The Complaint Formula

By Joe Beaty

“My wife Tami felt angry. “All you do after you get home from work and eat dinner is sit on the couch. Why can’t we talk, or take a walk together, or do both?”

Couples will always have complaints about each other. Unfortunately, instead of expressing their complaints, they resort to criticizing each other. Unchecked criticism leads to contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling. Dr. John Gottman calls these the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and when couples fall prey to the Four Horsemen, it can lead to divorce.

Tami’s criticism provoked me to defend myself. We were almost three years into our marriage and hadn’t yet learned how to effectively air our complaints about each other.

“I’m tired,” I said. As a substance abuse counselor, I spend all day listening to people. “Why can’t you let me relax?”

Tami kept pushing until my temper flared. “Just leave me alone!”

Before we knew it, the Four Horsemen were out of the barn and wreaking havoc on our marriage. Tami and I agreed to get marriage counseling from a clinical psychologist. He taught us how to effectively express and listen to complaints in a way that we could hear each other without becoming defensive.”

The Three Step Formula

1. Express how the emotions you felt

It is best to start just with emotions such as sad, frustrated, upset, hurt or others; instead, of “I feel that you . . . “ That is not emotion but an observation. Expressing the emotion in words that are vulnerable emotions, take the edge off the tone of the compliant conversation.

2. Talk about a very specific situation
By being specific, you and the other person can stay focused instead of general statements that impact the other as criticism and attack and not a compliant whose intention is to make things a bit better.

3. State a positive need
Below is a list of normal human needs borrowed from Non-VIolent Communication by Marshal Rosenberg. For example instead of “I need you to stop tell me what to do” try “ I need consideration in this situation.”