Staying on the Same Team when the Stakes are High

Have you ever noticed that when the stress gets high, that's when your marriage most likely starts to feel divided? It's more tempting to start looking for fault, stop giving the benefit of the doubt, and speed up the process of making assumptions, sometimes so fast that we forget they are assumptions at all.

Lately I've been "trying on" the way around this that author and reseacher Brene Brown seems to have found. I really like the way she uses language like "the story I'm telling myself" when she notices she's slipping into making assumptions about her spouse's thoughts, feelings and actions (even when her assumptions seem pretty directly based on his actions). It seems like this phrase allows her to not only reality check if her assumptions are accurate, but to do it in a way that doesn't put him on the defensive.

I've occasionally tried to use this same approach in other high stakes settings (like purchasing a car) and have found that for the most part it does take two- there's a basic element of trust and vulnerability required, even on the end of the person receiving the communication. "The story my mind is that you are trying to sell me a lemon, but I'm sure that's not actually the case. Can you tell me what is going on here from your perspective?" So maybe I scrap it for car salesmen and just stick with it in my marriage, but nonetheless, I want to start using it a lot more often. What do you think it would look like to try a version of this with our kids too?