical slut, and I think the example, it was about talking about sex or sexual health or something like that.
The author said something along the lines of, "A good slut can still talk about sex even if they're blushing," which is a little bit silly but I really internalized that and took it beyond having conversations about sex. For me, what I often tell myself is, "If you're blushing, you're doing it right". That means that you're doing it right. For me, it became about really reframing the actual feelings of discomfort to let myself know that, "No, this is a good sign. I feel vulnerable. I feel unsure. I feel embarrassed. It means I should be talking about this with my partner because vulnerability and honesty is what builds closer relationships."
Again, even if you don't know for sure that things are going to be all positive and rosy on the other side of it, I think it's important to, again, affirm that part of the reason why we're in a relationship at all is to feel that we can be vulnerable and honest and safe. Some of that is taking some of this risk and choosing to take on some of this awkwardness or discomfort. Folks, we want to hear from you. The question that's going to be up on our Instagram stories this week is, we want to know what's your advice for getting through awkward or uncomfortable conversations, how do you get through it? Can't wait to hear your responses.