My book proposal is DONE!

The book, Tired of Having the Same Old Argument, is born. Its infant stage, a book proposal, is DONE!

This week it will take its first step, out of my hands and into the world. Into the literary world of agents, and then publishers, and then book stores, book mailers, and finally it will find its new homes, with readers who will translate the pictograms in black and white first back into sound, and then thought and then finally, back into understanding - my understanding about love and marriage - and the cycle will be complete.

This kind of writing, trying to hand what I understand to another is new to me. It’s not at all like the poetry or self-reflective prose I’ve written for years in writing groups. Those groups let me form words in the moment and pin them down like butterflies, and then just admire the natural beauty of it all.

This writing is more like stone sculpture. Elise and I went to the Accademia Gallery in Florence that has some of Michelangelo’s unfinished work. You can still see the huge stone block and the heavy hammer blows he used to cut away what was not wanted. In some cases, his chisel made it all the way in to where the hand or an elbow should be and unable to resist it, he changed to a lighter hammer and a smaller chisel, and he carved not just flesh, but veins beneath the skin appear. So incongruous a quarter inch from rough hewn stone, and yet so completely convincing you can see the pulse if you stare.

Writing non-fiction seems just like that to me. You block out ideas, hammer them down to the paper, and from time to time, polish some perfect moment right down to the pulsing life of your original thought.

Then the polishing begins. Chipping away the not-quite-right, turning a sentence around and round until the words recede and the living meaning is all that can be seen.

After months of polishing, the few chapters I have finished say as close to exactly what I wanted to say as I can imagine. I’m sure the reader will agree. I can feel it.

The question is: will those employed in the business of publishing, agree?

Controlling Controlling Partners

It's been an interesting week. I've done two sixth (last) sessions, and two first sessions. It really shows how much can happen in just six weeks.

One of the couples I just finished with came in with a really popular issue: The Controlling Partner (and by implication: The Partner Who Feels Controlled).



In this case, the wife felt like her partner wanted everything his way. He was "always" correcting, suggesting, and judging. Occasionally, he would ask for input, and then he'd go ahead and do it exactly the way he wanted to. Sound familiar?

I put "always" in quotes, because it is a red flag that I listen for. It tells me that the speaker is describing their experience of what happened, and that their perception is distorted. Nobody does anything always.

It certainly was true that this husband knew how he liked things. It was also true that he really wanted to share the load, but he didn't feel met by his wife, so in the vacuum of her speaking out about what she wanted, he went ahead and did what he thought was what they both wanted. I call this the "Generous Controller." Most "controllers" are trying to be generous, though it certainly doesn't feel that way to their partner.

Even though the "controller" obviously has a lot to learn about how to cooperate, I want to talk about the judger - the one who calls their partner a controller.

In this case, we went over a few instances of his "control" and in each case; his behavior was motivated by a positive intention. As the wife went from example to example, she began to see her husband in a new light. Here was the man she had married because she liked how he made an effort to please her. She liked his proactive nature.

What she didn't like was not having input, but then whose responsibility is that? I will teach the husband how to seek it out, but I focused this session on having the wife notice how hard it is for her to advocate for her own needs.

We practiced some, and in every case, when her needs were expressed non-violently, he was completely open to co-creating a solution.

As so often happens, the "controller" in a relationship is the creation of the one feeling controlled. And keeping their focus on their partner not only created tension and judgment, it kept them from knowing what it was they needed.

The Story of Max, Elise and Teamwork Mediation

Although born fifteen years apart, Elise and I had very similar lives before we met.  We had both had done a lot of personal growth work, had done a lot of education, and although both of us had very rich and fun single lives, neither of us had married by the time we met at 35 and 50 years of age respectively.

The roots of Teamwork Mediation began before we’d even moved in together. In the wake of 9/11, I noticed that in just a few weeks, the rest of the world went from total support and concern for the people of the U.S. to turning their back on us, just because of the strident way the U.S. government spoke about its fear and hurt. This struck me as so analogous to what happens to individuals who go from infatuation and love to seeing each other as enemies. But what to do about it?

I found a weekend mediation program that I wanted to take as a way of learning better skills for dealing with conflict, both personal and political. Elise decided to take the training too.

Our Lawnmower Story (Everyone had one, right?)

After the training, Elise and I did more than a year apprenticing in a Small Claims Court to practice our skills, and it was here that we began to develop what we eventually named “Teamwork Mediation,” which we talk about in our book. 

The case that started us on this path involved two old neighbors who were also best friends. One of them had loaned the other his beat up, old lawn mower, and it had been returned broken so he was suing his friend! 

“We’ve been best friends for over 30 years, but I’ll never speak to him again!” said the borrower. Our training taught us how to help the disputants focus on the issues, so we could help them decide on the fair value of the item, and settle the case. And I started to do just that.

But Elise is a kind-hearted being, and her focus was elsewhere. “You’re willing to let a 30 year friendship go? For a lawnmower? Thirty years?” We three men could actually feel the lawnmower begin to recede from the room as Elise’s compassion helped us focus on the deeper need: the value of human connection.

They were sacrificing their life-long relationship for a broken-down power-tool.  Elise began to apply the soothing techniques of mediation to the relationship, instead of focusing on resolving the legal issue. Once the relationship was healed, the lawnmower and the legal issue were summarily dismissed by both parties.

That was the first in a long string of cases, in which we began to mediate the relationship instead of the issues. At first the judge would call us on our method, “This isn’t couple’s counseling! It’s small claims court!” But we were having amazing success with our new method, and after a while, even the other mediators began to notice that instead of randomly assigning cases, any case which involved an ongoing relationship got assigned to us.

After some time, Elise and I wanted to teach our clients the skills of conflict resolution. After all, it had only taken us 30 hours to learn to be mediators, and it was really changing the way she and I communicated with each other.  Since most of our clients had ongoing relationships, we wanted to share this new information with them, so we started doing what we called “teaching points.” 

The problem was, mediators are neutral – not involved in the conflict. Our clients were involved, and so the mediator skill set wasn’t quite right.

One of the other mediators came to us one day and said, “You want to be teaching them NVC – Non-Violent Communication.” It’s like mediation, but designed for regular people to use in their conversations and conflicts.

He was right.  NVC was exactly what we were looking for. So we began to create a hybrid form of mediation. We’d use our skills to demonstrate that the dispute could be resolved, and then we’d teach the clients the applicable NVC concept so they could do it themselves.

And Teamwork Mediation was born. 

Is there a “lawn mower” issue you’re dealing with? Have you lost sight of the value of one of your precious relationships over whether the toilet seat is down, or the top is back on the tooth paste tube? Tell us about it…