A Different Approach

Last night we had dinner with 2 of our close friends – a friendship that has felt a little rocky to us as of late. Matt and I – both individually and together – have felt sort of “replaced” in their lives. Like now that we have a baby, we’re not as much fun, not their choice to spend time with. We’ve sort of felt like leftovers. It’s been going on long enough and been enough of a conversation between the 2 of us that we decided that it was time to talk to them about it – because it was one of those things that was leaving us not wanting to spend time with them and feeling badly when we did. It was undoubtedly affecting the friendship in a negative way. We knew that if we didn’t say something, that it would continue – and that we would continue to be negative about it – and ultimately, it would probably not end well. Further, one of this year’s common goals is to be more positive about the relationships that we have and truly care about. In other words, shit or get off the pot. We decided to shit.

We talked about how we wanted to approach the conversation in advance. With compassion and with love. We figured that if we were able to do that, we had the best chance of a good response and if we didn’t get it, then we would be learning something more about the friendship. And at the end of the conversation, Austin turned to us and said, “I just want you to know, I really appreciate the way you guys approached this. You were very loving and not at all aggressive – you left us no reason or room to be defensive. You just expressed yourself honestly and left room for a true conversation.” And that’s exactly what we had – a warm, loving conversation in which our concerns were addressed and resolved and heard. It took all of 20 minutes and then we had the most fun with them that we’ve had in 6 months.

I don’t know how this would have gone in another year, or last year. I don’t know if it was so successful because we came from our common goals. But I can't imagine that it didn’t help for us to be there to remind each other what we wanted to accomplish and the way in which we wanted to accomplish it. In another time, I’m pretty sure that I may have been more aggressive or passive-aggressive at least. I probably would have been more snarky, more accusatory, less caring. Matt probably would have pointed fingers and told them everything they did wrong. And to what end? Instead we did it better, with love and without accusations. We just told them how we felt and why we felt that way and why we wanted to feel differently. And in the end, we got exactly what we wanted and in exactly the way we wanted it.