Three I's to Create a Loving, Caring Space
I’m an interculturalist and a coach. I coach my clients on how to communicate, work, and live in a multi-cultural environment effectively. So, I should communicate perfectly well in my daily life, right? I should have no issue communicating with anyone, right? No. To be vulnerable, authentic, and honest with you, I face communication challenges often - especially with my husband.
The most challenging time is when we have a conversation that turns into something which he thinks is a discussion but I see as an argument. Then, our different coping strategies kick in. I’m the kind of person who wants to discuss to resolve, and he needs time and space to resolve. At the beginning, I could not respect the time and space he needed, so it was an issue I had to overcome.
Since then I’ve been working on respecting the time and space he needs to cope. I believe I am doing better now. When he doesn’t want to join me for any activities, I can do them on my own and still have fun. When our conversation is very short, I stop taking it personally and go ahead and do what I want to do. When it seems I’m doing most of the conversation initiation, I don’t get discouraged as I did before, but keep initiating.
But, there’s a limit to what I can do. It takes two to nurture the relationship. A relationship begins with myself, so I take accountability and do what is necessary to make it successful. I should be accountable and communicate when I see my partner unconsciously keeping the emotional distance for too long. That way, he can take accountability for his actions, come back sooner, and do his part to make the relationship a success.
This, however, can be tricky! How I communicate influences how the partner receives it. In past experiences, when I attempted to communicate how I wanted a certain situation to be it was portrayed as a negative message. The reaction I received was “You’re focusing on the negative” or “You’re dwelling on the past.” While these comments can be true, I still want my perspective to be acknowledged and I want us to find out how we can do things differently.
It takes a lot of courage to initiate this conversation. One side of me says “Don’t rock the boat. He wants to naturally come back to the peaceful state, so just wait.” The other side of me says “Once he’s in this mode, it’s hard for him to come back on his own. You’re the communicator. Be brave, vulnerable, authentic and honest. Initiate the conversation.”
So I did last night. I made a choice to be brave, vulnerable, authentic, and honest. I tried to focus on what I wanted in our relationship - communicating in a loving and caring manner. I tried to listen to what he had to say. I shared my observation of my thinking and behaving pattern and his thinking and behaving pattern. I was proud that I was able to be assertive.
In our conversation, I shared what I think we need more when we want to come back to a loving and caring space after we’ve had enough time and space individually. These three actions came to mind as repair attempts I would like to see when he’s ready to be emotionally close with me again. Simply refereed to as the Three I’s.
Initiate: Simply initiate conversation. Being the first one to come talk to the partner.
Inquire: Ask questions. Especially after giving a short yes/no answer.
Invite: Invite your partner. When you are doing something, do it together even if its a small thing.
Of course, I don’t intend for him to be the only one taking these actions. I, too, will be more conscious to do the Three I’s. We both agreed, we want to spend as much happy quality time together as possible. To do so, we always have an ability and power to make conscious choices to create a loving and caring space for each other.
I’m truly grateful my husband listened to what I had to say last night and even told me that he appreciated I Initiated the conversation. Furthermore, I Invited him to read this blog post which he did without getting offended and Inquired if he could help me edit it. I'm so happy that we not only communicated, but also collaborated to co-create this post. It appears the Three I’s are already at work in our relationship.
