Four Stress Styles of Communication - Rabbi Daniel Schonbuch

[Music] sometimes you see couples that come into your office and one person is blaming the other person well the other person is doing what we call placating and Hebrew their mavet err they're always giving in now the blamer tends to stand upright and point downwards and says it's your fault you're to blame you're always late you never care about me and the Polly cater is usually sitting below and looking up and saying okay yes dear yes honey whatever you want sweetheart as long as you're happy what's wrong with that well we learn in family therapy that there's actually four stress styles of communication the first stressed style is called the placate er the second style is called the blame er the third style is called the computer and the fourth style is called a distractor let's understand why this is so important to help human relationship and marriages the placate er actually gives up part of themselves they don't really express what they're feeling or what they're going through inside it's always about the other person now one might think that it's a good thing to be married to a placate er who wouldn't want to be married to somebody who says yes dear yes honey whatever you want sweetheart but what's the problem if a person placates for too long they start developing something called resentment they're not going to be a happy person in long run they're going to in many different ways expressed displeasure maybe not directly but indirectly what about the blame er what does the blame er do the blame is always saying it's my way or the highway they're always putting the other person down they're highly critical what is it like being around somebody is critical well the truth is no one likes being around somebody who's critical if you're a critical person people either will be critical with you or they're going to withdraw from that relationship but you put these two people together you put the play care and the blame er you have a poisonous relationship one person is placating a lot and feeling miserable inside the other person is blaming a lot let's take a look at two other styles what about the computer the computer shuts down emotions they don't want to deal with their own feelings and they don't want to deal with the other person's feelings as well they say something like well why don't you just read the instructions they don't want to deal with feelings how hard it is to get things done in life they just want to do with facts and realities and the fourth person may be the worst person they're called the distractor they don't do what their own feelings they don't do with your feelings they just run away these types of people are always going on vacation they're always gambling they're all having always having lots of fun but you know they're not paying the bills they're not really involved in the relationship so we have these four styles so what do we do with these four different styles the answer is we need to develop a fifth style called levelling style what is a leveling style and it's a beautiful idea we're going to take something from each of these negative styles and elevate them to a fifth and higher style what have we learned from the play cater we learned that it is important to placate or Bheema Vitara in your marriage in different ways let's say a wife wants to go out and eat Milic a Milic restaurant she wants out of ten number nine and he wants to go eat in a meat restaurant a flat flake restaurant he wants a number six he says you know what there let's go where you want to go let's go to milik to make you happy but what's very very important it's of course important to placate in marriage but one shouldn't play it out of fear one should in plate one should placate out of love because they care about the other person but most importantly it shouldn't be one person placating and a healthy marriage both sides are able to compromise and to placate for each other then it's out of love then it's a healthy higher style what we call leveling with one another what about blaming what can we learn about blaming well not so much his criticism is the most poisonous thing in marriage what we can learn from the blamer is to be assertive if your landlord is abusing you or someone's stealing your money or hurting you you need to stand up and express your needs but not blame the other person what do we learn from the computer sometimes it's important too not overreact all the things happen in your life sometimes your kids will come home from school and didn't have a good day you don't want to overreact sometimes you're husband and wife will come home and have a bad day with his or her boss you don't want to overreact you have to maintain a little bit more balance with them and be a little cool and what about the distractor sometimes you know you can work on doing your best in life and working on your inner development and helping the world but sometimes you just have to take a break and you just have to go out with your spouse and have a great time together and distract Berto Hashem the Jewish people have this great concept called Shabbat Shabbat means six days a week we're working hard we're trying to make money we're taking care of our kids we're dealing with difficult people but one day a week we just distract I hope all of you could bring this idea of distraction of Shabbat into your daily life with your spouse how do you bring Shabbat into your into your relationship in your marriage simply I used to say many years ago people should go out with their spouse at least once a week well it's a little too much because people are so busy I just want to ask you one question please go out with your spouse make a date with your spouse at least every two weeks go and just have a nice time and communicate together and the good thing is you don't have to spend a lot of money just take a walk together take a drive together get something get some soda to drink and just walk around the block together this brings connection between a couple and overcomes all the four other styles of negative communication welcome to this new series and he de bruit called marriage matters my name is rabbi Daniel shomba and I'm a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist based in New York and around the world via Skype on this important series I will be answering your questions you have about marriage relationships dating parenting and about any issue during the family chips but more than what I have to say I want to hear what you have to say so please email to this address and send in your questions and I'll try to answer as many questions on this new show