Tag Archives: Making Clean Deals

Safety and Getting Your Needs Met

When men and women get into partnership, things like safety can create tension and break relationships up when they aren’t addressed.

Men and Women Experience Safety Differently

One of my clients, I’ll call Sheila, recently became engaged to a man, I’ll call Brett. They adore each other. Sheila had been single for the most part of 30 years before she met Brett. She also has a daughter. Before she moved in with Brett, she’d lived with a female housemate. They kept the house buttoned up like a fortress, and any visitor was to call before coming over.

Sheila’s now moved in with Brett. They are busy merging their lives together. He has always kept an open-door policy, and she’s been trying to change that because of the unbearable anxiety she feels with the doors unlocked, and the habit of locking everything. They’ve had quite a few heated arguments about it.

When we spoke about the situation, she began by expressing her anger and frustration with Brett’s allowing people to come and go without calling first, as had been her policy when she’d lived alone. She felt like Brett didn’t care about how she felt. She was right; it hadn’t even occurred to him why she might feel afraid.

During her coaching session, she began to understand why Brett wasn’t concerned at all about the house and the safety.

He’s a big man and had never in his life experienced a physical threat. Not only that, because he sees himself as her protector, he knew he was protecting her. Something she didn’t understand by his casualness in addressing her concerns. He’s say things like, “it’s fine, just let it go,” and “you’re making a big deal out of nothing.” Unfortunately, this was only making her feel more anxious and uncared for.

Women experience real and imagined threats to their physical safety almost every day.

From a man’s loud voice when he’s angry that triggers her instinctual fears, to choosing the safest parking space when parking their car. Most women take it as par for the course to pay attention to these things, however it’s something that most men will never truly understand because of how they experience the world.

Together we came up with a plan for her talking with him about what she needed in order to feel safe. It was through understanding their differences that she was able to explain to him why she was afraid. He was able to conceptually understand where she was coming from, although he will never truly get her experience.

With this understanding, they were able to have a civil conversation and put a protocol in place that allows her to feel safe and him to still have his friends and family feel comfortable coming over.

If you and your partner are struggling to find harmony in your relationship, schedule a 30-minute appointment with me to discuss your unique situation and goals and what you can start doing right away to achieve them.

Click here to schedule now.

I’m here for you. I’m on your side. 🙂

To Love!

Schedule 30 Minutes Now

Kimi Avary
Relationship Navigation Specialist

Relationship Success Depends on Making Clean Deals (Video Interview)

On the most basic level, people make assumptions about how their partner operates in the world, and it’s quite often wrong – especially between men and women.

In my interview with Max Van Praag, Private Matters.tv – Episode 40 – “Relationship Success Depends on Making Clean Deals.”, we discuss what it takes for couples to make what I call “clean deals” with each other – deals that are at the foundation of thriving partnerships because they ensure that both parties are on the same page with one another from the beginning so that misunderstandings, hurt and resentments don’t develop and build into a crisis along the way.

Solving the Dueling Provider Dilemma

Fear of failure makes you hide from the inevitable breakup. But it also makes you hide from a real solution.

How to Prevent DivorceIf breaking up is the last thing you want, and you have no idea what to do to turn things around, read on because waiting until you’ve said horrible things to each other and you’re seething in anger never works.

One of my clients, I’ll call Margaret, reached out to me in February. She was terrified that her relationship was failing. She had good evidence that things were grim.

Her husband, I’ll call Mark, had told her he wanted a divorce and was looking on dating sites. Mark was no longer willing to talk with her about their relationship. He pushed Margaret away at every turn.

It felt like the life, trust and family they’d been building for the last 12 years was being ripped away from her, and they have a two year old daughter.

The good news is that she reached out before Mark had moved out.

The problem was that when their daughter arrived, Margaret became Mama Bear protecting her daughter, and she’d ignored Mark’s ideas about parenting. Mama Bear mode, by the way, is extremely protective and what I’d call masculine mode.

Margaret and Mark had had very different upbringings, and have very different ideas about how to raise children. This isn’t uncommon. Add to that that often the masculine and feminine have different ideas about parenting to begin with, and trouble brews.

They hadn’t clarified how they wanted to raise their children and both of them had assumed they were on the same page. Which they weren’t.

Margaret and Mark were experiencing an all too common scenario of two people in masculine mode. Or what I call, “Dueling Providers.”

This happens when a couple doesn’t have clear DEALS about something. In this case it was raising children.

Mark couldn’t even see the qualities he loved about Margaret anymore, and neither could she. Their situation had changed with the birth of their daughter, and they hadn’t renegotiated a new DEAL, so they were battling.

They were both protecting and providing for their daughter in different ways, and they couldn’t even see it through the arguments.

As Margaret and I began to work together, she learned how to navigate Mark’s masculine energy and make room for him to contribute to parenting their daughter.

She also learned how to change her focus from the problems they were having to finding good that Mark was offering.

It took about three months and now, divorce is off the table, they are planning a family vacation, and planning their next child.

If you’re frustrated and scared and don’t know where to start, the first step is to be open to the possibility that nobody is misbehaving and recognize that men and women are different – you and your partner speak different languages.

You love each other and resolving your differences is about developing consciousness in your relationship (it’s not about compromising).

It’s about learning how to navigate your differences in ways that work to empower your sense of partnership.

YOU’RE NOT ALONE – YOU HAVE RESOURCES.

Schedule a 30-minute appointment with me to discuss your unique situation and goals and what you can start doing right away to achieve them.

Click here to schedule now.

I’m here for you. I’m on your side. 🙂

To Love!

Schedule 30 Minutes Now

Kimi Avary
Relationship Navigation Specialist