Conflict Resolution for Couples: "Just the Tools" Edition

By Paul R. Shaffer

This “Just the Tools” Edition is an abbreviated version of Paul Shaffer’s “Conflict Resolution for Couples – the R.I.V.E.R. Method”, of which the 15th Anniversary Edition came out in 2020.

This leaner edition focuses on just the core tools that Paul teaches when doing couple’s work – the basics that every couple needs to know:

• The 5-step conflict resolution model (R.I.V.E.R.)
• The 26 “rules” (ABC’s) for avoiding a fight
• Healthy routines for making and maintaining relational growth

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Sep 10, 2014
• ISBN: 9781496936141

Paul R. Shaffer

Paul R. Shaffer contributed to nature guides from Golden Guides and St. Martin's Press.

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© 2014 Paul R. Shaffer. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 01/20/2023

ISBN: 978-1-4969-3615-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-3616-5 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-3614-1 (e)

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and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Foreword

Chapter 1 Conflict 101

Chapter 2 Types and Styles

Chapter 3 The Conflict Model (Part 1) – Avoiding Reactivity

Chapter 4 The Conflict Model (Part 2) – When an Issue Exists

Chapter 5 Reflecting on & Identifying the Issue

Chapter 6 Validating the Issue

Chapter 7 Explaining the Issue

Chapter 8 Resolving the Issue

Chapter 9 Making & Maintaining Changes

Chapter 10 Healthy Routines

Afterword: Balance

After the Afterword

Appendix A Tools

Appendix B The Exercises

Foreword

This being the Just the Tools edition of Conflict Resolution for Couples, you, the reader, may have some questions as to what differentiates this edition from its parent book, the R.I.V.E.R. Method Edition (updated for its 15th Anniversary, as of 2020). The R.I.V.E.R. Method Edition included four chapters on foundational aspects to relationships as well as two chapters on crisis situations (affairs and marital separation). This edition is for those who just wanted the core tools without all of the additional information. It consists of the 5-step conflict model (R.I.V.E.R.), the ABC’s (26 tools) to avoid a fight, and the healthy routines that maintain relationship growth.

Experience has taught me that most people, myself included, do not have very good study skills. By this, I mean that most people, even though they can read and comprehend what they are reading, do not approach a book in a way that makes it likely that they will retain what has been read.

Most strategies learned in high school and college were time-based strategies. You learned what you needed for the test and then forgot about it. The focus was only on short-term retention. Keeping this in mind, I would like to suggest some strategies for approaching this book in a way that will make it likely to have a more meaningful and lasting impact on your life.

1. For couples, one of the best ways to read this book is with the significant other. I don’t mean that you are both trying to read at the same time, but rather one person reads to the other. While this is not a necessity (or maybe even a possibility, depending on the situation), the benefits multiply immensely. When you read, you typically make observations about the relationship in question that, in the moment, make a difference to you. However, if your partner is not present, those observations often go unshared and then get lost in time.

Reading together is visible evidence that you are both willing to work on the relationship - that you care.

If the relationship is currently hostile, it is likely that feedback directed at your partner while reading together might be taken as an attack or a judgment, and should probably be avoided. If your partner is open to reading along, then the suggestion would be to only make comments on the things that you feel apply to you or the relationship in general.

It is possible to apply the methods discussed in this book without the other ever having read it, but, for maximum effect, it is recommended that both parties do the reading, and, as a result, be able to support the same changes in their approach.

2. Take your time reading. Give yourself permission to take the time to think through what you are reading. Don’t let this be just another self-help book under your belt, another task to finish.

If you truly want help with the quality of your relationship, it deserves the time spent in investigating solutions. Think of it in terms of someone panning for gold. If they go too fast in their search, they are likely to overlook what they are searching for. So, if you find yourself beginning to skim, you’re going too fast.

Try to choose a peaceful moment to do your reading. If you’re trying to squeeze it in during the middle of a hectic day, you may not be fully attending to what you’re reading. You will be trying to shift mental gears to take in the content, but your background attention is going to be on watching the clock.

3. Look for how what you are reading applies to your own life. People will approach self-help reading as a method for learning about others without necessarily thinking about how it applies to themselves. Couples reading this type of book will often be looking for information about their significant other while overlooking opportunities for self-insight.

I continue to do therapy and support groups from time to time and it always amazes me how someone can be in a group for a while and eventually make the comment, I just can’t see how any of this relates to me. Learning by association is a skill. It involves looking for common threads, parallel meanings. They are always there if you look for them.

Emotional pain is a common experience that connects us all. Conflict in relationships is an everyday occurrence. While individual problems may be different, the strategies for solving them are often usable across the board.

4. Consider using a highlighter or underline when you read. As you come across sections that strike a chord in you (whether because you are in strong agreement, or because it’s a new insight or perspective that deserves further thought, or something that would be great to share with another) highlight them so you can come back to them later. In this way you are making the book an easy reference for later use and incorporating the parts that have the most significance for you.

If you have identified the personally relevant highpoints for yourself in this book, you are much more likely to come back and reread it since you have markers to show you where to go. If you fail to highlight or underline you are less likely to expend the energy later to go back and search the pages to try to find the memorable parts. As a result, you may lose those insights over time as your memory of what you read fades.

5. Write down any insights you arrive at as you read. Different than highlighting, if a statement sets off a series of thoughts for you that leads to some relevant conclusions or understandings, take the time to actually write your thoughts down in a notebook. You’re not duplicating what’s already written, but rather the line of thinking that the written words inspired.

Often, I will ask clients to bring notebooks with them to sessions. This is because we will usually cover a lot of territory in a single session and there will probably be several relevant points or strategies identified. If the client is trying to retain it all without any source for hanging onto it other than by memory, much of it will often be lost.

Most people remember things based on what are called the primacy and recency effects. According to these effects, you tend to remember the beginning and the end of an event (in this case, the beginning or ending of a chapter) and forget what happened in the middle. Logging insights is one way of retaining that elusive middle.

6. Repetition is the key. The only way to keep something active in your mind in order to make a conscious change in your life is to review it. Again and again. Recent research says that what makes a new, healthier behavior likely to become a positive habit is the frequency with which that new behavior is practiced.¹

Just because you intellectually learn a strategy for controlling your anger, it will do you no good if it’s not actually applied. Think of it along the lines of the training that an athlete goes through. There is a repetition of exercises that train the body to do what it needs to do without thought. At first it is awkward, because the old thinking or behavior is stronger and more familiar. With repetition, however, we are carving a new pathway, one that initially requires intentional thought but which, over time, can develop into a pattern of response that becomes second nature.

7. There are exceptions to every rule. So, too, to everything in this book there is an exception. The reason I am making this point is because you need to read this book with discretion and creativity. The rules/tools listed here are guidelines with which you need to be flexible so that you can fine-tune them to fit your own relationship. The basis for each of the rules is sound, but try not to approach them so rigidly that you are trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. I recognize that there is no way I can write a book that covers every aspect of conflict that might arise. So try to be flexible in your thinking, finding creative ways to use the tools described.

8. Don’t turn this into work. Make it something positive. You are much more likely to retain what you are reading if you give it a chance and let yourself get into it. A new insight, a fresh way of looking at things, can be inspiring. Perhaps use the visual image of seeing yourself adding to your wealth of knowledge. You are continuing to grow by stretching yourself in new ways, entertaining new ideas or reviewing old ones that you may have forgotten.

You may notice as you read that I tend to stay with the traditional husband/wife or male/female relational dynamic with the examples that I use. This is not meant to intentionally exclude other partner pairings, it’s just an easier way to use pronouns without it becoming confusing as to whom I’m referring. Even with same-sex relationships, there still tends to be one partner who is more the man, and the other who is more the woman - so, staying with he and she still translates. Ultimately, while my professional expertise is with traditional pairings, the actual conflict resolution rules and guidelines are universal, and not restricted to a particular sex or pairing combination.

Enjoy the read!

Chapter 1

Conflict 101

When I do couple’s work, my job, initially, is to get a sense of what tools the couple already has and start introducing them to better ones than what they’ve been using. So, most of what I do at the beginning is educational. I have to teach the couple a slightly different language than what they currently use, and introduce some relational concepts that will help them better understand what’s going on with them.

From there, once the language and tools are in place, the focus turns to applying what the couple has learned to their particular situation - using those new tools to move through their issues. Sometimes, just having learned new relational approaches will help resolve some of their issues because the actual issue behind the presenting issues was a lack of relational education.

So, too, rather than just jumping into the 5-step conflict model, with these first two chapters I’m going to cover some of the basic concepts and terminology that help couples better understand their relationships. They’ll create a useful foundation for moving through the rest of the book.

Conflict is inevitable in any relationship. Yet many people enter into relationships with the expectations that, if it’s a good relationship, there should be no conflict. So, when conflict does occur, people often end up incorrectly concluding that the relationship was a mistake.

People will deny, avoid, repress or ignore conflict in hopes that it will go away. But a healthy relationship is often determined by how smoothly conflict can be worked through, rather than ignored. It is a skill that, even if not modeled by your caregivers when you were growing up, is learnable.

When it comes to anger, there are natural dilemmas that exist when dealing with how you do or don’t express it. If you squash your anger, pretend or act like it doesn’t exist, you may have saved the day today, but it’s going to eat away at you inside and either explode somewhere down the road or find other ways to get out. If you let it fly, you risk saying things that you’re probably going to regret, and maybe don’t even mean, but which, once said, can’t be undone.

Many people who have issues with anger do so because they feel, or the partner feels, that it’s not okay to be angry. And because there is no allowed outlet provided for their upset, things build to an emotional extreme which would have been less likely to occur if there had been permission to experience and display negative emotions before they grew to that degree (frustration, disappointment, etc.).

One of the central concepts of conflict resolution is that it’s okay to feel and express your upset as long as you do it appropriately - ideally, in a way that creates understanding, not does further damage.

When we feel verbally attacked or hurt, controlling our temper is difficult because it goes against our natural instinct. Instinct operates in the extremes of fight/flight/freeze. While our emotions are telling us to defend ourselves by retaliating (or to run away), with conflict resolution we’re consciously choosing to ignore those instincts, to stay put, to think things through, and to work it out. That’s not an easy thing to do. It’s learning how to control our nature until the control part itself becomes more natural for us.

Because the extremes are the easiest options to see, people often either stop too short or go too far in trying to resolve conflict. Many are great at starting arguments, but never get far enough into the conversation to accomplish anything. They complain and retreat. Yet, if you’re tempted to withdraw from an argument before you’ve been successful at explaining yourself, or not having reached a resolution on the issue, you probably need to face the discomfort of potential conflict and hang in there longer.

For those who go too far, they need to learn how to shut things down sooner, when the conversation is becoming either destructive or unproductive. The key here is that, if it does get shut down, the issue is reapproached later, at a time when things have had a chance to calm back down.

Even those who have reached a workable resolution will still sometimes take the conversation too far. They’ve agreed on a future course, but can’t resist the temptation to go back and underline their points. But, by doing so, they risk undoing everything that they just accomplished.

One reason people avoid potential arguments is because they sometimes see having a discussion as the same as fighting, even though there is a significant difference between the two (or, at least, there should be).

A verbal fight indicates that there may be yelling, inappropriate words spoken, judgments passed, insults thrown, and an overall lack of editing what is being said – so there is no controlling the outcome. At the end of a fight, there is only one winner, and one loser – one who’s right and one who’s wrong, one who gets their way and one who doesn’t. Competitive couples look at arguing in these terms, but that’s black-and-white thinking, not relational thinking. Your relationship isn’t a competition.

A discussion is just sharing information that may or may not require a solution. Yes, if there is a disagreement with the information that’s shared, or offense taken to what was said, it could still lead to an argument, but that’s still short of a fight. If an argument occurs, the couple can (and should) remain civil, respectful and considerate with their words – despite their upset. The purpose of having a discussion, even if some of it becomes argumentative, is: 1) to be understood, 2) to better understand your partner, and 3) to reach a resolution, if a resolution is desired – ideally, one that is doable for both partners.

The outcome of a fight is greater emotional distance between the couple. The outcome of a discussion or argument, if done well, should be restored closeness, and greater emotional intimacy.

The Power of Words

Words can be used to hurt or to heal. You can make or break someone else’s day by a simple compliment or criticism. You can enforce your child’s self-confidence, or contribute to their fears, based on what you verbally choose to recognize about them or their world. Because words can be so incredibly powerful, we need to learn how to use them more wisely.

If we’ve been in a romantic relationship for a while, ideally, we learn a lot about our partners – both what makes them happy as well as what makes them upset. But when relationships start to struggle, we forget to use the positive knowledge we have gained that could