The Last Word

In any given week, I hear a fair bit of bickering.

Ironically enough, I am not talking about my teenagers, who get on swimmingly. 

Most of the bickering is with my couples in therapy.  By the time people make the decision to come into couples therapy, so often they are working off well-worn scripts (metaphorically, coffee-stained, pages ripping, coming apart at the seams scripts). So often those scripts involve one-upmanship, and a feeling of a need to have the dreaded last word. Dreaded because if nobody gets to have it, then the bickering never ends.

It’s understandable.  Once we’re bickering, we’re effectively trading pot-shots, and who wants to let a stinker of a shot land in our lap and just leave it there?

One of the most helpful experiments I’ve offered couples when we start work is a competition to see who could let go of the last word the most times.

I think it’s effective because it reframes winning. Winning is not hurling the potato back at the other person. Winning is being the one who takes the high road.

The cool thing is, once someone takes the high road, they often quickly realize that having the bickering end is actually a lot nicer than the momentary satisfaction of firing a shot over to the other person.  

If you’re not ready to start therapy but are ready to try something small, offer your partner the last word—not in surrender, but as a quiet act of love. You might both be surprised by what changes.