Water Fights For Adults?

A Summer Cool Down for Conflicts in Your Relationship:

It’s unbearably hot around much of the nation this week.  Heat causes tempers to flare. Here’s a new twist on what you can do to avoid getting your undies in a bundle or your nickers in a twist on a hot day!

While learning the new skills of partnering, Harold and Kari, a particularly feisty couple married for 14 years, persisted in being competitive over every issue that came up. They were committed to one another but they were wearing themselves out bickering like two little kids.  They felt like they didn’t know what to do to stop - so we came up with a creative solution. During a coaching session they decided to  carry squirt guns as a metaphor to remind themselves to “lay down their arms” rather than fight!  They had fun going to the toy store and looking at the varieties of guns,  from old-fashioned small ones to the super soaker water guns. After much joking around they settled on the small pocket sized variety in two distinct colors.  While they only soaked one another twice in the first week, they were playful as they reminded themselves to put their differences aside. Even their preadolescent twin boys got a kick out of their antics and requested squirt guns to break up fights between them. This couple quickly learned to have humor about how often they approached one another as enemies rather than allies. Once the laughter returned they were in a better frame of mind to look at new ways to resolve their differences as partners.

If you’re fighting regularly or arguing over recurrent “hot topics,” the Big Picture Partnering approach can help turn conflict into creativity.  It offers tips on how to stop fighting, approach conflicts as situational, and attain true intimacy.  The ever popular Big Picture Partnering: 16 weeks to a rock-solid relationship is a self-study version complete with tips, tools and exercises you can use at your own pace.  For more information go to http://www.drjanhoistad.com/books.htm