Week 10 - How to Deal With a Gridlock

“The Light of Christ lights every man and woman who comes to mortality. That Light knows that He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No man or woman comes to a healthy relationship without His prospering principles.” – H. Wallace Goddard, PhD, author of Drawing Heaven into Your Marriage, pg. 146

I had the great opportunity to read yet another very informative chapter from Dr. Gottman’s book called The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work. In this particular chapter, I have learned about this thing called Gridlock. Getting gridlocked happens when partners can’t find a way to accommodate irreconcilable differences, or perpetual disagreements. A few examples of perpetual disagreements would be the wife wants to baptize the child, but the husband would rather raise an agnostic child. The husband wants to buy a speedboat, but the wife wants to go back to school.

I have also learned about how to overcome getting gridlocked in just a few steps.

Step One: Recognizing Dreams

It is best to sit down with a loved one such as a spouse, family member, or friend and calmly talk about each other’s dreams, wishes, hopes, and ambitions. Lately I have been doing my best to voice my thoughts in a calm manner with my mom and other loved ones when we discuss what we want to do or what we want to see happen in our life.

Step Two: Soothe

In my opinion, the primary goal of avoiding a gridlock is to comfort your spouse or other person in question. Please don’t belittle their dream. Reassure them that their thoughts are valid and important to you. I know sometimes I tend to get mad and struggle to think outward, thus take into account how the other person has been affected. However, once I realize that the other person is hurt, I calm down and focus on soothing them and reassure their thoughts, feelings, and dreams are perfectly valid.

Step Three: Reach a Temporary Compromise via The Two-Circle Method

I learned a new thing in Dr. Gottman’s book. When you are in an argument with another person, just sit in another room from them and the two of you should draw two circles. The smaller circle inside the bigger one. The smaller circle should have wishes that you will not change on whereas the bigger circle should have wishes you can be flexible with. Hopefully there will be more written in the bigger circle rather than the little one. Then the two of you meet up again and compare circles. Then decide which statements you two are willing to work with together.

Step Four: Say “Thank You”

Always be sure to thank your loved one for being willing to listen to you and show gratitude for all they do. Dr. Gottman has put it best, “Expressions of thanksgiving and praise are the antidotes to the poison of criticism and its deadly cousin, contempt” (Gottman, pg. 283).

I think if you do all four steps and you incorporate some of Christ’s teachings of love and charity, you can overcome getting gridlocked in almost any situation.