{"id":3169,"date":"2025-10-11T18:44:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-11T23:44:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/?p=3169"},"modified":"2026-04-30T08:05:48","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T13:05:48","slug":"raising-the-bar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/?p=3169","title":{"rendered":"raising the bar"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Another productive counseling session yesterday, if not quite as much of a watershed as the last one.  We had good intentions of picking up where we left off in discussing how to &#8220;fight well,&#8221; but she let me ramble on for a little while about various aspects of my personal history, friendship history, and the evolution of my convictions.  We eventually came around to discussing conflict, and I had flagged a few things to explore coming out of the previous session:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>Identifying the cause(s) of frustration.&nbsp; Many times in my marriage, I&#8217;d be deeply frustrated and\/or angry, but couldn&#8217;t pinpoint the cause in order to be able to have a conversation.&nbsp; Or maybe there would be multiple causes (they tended to stack up after a while).&nbsp; But I would just have a general sense of malaise or a deep unhappiness that I couldn&#8217;t tie to anything concrete, even after dedicated thought.&nbsp; This has been a challenge for me for my whole life.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Determining whether the pressure point even deserves to be shared and worked out in the first place.&nbsp; Kind of relates to the &#8220;self-advocacy vs. selfishness&#8221; question I raised last time.&nbsp; Do I just share <em>everything<\/em> and let the chips fall where they may?&nbsp; That seems like it could be exasperating\/discouraging for a partner.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Strategies for compromising.&nbsp; How do I know if I&#8217;m conceding too much, or not enough?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>We camped out on the first bullet point for a while.  She reassured me that it&#8217;s a challenge for many people to identify <em>why<\/em> they&#8217;re feeling frustrated or upset, but that there&#8217;s an element of acceptance that could be beneficial.  I tried to explain how, for me, my process of conflict resolution is kind of like a flow chart, and determining the source of the frustration is Step 1.  In other words, if I can&#8217;t independently tag the emotion and its cause, I can&#8217;t make any progress.  It ties back to the &#8220;airtight case&#8221; mindset I&#8217;ve always had about interpersonal conflict; it&#8217;s always felt like I&#8217;ve had to have something to present as I initiate the conversation.  That way, I related, even if I get shot down, at least I&#8217;ll have a sense of personal integrity to fall back on, as it were; I&#8217;ll know that I failed in pursuit of a righteous cause, so to speak.  This seemed like a novel approach to my therapist, to the point where she started taking notes for the first time in one of our sessions.  I expressed surprise, as it dawned on me that <em>there might be another way<\/em> to resolve conflict, and I started to consider for the first time how that might work itself out.  Maybe, just maybe, I could have a talk with a partner wherein I identify the causes of the frustration, and work out a solution <em>in real time<\/em>.  I actually got emotional when I began to speculate about what that would require:  A commitment by both parties to some basic ground rules, like no threatening to leave, no blanket accusations, listening while assuming the best of the other person&#8217;s intentions, and a whole host of other dynamics and resolutions that I&#8217;ve never, ever seen or experienced in a relationship.  I think I&#8217;m beginning to understand why this whole idea of &#8220;fighting well&#8221; has seemed so alien to me, and has made me feel so insecure, when in reality, it&#8217;s something that I should, if not actually look forward to, at least be prepared to encounter as a normal part of a relationship.  But still\u2014just the idea that there could be someone out there with whom I could have a conflict and <em>not<\/em> have them dangle everything and the kitchen sink out the window in an attempt to get their way&#8230;  The mind boggles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Another productive counseling session yesterday, if not quite as much of a watershed as the last one. We had good intentions of picking up where we left off in discussing how to &#8220;fight well,&#8221; but she let me ramble on for a little while about various aspects of my personal history, friendship history, and the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3169"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3169"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3169\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3450,"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3169\/revisions\/3450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}