Dr. Neill Neill

 

Good communication is the hallmark of a healthy relationship. However, communication often falters when one or both parties fail to take personality style into account, especially when making decisions. Guilty as charged…

 

One time I got a huge wake-up jolt. My wife said one day something like, "Let’s do _____ this weekend. This is what I would like to do. You usually make all the decisions."

 

I was flabbergasted. I was fine with the proposed activity. But being accused of making "all the decisions" knocked me on my butt. As I reflected back over the years, any proposed joint weekend activity had been decided jointly after discussion, or so I thought.

 

If we were planning an outing together, the point for me was that we would be doing something together, not the form it would take.

 

Anyway, that’s the way I had always seen it. So why would she say I make all the decisions?

 

Let’s start with the assumption that my wife says on Friday night she would like to do something together on the weekend.

 

Interested, I say, "Sure! What are you thinking about?"

 

She raises a couple of possibilities and I throw in a couple more.

 

I say, "Any preference?" and wait for a suitable length of time. Hearing nothing, I suggest one of the alternatives and she says, "OK."

 

Apparently, that little scene playing out over and over had left her with the sense that I made all the decisions.

What went wrong? I realized that my "suitable length of time" was about ten milliseconds, and it hadn’t dawned on me that my response time was not typical. My "normal" response time seemed to her so rapid that it felt to her like a control issue, and she would just go along with it.

So what I learned about good communication in my relationship is to raise a subject early and let it sit. A week or a day or an hour later, discuss it further, and again let it sit. Then discuss and decide. It took some getting used to.

 

What I have described is two of the many different personality styles as applied to decision making. One is intuitive and feeling-based. It is fast and sometimes yields less than optimal decisions. The other is more evidence-based and rational. It takes time to think decisions through.

 

There is no right or wrong way to make decisions. But as I found out the hard way, you both need to pay attention to and understand your own and your partner’s personality style when it comes to good communication around making decisions.

 

However, please cut yourself some slack. I didn’t get this on the first lesson…or the tenth…or…

 
Psychologist Dr. Neill Neill maintains an active practice on Vancouver Island, BC, Canada, with a focus on healthy relationships and life after addictions. He is the author of Living with a Functioning Alcoholic - A Woman’s Survival Guide.  
www.neillneill.com, 
www.ConquerAlcoholism.com.