Move from the limiting “me vs. you” to the relational freedom of “us.”

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Wednesday, 9pm. Kids are finally asleep. I crawl over to the sofa and join my wife and zone out in front of Netflix. She then turns around to me to me and says: “I want to tell you something you might not like to hear… It’s not about you, it’s about what happened with the kids after you forgot to pack their lunches.” I take a moment to ground myself, take some deep breaths, and reposition myself across from her. I nod that I’m ready. She continues to share what happened that day. Although it wasn’t easy, I was able to hear what happened without being defensive, cut off or reactive.

In this story, my wife managed to find a way to tell an uncomfortable truth and to stay close to me. I managed to also hear her frustration and hold on to my sense of worth without collapsing or attacking. That ability to hold on to yourself and stay intimate with your partner is called "differentiation". A key component that allowed us to stay differentiated, and that many couples underappreciate, is relational priming.

Some couples have binary core beliefs about relationship: You are either right or wrong, a winner or loser. Such core beliefs are limiting; they lock couples into adversarial roles in which they are against each other, trying to convince the other of their own position and prove they are right. Such a combative dynamic lowers the chances that your partner can be willing, empathic, and reflective to constructive feedback. That leads to couples giving up on the hope of constructive confrontation and retreating into either apathy or surrendering to never-ending battles.

What can help, then?

Relational Priming

Relational priming (RP) means you give your partner a heads-up before you deliver a message that you intuit they won’t like. It sounds easy but is a daily conscious practice. RP is one skill out of many intimacy skills couples need to learn in order to have a good relationship. RP has several personal and relational benefits:

• RP helps your partner prepare mentally, emotionally, and physically to be more receptive and less defensive.
• RP slows down the dialogue, which prevents quick escalation and flooding.
• RP is a meta-move beyond dichotomy-adversary. It signals to your partner that you are not against them but rather for the relationship. RP is a way you tell your partner: “Hey, I don’t want to fight, I want to be more vulnerable. Let’s work on this together.”
• RP gives space and respect for emotions to come up, peak, and subside. It gives respect to the wave-like nature of feelings.
• RP helps you grow. As RP helps you listen openly to your partner’s feedback, there is a good chance that their input will touch you. The external feedback will not only show you some of your blind spots, but allow you to accept influence and evolve.

RP is not simply a verbal warning, it is a movement that must be anchored in several relational skills you will have to strengthen in order to enjoy its maximum potential.

Know Thyself

You first need to learn to identify: What are you feeling in the moments? Why are you feeling it? What triggered you? Where did that trigger come from? And so on. Begin with connecting to your body and developing tools to help you know what you are feeling.

Self-Soothe

You can’t caution your partner over something you can’t control or time. Once you learn to better identify your feelings, you will need to know how to tame them. For some of us, emotional regulation is easy; for others, like me, it is a lifelong process. You will need to regulate your feelings so as not to act them out, shut down, or spew your pain, none of which will help your relationship.

Know Thy Partner

You will need to pay attention to the topics or dimensions in your relationship that are sensitive for your partner. That familiarity will help you discern when you need to prime at all. Knowing where your partner is sensitive, and then priming your partner one step before you reach their triggering point, is the art of RP.

Play

Play is the lubricant of relationships. It allows you to be curious, light, and flexible. It also means that there is less fear of mistakes or failures. Being playful also signals to your partner that you are not preparing to fight but rather to communicate honestly. Play will help you be more forgiving when your priming fails to avoid or minimize a fight.

Using RP alone won’t change your marriage. But it is a crucial relational skill that can help you and your partner to work together as a team in order to avoid unnecessary conflict. It will help you evolve from the limiting "me vs. you" to the relational freedom of “us.”