How Couples Who Practice Goodwill Reap Remarkable Relationships

One day I was on the verge of being late to an appointment. I was rushing around trying to gather my stuff to get on a call with a peer group. I had almost everything I needed when I grabbed my computer off the coffee table, and in the process knocked over a travel mug filled with coffee.

The lid was not secure.

And as I stood there, with my phone ringing in the background, watching an entire cup of coffee empty onto the carpet, I lost all ability to reason.

Who would leave an entire cup of coffee on the edge of a table?

It wasn't me.

I was pretty sure I knew who it was.

Now at this point in the thought process, I could have said, "Well that was clumsy of me! Oh well, no one harmed!" And called to have the perpetrator of the full cup of coffee come clean it up.

Which in hindsight is all true, no one was harmed, and it was certainly not left there on purpose with the intent I would come along and knock it over.

But I was in a rush and my brain wasn't thinking soundly. That is not an excuse, as we really want to practice being responsive not reactive people and under stress is when this practice really counts.

Unfortunately, I was reactive.

My mind went off on it's own and where it went was to blame, condemnation, and believing the worst of my husband. I couldn't believe that he would do something so inconsiderate! And I got angry.

And when Mike came in the room to find out what I was so upset about, he...

Let's leave this scene for a minute. We will come back and I will tell the rest of the story, I promise.

What we are talking about today is how to have a goodwill relationship, what is it and how do we create one?

The dictionary says that goodwill is a friendly disposition, benevolence, kindness. It is cheerful acquiescence or consent.

Ok.

Now what does that look like in real life?

It means believing the best of your partner when they are showing you the worst.

The things is, when we don't believe that our partner has our best interest at heart, we can start to go negative. And when we spend too much time in the negative, it is very difficult to go positive. The goal for your relationship should be to stay in the positive. That means taking your thoughts captive and not allowing any unhealthy ideas into your head.

Did you catch what I just said there? Do not even allow them in your head let alone come out your mouth.

Yeah, I didn't say this was going to be easy.

The problem with allowing those thoughts to settle in your brain is that once you permit this thinking pattern it develops into a way of thinking that is very hard to dismiss. Dr. Gottman demonstrates how this can occur in his book The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work. He says:

"they each believe that their partner must be fundamentally selfish. Their minds fill with thoughts like, 'He doesn't care how I feel' and 'All that matters to her is getting her way.' Each becomes increasingly convinced that the other isn't on their side and doesn't have their back. The relationship devolves into a zero-sum game in which one partner's victory is perceived as the other's defeat."

Ouch.

When we continually focus our thoughts on how someone does not have our best interest at heart, we will in turn go into self preservation mode and seek to win at whatever cost, without the other person in mind. We are no longer partners or allies; we have become adversaries.

So, lets return to the above scene. Coffee all over the carpet, phone ringing in the background. Kristen, mad and definitely not thinking the best of her husband's intentions. Mike walked in and certainly didn't like being blamed for purposefully leaving a cup of coffee on the edge of the table. He had a couple of choices at this instance, as he was being attacked and unfairly blamed for something.

a) He could have yelled back and walked out, telling me to clean it up, as I was the one who spilled it. He could have thought, "She always does this! She blames me for everything! She doesn't care about me!"

or

b) He could have seen I was upset and needed to cool down. He could have seen I was stressed and needed to get to an appointment. He could have seen that I didn't really think he had left the coffee there on purpose to be spilled. He could have seen that he had a part in the spill as he did leave the coffee cup on the table. And then he could just start to clean up the mess.

Since Mike and I have a goodwill relationship he was able to choose option b. Even as he was being unfairly attacked, he did not automatically think that I didn't care for him. He was able to see that I was upset with the situation and he was able to believe the best of me in that situation.

And since Mike and I have an enduring friendship, he was able to use what Dr. Gottman calls a "repair technique". This alludes to:

"any statement or action- silly or otherwise- that prevents negativity from escalating out of control. Repair attempts are a secret weapon of emotionally intelligent couples- even though many of these couples aren't aware they are employing something so powerful. When a couple has a strong friendship, they naturally become experts at sending each other repair attempts and at correctly reading those sent their way."

After I got off the call, I saw that he had cleaned up the coffee and had even gotten the carpet cleaner out and cleaned the rug. I was able to joke with him about leaving the coffee cup on the edge of the table and I apologized for believing he did it on purpose.

Here is the thing, every couple will have conflict and every couple will do it wrong once in a while. What really matters in these situations is that you have a basis of goodwill in your relationship so that you can use a repair technique and grow through it!

If I can help you in any way, please contact me through my contact me page on my website!