Banging Doors
On March 21st, Crone asked: I was wondering how to speak with my son about how he slams things around, like doing dishes or closing a door, when he's pissed and how it affects everyone around him? He also has a wicked sense of humor and there are times I'm unable to determine if he's serious or pulling my leg?
Dear Crone:
Are you wondering whether you are being deliberately messed with, accidentally messed with, or double-gotcha messed with?
If you have different hypotheses of what’s going on, it can be hard to find a path forward. You might start off thinking ‘he’s devoted his time to pulling my leg, and so my mission in life is to…’ move out. Find a way to pull his leg harder. Become zen-like and un-pullable. Go to therapy together. Cry. Laugh. But no sooner might you start to get a grip on one of those alternatives than you could find yourself thinking ‘but I don’t really believe it is all about the leg-pulling, I think he might not know how the slamming door affects us.’ And then some options pop forward—you’ll have a heart-to-heart or buy him a self-help book and so on. But then you catch yourself ‘oh, if I buy him a book and he’s actually pulling my leg, then my leg will REALLY be pulled.’ Bouncey bouncey bouncey. You can’t move forward, even in your own mind, because as soon as you get halfway to forward you remember that you might have chosen the wrong starting point.
You could ask him: Augustus, when you slam stuff around, what is that about? Ask him from curiosity, have no other ambition for the duration of the conversation and pick a time when neither of you is pissed off. Realize he might not actually know the answer.
If he answers in a way that lets you settle on one scenario, use that to plan what you want to do or say next—and let there be a bit of time before you get to ‘next.’ Just the open-minded question itself might make a shift. Give it a chance.
But maybe he doesn’t help you narrow down the possibilities, and there isn’t a shift. In that case, pick one idea and put the other ones out of sight for the moment. Work through that one hypothesis in your imagination. Speak to your son in your imagination. Empower yourself in your imagination. Get to the point where you are done with that one idea. (You’ll feel it when you are.)
Pick the next explanation of what’s motivating your son. Do all the same steps. Imagine a solution, an approach for that second explanation. Get to the point where you feel that nice thunk of doneness. Keep going, one by one, with each hypothesis until you are all the way done-done.
Now ask yourself: how can I be free? I think it is likely that one thing will leap to the forefront of your imagination.
Do that thing.
Good luck!
Conflict Skills:
Confusion about Intention: Open Question
When you are not sure why the other person is doing something that bothers you, and you come up with a lot of different hypotheses, first ask them. What’s up with that? Don’t have any other ambition for the conversation. And don’t move on to the next conversation until that question has had a chance to maybe create a shift (even if the answer is bogus, the question still might be at work).
Confusion about Intention: Pretend there is only one reason (at a time)
Imagine the different reasons that the other person might be doing the thing that is bothering you. Pick just one. Work it all the way through in your imagination—what this means for you, what you want to say or do. Until you feel done. Then pick the next one and work it through. One by one, work through the different scenarios. And then see if you see the way clear… how you want to talk, what you want to do…