Step Six: Stop avoiding important conversations. Often times the problem is a lack of real communication. When this is happening you may find yourself telling your spouse about problems with your boss, telling your friends about problems with your spouse, or telling your mother about problems with your sister, but not talking to the person you are having the problems with. If you find yourself doing this or if someone says to you, “You might want to talk to them about that”, you are avoiding a conversation you need to have.

Avoiding the conversation you need to have can also take the form of chronic, nonspecific conflict. For example, you have concerns that your elderly mother may need to come and live with you and your spouse, but you have decided that your spouse would probably say no, so you don’t bring it up. Instead you begin to harbor resentment about it that comes out in other ways such as not wanting to have sex, spending more time out of the house, or finding the negative in everything. Your spouse reacts negatively and the conflicts just continue to get worse.

According to psychologist Dan Wile, you have three choices when faced with interpersonal conflict:

Attack and defend; Avoid or deny; or Self-disclose and connect.

Self-disclose and Connect may seem like the scariest of the three choices, but it is actually the least frightening when you consider that it is the only one that can truly preserve and improve the relationship. Using the above example, either person could take the initiative and say, “I’m feeling really scared/upset about what’s been going on with us lately and I don’t know where to start or what to do about it.” At that point the discussion could turn to the issue of the elderly mother and how the couple could work as a team to solve the problem.

Practice using “I” statements with those you love and trust in your personal life. They can take the form of “I feel _______ because _______” to get you started. Keep track of them in your Relationship Notebook and note the impact on your personal relationships of your willingness to disclose your feelings.