One of the things that I've noticed a lot about relationships and conflict, is that a lot of it tends to happen in periods of daily transition. For example, conflict tends to arise when people are leaving the house in the morning, or coming home later in the day. Whether it's a spouse, roommate, or child, there tends to be a lot of missed expectations in those two periods of the day. Maybe it's the rushed chaos that often accompanies those periods (i.e. rushing kids off to school, coming home after a long chaotic day at work, etc.) of the day, or maybe it's that we have ideas in our head about how things are going to look. For example, I might have the expectation that when I come home from work that my wife and kids are excited to see me and greet me as I come in the door...if that doesn't happen, I may become disappointed and that could lead to conflict. Or maybe my wife has been working all day and running around with the kids since school's been out and she has the expectation that I will walk in the door and help with dinner, when maybe I withdraw to our bedroom to relax for a few minutes...maybe she feels disappointed as well, and that can lead to conflict.
These are just a couple of examples of the thousands of expectations that we have when we leave a place in transition, and we enter back into that place in transition. It's such an important time that I would often spend time working with couples over this issue during marriage intensives at The Hideaway Experience.
The reality is we all have expectations. It's just there is something that happens in the transition that I think tends to create a lot of conflict for couples. So in order to navigate that more successfully I have discovered several things that are helpful to couples in doing this. Whether it be creating some rules around greetings, or boundaries around technology, or taking the time to get into the right frame of mind for the upcoming transitions....in this episode of the Rhett Smith Podcast I share with you some examples of conflict in transition, and give you some practical ideas to navigate it more successfully.
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