Aspire Magazine: Inspiration for a Woman's Soul.(TM) June/July 2020 Aspire Magazine FULL Issue | Page 61

“Trying to get your
way is causing
a big chunk of
your relationship
problems.”
But here’s what you probably don’t realize:
When your partner has a white-knuckle grip
on their side of something you don’t agree
on, they’re just matching the intensity of your
white-knuckle grip on the other side. The
harder you pull, the more they resist.
If you’re the gentle parent and you are
pushing hard against your partner, saying,
“Oh no, you’re being too strict, you’re going
to crush them,” they’re going to push back
just as hard, saying, “You’re coddling them,
they’re never going to learn anything.”
RELATIONSHIPS
– STACEY MARTINO
The White-Knuckle Grip
At some point, most of us find ourselves in
a tug-of-war—my way versus your way. Of
course, we think that our way is the one
and only right way and if our partner sees it
differently, they must be wrong!
This happens a lot when there’s one parent
who’s the disciplinarian and one parent who
wants to take the gentle, nurturing approach.
And it can be this way with anything—money,
time, work, in-laws, health, eating, spirituality,
the house… all the ‘things’ that we find
ourselves fighting about. The basis for where
the rapport got lost, where we started fighting,
is my way versus your way.
We’re too busy beating on the outside of the
bubble trying to convince them that our way
is the right way that we can’t even see their
perspective.
Here’s the truth—neither one of you is wrong!
You’re just so focused on your white-knuckle
grip that you keep tugging and tugging and
tugging. You’ve lost sight of what the fight
was even about and at this point, you’re just
worried about “my way.” You have to release
the grip and balance things out.
How Do We Align?
So how can you stop battling each other?
You have to stop trying to win and focus
on alignment.
Most of us haven’t sat down and made a
system. Instead, we got married and we
thought, “Oh, we’ll always see eye to eye on
the big things because we love each other.”
Then you crash and burn when it doesn’t
work that way. Life happens and suddenly
you have big decisions to make and, surprise,
surprise, you don’t agree on everything.
Do we lease or do we buy?
Do we put our kids in public school or
private school?
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