How to start a hard conversation · In Practice, Attune

When you already know a conversation is going to be difficult, the hardest part is almost always the first sentence. Couples do not avoid these conversations because they want things left unresolved. They avoid them because they cannot find an opening that does not sound like an accusation.

There is a better way in, and the research on it is unusually specific about why it works.

The first three minutes decide it

How a hard conversation opens is not a matter of manners. It is close to determinative.

Research revealed that discussions will end on the same note they begin.

Dr. Ellie Wilde, The Gottman Institute

Which means the effort is best spent before you begin rather than on recovering once it has gone wrong.

Start from your own experience

Begin with what you have noticed in yourself rather than with a description of what your partner does. “I notice I feel disconnected when we go a long stretch without checking in” lands differently from “you never check in with me”. Both can be accurate. Only one of them invites an answer.

Then say what you want rather than what you want to stop. A request is a doorway. A complaint is a verdict with a question mark on the end.

A format that works

Say what you have noticed in yourself. Add what you would like more of. Then ask a real question, one you genuinely want the answer to. The question is what makes it a conversation instead of a speech.

At the core of every successful conversation lies the free flow of relevant information.

Kerry Patterson and others, Crucial Conversations

Acknowledge before you argue

The instinct when you disagree is to explain why. The more useful move is to show that you have understood the other position first, even when you are about to differ with it.

Rather than trying to change how you think of or feel about your counterpart, our work suggests that you should focus on changing your own behavior.

Julia Minson, Greater Good Magazine

This costs nothing and it is the step most often skipped, usually because it feels like conceding. It is not. It is the thing that makes the rest of the conversation possible.

Agree on the pause before you need it

Couples who handle hard conversations well still escalate. What they have is an agreement about what happens when they do.

A named pause with a time on it is not the same as going quiet. “I want to keep going with this, I need twenty minutes first” says you are coming back. The specificity is what makes it a plan rather than a door closing.

Decide this on a good day

The best time to agree what your pause looks like is when you are not in one. If you have never talked about it, raise it when things are calm: what should we do when one of us needs a break?

Use what you already know about each other

If one of you moves toward resolution quickly and the other needs space first, say so before the conversation starts rather than in the middle of it. Neither pace is the right one, and naming both in advance takes the sting out of what would otherwise look like avoidance on one side and pressure on the other.