Nonviolent Communication and Conflict Management

I recently experienced a disagreement with my husband in which I had to be conscious of certain communication strategies so that the discussion would be productive instead of creating a breakdown. It was a conversation about my brother-in-law and his relationship with his girlfriend. I made a comment about the relationship which was not in favor of his girlfriend. My husband felt I was wrong for stating my opinion because the topic of discussion had nothing to do with his brother’s relationship, and I should have “stayed in my lane”. After reflecting on the interaction with my brother-in-law, I apologized to him (my brother-in-law) and explained it was wrong for me to assume anything about him and his girlfriend. In telling my husband that I apologized, he said I was wrong for my comment in the first place. In this moment, I wanted to react my normal way which is to become defensive (voiced raised, heightened emotions) because I felt like he was telling me I did something wrong in having/expressing an opinion. But, I thought about certain strategies that I have learned about and tried to implement those into the conversation. One strategy I used was I thought about the elements of NVC and took into consideration his feelings, needs, observations, and requests. I observed that his emotion level was rising in regards to a certain feeling he was having because his family is always judging him and commenting on everything he does in his life. With this identification, I realized it wasn’t a personal attack towards me.

                                           
    
Since I followed how he was feeling, I was able to look for a broader range of solutions to this disagreement and chose an appropriate channel in which to communicate with him. For example, although we were in each other’s presence, instead of walking away…I chose to speak calmly while clearly expressing my intent for this particular discussion (which was understanding) because I noticed that this topic was very sensitive for him. In that moment, emotionally, he was putting himself as the subject of the situation (putting himself in place of his brother) and reacted to me as if someone had commented on his relationship. In knowing this, I understood that he wasn’t getting upset at me…he was expressing himself defensively as if someone had made the comment to him and in taking a step back and knowing where his emotions were coming from, I responded accordingly. It proved to be a productive dialogue of understanding.