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October 11, 2019,
Common expressions like “I’m just being honest” or “I’m going to be very direct with you” should rarely or never be used in confrontation conversations with someone that you hope to remain in a friendship or relationship with.
Yes, certain things have been building for some time between the two of you.
Information has been brought to your attention by others or you have observed behavior that you have to read into with someone that you deeply care about that has been going on for a long time, even years and you’ve made a decision not to confront the person involved because you are afraid that it might end your friendship, business association or love relationship.
So you remain silent.
Probably, temporarily, that is a good idea. But at some point you are going to have to do something.
What are we specifically speaking of? A few examples from our personal association may clarify things.
Maggie and Grace have been professional associates for years. It is the type of relationship where Maggie pays Grace for her services and they have crossed over into the area of friendship.
It has come to Maggie’s attention that Grace has been seen with Maggie’s boyfriend at various places. In some ways they have an excuse to be together due to their indirect professional connection but it does strike Maggie as a little odd.
Because she doesn’t have enough information to be direct in her concerns, she decides to ask soft questions like, you bumped into Bart today, what a coincidence. Grace would always have the perfect answer for her. Bart as well.
It was when Maggie came home early one day that from a distance, she saw Grace’s car driving away in the opposite direction. To clarify, she didn’t see Grace actually walk out of her home, she just recognized her car as she drove away in the middle of the afternoon.
She would ask Bart if Grace had been there and he had a ready reply that she had just dropped off some papers.
After about a year, Maggie and Bart broke up.
It was when Maggie decided to end her professional association with Grace and pay for services elsewhere that she finally was direct in saying what she wanted to say.
Why then?
Because she had nothing left to lose.
In another example we knew of a professional relationship between Matthew and his therapist.
Matthew is a complex person and doesn’t open up easily nor want to reveal himself to others for fear that information might be used against him later, so he decided to see a therapist.
His purpose in seeing the therapist is not really to receive therapy but to bounce ideas off of her, speak of private concerns and retain extreme privacy.
Matthew is a very honorable man in the sense that he keeps his word, is willing to help a friend in need and is not predatory in any way.
Typically another person sitting across from him will respond to those high standards in one of two ways.
One reaction is to appreciate his qualities and remain within boundaries. The other is to try and take advantage of his honor.
Matthew has lived a deep and complicated analytical life where he has had to put the symbolic hand cuffs on powerful individuals or organizations who despite their public behavior, privately behave despicably.
The key in his analysis with people is, it is not what they say, but by their defined behavior, focus on what they actually do.
He noticed with his therapist that as they crossed the line into non-romantic friendship like so many women he had met over the years, she displayed the good girl who likes the bad boys syndrome. This type of woman only respects a man when he non-violently doesn’t put up with her crap nor let her walk all over him.
Remember the lyrics to this Joanie Sommers song:
Johnny, I said we were through
Just to see what you would do
You stood there and hung your head
Made me wish that I were dead
Oh, Johnny get angry, Johnny get mad
Give me the biggest lecture I ever had
I want a brave man, I want a cave man
Johnny, show me that you care, really care for me
Joanie Sommers is an American singer and actress with a career concentrating on jazz, standards and popular material and show-business credits. Once billed as “The Voice of the Sixties”, and associated with top-notch arrangers, songwriters and producers, Ms. Sommers’ popular reputation became closely tied to her biggest, yet most uncharacteristic, hit song, “Johnny Get Angry.”
Here Ms. Sommers’ song seems to be very direct about the point she is trying to make.
The red flags for Matthew with his therapist was that at first, after they made appointments, she would contact him and ask him if she could reschedule his appointment because she had another appointment that really needed to be scheduled then.
Matthew put up with that for a while but it was when she cancelled his appointment for another one, even though she informed him of that, Matthew put his foot down and let her know how rude and inappropriate that was and warned her to never do that again.
They took a break for some time but because Matthew did like her as a person and even understood the cheerleader syndrome where the woman thinks she has the nice guy type wrapped around their finger, he let her slide.
When they began to work together again, mercifully she stopped doing that but began to do other things that Matthew found annoying.
The first was that she would excessively compliment him telling him how brilliant he was. Then, twice, regarding two different business propositions, during the conversations about his brilliance, she would bring up the subject of doing business together and expressing how she would pay him for his services but then both times when they would later met, she acted like she didn’t remember the conversation.
What she did remember was asking him to volunteer at one her retreats which essentially took three days to assist “for free”.
Matthew had agreed to do it months ago, and despite her not following through on her ideas where she would pay him for his services, to maintain his respect for himself, he decided to follow through on his promise to volunteer for free, but he also decided something else.
He would absolutely never do that again.
Matthew also thought about being direct and breaking down her behavior to her with details and ask her to not ever bring up business ideas again because he is so brilliant and stop wasting his time.
He thought about it and decided not to be direct with her.
Here is the question.
Why was he previously direct with her regarding the appointment changes and eventually gave her an ultimatum in the first appointment situation but not the second in the false business proposals situation?
What is the key difference?
Please take a moment and think about it because it may apply to your life situations as well.
Here is the difference.
In the first situation his therapist began to engage in behavior that in the long term he could not tolerate and if she kept that up, he was willing to lose her as both a friend and a therapist.
In the second situation Matthew made a decision that going into business with her was not remotely important to him but her friendship was. He was not there for therapy. He was there to have a conversation with someone who is intelligent, who is paid not to judge him and who is effective at bouncing ideas off of regarding his personal life.
Simply put, she gets him in a way that no one else does.
Literally. No one.
Having a direct conversation with her about her annoying false business proposals was not worth ending the relationship because it was not remotely relevant to why he was meeting with her.
If he had that direct conversation with her, no matter how tactful, he ran the risk of embarrassing her and losing her services as a muse.
He decided to remain silent about it.
If she ever did that again, he would smile and politely allow her to compliment and propose but he would never take it seriously and wait until she was done and change the subject.
Make no mistake about it, he was never going to do anything for her or anyone else for free again.
Part of his thinking was he knew of another situation in our circle where a 20 year friendship ended because of a direct conversation.
We will keep this one very brief
Person A was in a friendship with person B who he was the leader over. Person A was good friends with person B as long as person B behaved like his little brother or a puppy. At one point person A continually did something that person B didn’t like. It came at a time when person B truly needed him for a friend and it was then that person A’s behavior reveled his contempt for person B.
In the past person B would put up with that behavior but would say nothing but now he had changed. He recognized that not only was person A treating him that way but others as well.
Person B was very direct in how he confronted person A. Why was he direct?
Because he didn’t care if they remained friends and if they did, it would only be as equals.
That is not what Person A wanted.
Person A no longer remained in contact.
Most friendships, despite what we may think, are conditional anyway.
We end with Matthew’s situation.
Surprisingly, once again, his therapist engaged in her behavior that Matthew thought he had corrected with her.
She emailed him to change his most recent appointment.
What should Matthew do?
First, he decided to exercise self-control and remain silent.
“Self-control is one mark of a mature person; it applies to control of language, physical treatment of others, and the appetites of the body.”… Joseph B. Wirthlin
Then he analyzed why she repeated behavior he had warned her about?
He concluded that he could not correct her behavior. Only she could. He did not want to end their professional association because as a muse, she served her purpose exceptionally well. He decided that since he needed to respond in some form, he needed to change the way he responded to her, which would eventually force her to change.
What did he do?
He later emailed her back that the original day and time was the only time that he had available and since they met every two weeks, they could skip this appointment and meet two after that date, in essence allowing a month to go by before they meet again.
Every time she would do that in the future, he would respond the same way.
He is only available on the agreed upon day and time.
Then things are going to get real simple.
Either they will never meet again, or she will change her behavior.
In Matthew’s mind he solved his original dilemma. He didn’t have to confront her, risking hurting her feelings and ending their professional friendship and association.
His suggestion is, since you can’t change another person, they have to want to change themselves, all you can do is change how you react to their behavior.
We are not therapists.
In some circles what Matthew accomplished is described as supportive confrontation.
Supportive confrontation is a methodology adopted by respectful and highly constructive individuals and teams to ultimately push the boundaries of self-improvement.
In a November 20, 2008 articled posted in Psychology Today by Mr. Leon F Seltzer Ph.D, he explained, “The oxymoronic term supportive confrontation describes almost all effective therapy, and is probably the best way to characterize what must occur if confronting another is to lead to their confronting themselves. For in the end, the only thing that can compel another to change is their own decision to alter their behavior.”
We are simply sharing a real life experience.
Matthew’s solution might work for you.
Sometimes it is good to remain silent and not confront someone who you would like to continue in a relationship or association with.
Since you can’t change their behavior, change how you respond to it.
Sometimes remaining silent is far better than being honest and terminally direct.
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