If your answers in the Emotional Needs Questionnaire indicate that you need help learning how to meet each other’s most important emotional needs, read His Needs, Her Needs. And if your answers in the Love Busters Questionnaire indicate that you need help overcoming habits that are destroying your romantic love for each other, read Love Busters.
But in this book I focus on a third way for you to keep your Love Bank balances high: to make decisions that lead to win-win outcomes instead of win-lose outcomes. Win-win outcomes are the only way to make deposits into each other’s Love Banks simultaneously.
5
A Win-Win Strategy
Ed had a little extra time on his hands between appointments. His next real estate appraisal was in two hours, and he was completely caught up on his paperwork. So he decided to take the spare time to shop for a new refrigerator. The one in his apartment worked okay, but it was one that he’d inherited from his grandfather. It was a gas refrigerator that was over sixty years old.
As he walked into the appliance store, he was immediately greeted by a salesman who asked what he would like to see. When he mentioned refrigerators, the salesman cheerfully directed him to the rows upon rows of them, in all shapes and sizes. When the salesmen asked Ed how much space he had for it, Ed was startled to learn that there would be plenty of space because it would be replacing a big, clunky gas refrigerator.
After arriving at a model in the size that reflected his eating habits, Ed asked the salesman a crucial question: What advantages would a new refrigerator have over my old one?
The salesman responded by describing individual spaces in the refrigerator that would keep particular types of food freshest, the economic advantages, and its modern appearance. Then he made an offer that was hard to refuse: We’ll remove your old refrigerator, install the new one, and if in two weeks you don’t agree that this was one of your best decisions of the year, we will take our refrigerator back and put your old refrigerator in its original place—at no charge at all to you.
Ed agreed to the salesman’s offer and became the proud owner of a new, modern refrigerator, and two weeks later he was happy that he’d made the purchase.
Business negotiators have learned to do something that still eludes politicians: they know how to negotiate with the interest of the opposing party in mind. In business, the opposing party is your customer—an essential ingredient of your success. So if, in the words of Charlie Weaver, your goal is to leave your customer “a little bit happy and a little bit mad,” you wouldn’t have much of a chance in business.
The goal of salespeople’s negotiation with customers is to deliver a product that they are enthusiastically willing to buy at a price that is profitable for the company. It’s a win-win goal, and it’s achieved many times every second throughout the world. If the average business can do it, why can’t the average marriage also do it?
Why Do Couples Resist a Win-Win Goal?
A win-win outcome both in business and in marriage is the ideal. No one would argue that point. But as I’ve already noted, some feel that trying to achieve that ideal in marriage is immoral, impossible, or impractical. They feel that there’s something about a romantic relationship between a man and a woman that rules out win-win resolutions to conflict.
The problem usually begins with confusion over the value of the sacrifice strategy—one partner is willing to lose so that the other partner can win. It’s a time-honored way to prove that you care, and it’s the way most romantic relationships begin. It gives your account in a prospective mate’s Love Bank an initial boost.
It’s a lot like the way a business introduces a new product. It’s sold at a greatly reduced price, or is even given away, to give prospective customers a taste of what the business can do for them. In a dating relationship, partners want an opportunity to get to know each other, so they will often sacrifice their own interests to motivate each other to spend time together. When I would call Joyce for a date, she would agree to go even before I told her what we’d be doing.
But it’s at this point that business and romantic relationships usually part. In business, the product that had been initially given away is now priced to provide a profit for the company and value for the customer. In romantic relationships, however, sacrifice continues to be expected. After all, it’s regarded as the romantic ideal.
Fortunately for our marriage, after we said our vows Joyce stopped sacrificing her interests just to be with me. If we were to go on a date, she wanted to know where we’d be going before she’d agree to go. And if she wasn’t interested in what I had in mind, she’d suggest alternatives that served her interests. The sacrifice strategy had come to an end in our marriage, as it does in all romantic relationships.
Why was this fortunate for our marriage? Because we were now forced to do what businesses do—find win-win outcomes to our conflicts.
Of course, we could have chosen the path that most romantic relationships follow: dictatorship, dueling dictators, and anarchy. In time, we would have become disillusioned, had a power struggle, lost our love for each other, and eventually parted ways either through divorce or permanent separation.
But we didn’t follow that path, and as a result, we are still in a romantic relationship after fifty years of marriage. I’m convinced that every couple can follow the path we’ve taken by learning to resolve their conflicts with each other’s interests in mind. When that happens, they discover win-win solutions to all of their conflicts.
The Policy of Joint Agreement
To help couples keep their eye on the ball, I challenge them to consider a rule that leads to win-win outcomes. I call it the Policy of Joint Agreement: Never do anything without an enthusiastic agreement between you and your spouse. Enthusiastic agreement becomes the goal of negotiation whenever a couple faces a conflict. In other words, they both must win or they keep negotiating.
If you follow the Policy of Joint Agreement (POJA), it will force you to resolve conflicts the right way—the way that takes the interests of both of you into account simultaneously. Not only is this the mutually caring thing to do, but final decisions made this way are usually wiser than any decision you would have made on your own. By joining together to make each decision, you’re able to consider a much broader range of options, and come to conclusions that take more factors into account.
When I first introduce this rule to clients, it usually triggers two reactions. At first people react to how they feel about being consulted before their spouse makes a decision: “If this means that Lisa must ask me how I feel about what she’s planning to do before she does it, I think that’s a good idea. There’s a lot going on in her life that I’d like to know about, and a lot that I wouldn’t agree with if I did know. If she’d tell me her plans in advance, and give me the right to veto some of them, I think we’d get along a lot better.”
But it doesn’t take long for a second reaction to unfold—how they feel about being required to have their spouse’s agreement before they can do anything: “It would be ridiculous to let Lisa keep me from doing what I have to do. Sometimes she just doesn’t understand, and so I have to make decisions she doesn’t like. I don’t think her ‘feelings’ should keep me from achieving my personal goals.”
Why “Enthusiastic” Agreement?
In most marriages, a simple agreement can be challenging. So why do I insist on “enthusiastic” agreement? Doesn’t that requirement make difficult decisions seem impossible?
Unless you have enthusiastic agreement, it’s tempting to settle for reluctant agreement, where one spouse goes along with what the other wants just to get along. In that case, rather than winning, the reluctant spouse actually loses.
But reluctant agreement not only leaves one spouse on the short end of the deal, it can also lead to failure to follow through. Have you ever had an agreement with your spouse that was not fulfilled? Your spouse agreed to do something for you and then didn’t do it. Usually such failure to follow through on an agreemen
t is the result of a reluctant agreement. At the time of the agreement, your spouse felt pressured to agree, but when the time came to carry out the task, he or she lacked the motivation to do so. Such behavior is not only very frustrating but also makes agreements essentially meaningless.
Enthusiastic agreement solves that problem. When an agreement is clearly in the interest of both spouses, follow-through is rarely a problem. It’s in both spouses’ best interest to keep their commitments, and their agreements can be trusted.
This introduces the problem of empathy. We all want our spouse to be considerate of our feelings because we feel what our spouse does to us. But we tend to be inconsiderate of our spouse’s feelings because we don’t feel what we do to them. If we were emotionally connected to each other so that we would feel what each of us does to the other, we’d behave very differently. We’d want to know how our behavior would affect each other—in advance—so we would avoid any discomfort to ourselves.
Without such an emotional connection, the POJA is the next best thing. It forces us to give advance notice of how we will be affecting each other. While we can’t actually feel our effect on each other, it makes us behave as if we did.
“How Do You Feel?”
The Policy of Joint Agreement helps you to become sensitive to each other’s feelings, especially when you don’t feel like doing so. Since you’re required to have each other’s enthusiastic agreement before you do anything, it forces you to ask each other a very important question: How do you feel about what I would like to do (or what I would like you to do for me)?
That simple question and its answer helps you build a crucial understanding of each other. You may not actually feel what your spouse feels, but at least you give your spouse the opportunity to tell you how he or she feels. And then, even when you find yourself in a thoughtless mood, the POJA forces you to be thoughtful.
You are now a team, no longer two independent individuals. As life partners, you should work together to achieve objectives that benefit both of you simultaneously. Why should one of you consider your own interests to be so important that you can run roughshod over the interests of the other? That’s a formula for marital disaster. A team can’t survive if each member is pulling against the other.
When I first see a couple in marital crisis, they are usually living their lives as if the other hardly exists, making thoughtless decisions regularly because they don’t care how the other feels. As a result, when I introduce the Policy of Joint Agreement, it seems totally irrational to them. Their way of life is based on so many inconsiderate habits that the policy seems to threaten their very existence.
At first, neither spouse wants to abandon their thoughtless and insensitive lifestyle. But I challenge them to try it for just a few weeks, and the more they try following the policy, the easier it becomes to reach agreement. They replace thoughtless decisions with those that take each other’s feelings into account. And they develop real compatibility—building a way of life that is comfortable for both of them.
I think you can see why thoughtless behavior ruins a marriage. It not only creates massive Love Bank withdrawals, destroying romantic love, but it also proves that spouses don’t really care about each other. If they did care, they would be thoughtful of each other—they would make decisions that take each other’s feelings into account.
No wonder so many people are disillusioned by marriage. I’d be disillusioned too if Joyce were to ignore my feelings when she makes decisions. But that’s not the way it has to be. It’s certainly not the way it’s been in our marriage. By making our decisions together, Joyce and I demonstrate our care for each other, and as a result, our marriage continues to be very fulfilling for both of us.
When a couple makes a commitment to share power and control with each other by following the POJA, their lives begin to blend and their love for each other grows. At that point they are using what I call the democracy strategy to resolve their conflicts.
The Democracy Strategy—Effective, but Difficult to Use
The democracy strategy has none of the disadvantages of the other four strategies we’ve discussed—sacrifice, dictator, dueling dictators, or anarchy. Instead of failing to resolve conflicts, it succeeds. Instead of destroying romantic love, it builds it. It’s the only reasonable way that a husband and wife should make decisions.
But as successful as democracy has been in world politics, it’s difficult to implement and it’s complicated. The same is true for democracy in marriage. It requires training, creativity, and patience.
In the next chapter, I’ll describe the training you should have that will give you the skills you need to resolve marital conflicts the right way. If you follow this training program, you’ll eventually find yourselves solving some of the most difficult problems you’ve ever faced in marriage. And those solutions will help make your marriage everything you’d hoped it would be.
6
Negotiators, Take Your Places
I hope that by now you are convinced that win-win solutions to marital conflicts should be your goal. But you still may not quite be sure how to actually reach an enthusiastic agreement. After all, democracy isn’t easy. And neither is marital negotiation using the democracy strategy. But for civilizations and marriages alike, the rewards found in considering the interests of others are well worth the added effort.
Unlike the sacrifice strategy, the dictator strategy, the dueling dictators strategy, and the anarchy strategy, the goal of the democracy strategy is mutual thoughtfulness. Those other strategies miss the very point of marriage. They don’t lead to a blending of two lives the way the democracy strategy does. Instead they ultimately cause a couple to grow apart.
If you want to grow in compatibility and love for each other, the first step you must take is to accept the Policy of Joint Agreement as the rule you will live by for the rest of your lives together. That rule helps create the question, How do you feel about what I’d like to do, or what I’d like you to do for me?
When the question is asked and you receive a negative response, I wouldn’t be enthusiastic about it, the POJA offers you two choices: either abandon the idea or try to discover alternative ways of making it possible—with your spouse’s enthusiastic agreement. And that’s where negotiation begins.
With practice, you and your spouse can become experts at getting what you need from each other. Once you agree to this policy, fair and effective negotiation will become a way of life for you. And you’ll also be forced to abandon the strategies you may have been using that have led to arguments and the loss of love.
At first, asking the question “How do you feel about . . .” will seem very strange to you, and possibly even humorous. That’s to be expected, because any new behavior usually seems awkward at first. Yet that question is at the very core of every fair negotiation in life, and you must force yourselves to ask it until it becomes a habit. Then it will feel natural to you.
But even after you’ve agreed to follow the Policy of Joint Agreement, you may not understand what goes on between the question and the enthusiastic agreement. You may not have had much experience negotiating effectively with each other.
So I suggest that you learn to follow a step-by-step procedure that is used by almost all successful negotiators. First I’ll explain the basic guidelines and give you a chance to use them with simple conflicts that are not emotionally charged (such as grocery shopping). Then, when you have learned to follow the guidelines, we’ll tackle the real conflicts that you have been facing.
Four Guidelines for Successful Negotiation
Guideline #1: Set ground rules to make negotiation pleasant and safe.
Most couples view discussion of a conflict as a walk through a minefield. That’s because their efforts are usually fruitless and they come away from the experience battered and bruised. Who wants to try to negotiate when you have nothing but disappointment and pain to look forward to? So before you begin to negotiate, set some basic ground rules to
make sure that you will both enjoy the discussion. Since you should negotiate as often as conflict arises, it should always be a pleasant and safe experience for you both.
To help you achieve that outcome, I suggest three basic ground rules.
GROUND RULE #1: TRY TO BE PLEASANT AND CHEERFUL THROUGHOUT YOUR DISCUSSION.
A conflict can create a negative emotional reaction so quickly that you may think you can’t control it. But with practice, you can do what most negotiators learn to do—be cheerful in the face of adversity.
I realize that you will view the refrigerator salesman’s situation to be completely different than yours. He can distance himself emotionally from a sale much more easily than you can with a marital conflict. But take my word for it: effective negotiation, whether in business or in marriage, requires a smile.
GROUND RULE #2: PUT SAFETY FIRST—DO NOT MAKE DEMANDS, SHOW DISRESPECT, OR BECOME ANGRY WHEN YOU NEGOTIATE.
Once the cat is out of the bag and you’ve told each other what you’d like to do, what you would like the other person to do, or what’s bothering you, you’ve entered one of the most dangerous phases of negotiation. If your feelings have been hurt, you’re tempted to retaliate. And unless you make a special effort to resist demands, disrespect, and anger, you will revert to the dueling dictators strategy and your negotiation will turn into an argument. But if you can keep each other safe from your own abusive instincts, your intelligence will help you find the solution you both need.
GROUND RULE #3: IF YOU REACH AN IMPASSE WHERE YOU DO NOT SEEM TO BE GETTING ANYWHERE, OR IF ONE OF YOU IS STARTING TO MAKE DEMANDS, SHOW DISRESPECT, OR BECOME ANGRY, STOP NEGOTIATING AND COME BACK TO THE ISSUE LATER.
Just because you can’t resolve a problem at a particular point in time doesn’t mean you can’t find an intelligent solution in the future. Don’t let an impasse prevent you from giving yourselves a chance to think about the issue. Let it incubate for a while, and you’ll be amazed what your minds can do.
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