Plan for difficult conversations.
A simple but difficult practice.
When you want to have a conversation about something that you know could be emotionally difficult for you or the other person, give them a heads up and the option to schedule.
This looks like, “Hey, I’d like to talk more about the fight we had the other day.” Or, “Hey, I want to talk about something that I feel vulnerable about.” And then follow up with, “Is now a good time, or when would you be up for it?”
This accomplishes two tasks:
Starts the conversation without waiting until you’re so emotionally overwhelmed that it erupts at random and becomes a messy fight about something else.
Gives you and the other person the opportunity to enter the conversation emotionally prepared to face something that might be difficult.
I first wrote, “Paradoxically, this usually makes the conversation much much easier.” But it’s not a paradox. When you are mentally and emotionally prepared for a task, of course it’s going to go better.
What most people do, instead, is either way until the aforementioned eruption, or spring the difficult conversation on the other person when they think it might be a good time or can’t wait anymore. This is understandable, as you may well have tried several times to initiate a conversation and then been told now’s not a good time, but the other person never tells you when a good time will be, so eventually it just has to happen.
If you’re initiating the conversation, often you’ve had a lot of time to think about what you want to say. The other person has had zero seconds, and may not even realize that the tone has abruptly shifted to something serious, and now has to deal with their emotions about what you’re saying while trying to listen to you. That usually doesn’t work.
I cannot express how much this simple solution does so much to improve relationships and communications, but also I appreciate that it takes a lot of work to reach this simplicity.