Most of us think we’re “fair” in how we interact with our spouse. We may see faults in how our spouse communicates and we might even admit that “we’re not always perfect.” But for the most part we think the communication problems we’re having is more their fault rather than ours.

The truth is we ALL have times when we don’t communicate as we should. And a lot of how we interact with each other can be seen by experts (and maybe even our spouse) as “game-playing.” By game-playing, we’re talking about communication traps we use that can throw our “opponent” off and give us, what we perceive to be, the winning edge, in an argument. The motive: that way we can “win” and the other person (our spouse) will lose and hopefully see how wrong they were.

But how foolish that kind of reasoning can be! What makes us out to be the “winners” when in order to win, our spouse has to lose, feel defeated, and possibly feel humiliated? We ALL lose in that type of scenario! And the marriage itself especially becomes the loser!

As we examine the communication traps we’ll be listing below from various resources, we can see that there are so many ways we can sabotage our “discussions” with each other as we try to work out our differences. Prayerfully, as we identify our own styles of game-playing we’ll better see how we behave in ways that our spouse could see as unfair and will work to eliminate it in our behavior.

As Jeff and Lora Helton in their book Authentic Marriages point out, “Couples tend to operate under a secret barter system. The key word in the system is ‘fair,’ the key concept is ‘keeping score,’ and the key phrase is ‘It’s my turn now.’”

The reality is that there is no such thing as perfect fairness—at least on a human level. A lot of the ways we communicate comes from learned behavior we’ve picked up from others who have “modeled” it before us. Or it may result from behavior we’ve adapted out of a “survival mode” we’ve developed because of painful experiences. It can also come out of a personal perception of what’s fair and what isn’t—sometimes forgetting to take into consideration that our spouse may approach the problem differently because of a variant perception of “fairness.”

Let’s face it, whenever we try to gain leverage over our spouse in a manipulative way, there’s some type of “game playing” involved. And game playing ISN’T something that a spouse should do when serious communication is involved—in essence it’s childish and immature behavior!

As Believer’s in Christ, and as husbands and wives, we’re told to put away “childish behavior.” (See 1 Corinthians 13:11.) We’re also told to “speak the truth in love.” The Helton’s go on to say:

“In Ephesians 4:15 Paul challenged Christians to live a life of ’speaking the truth in love.’ Our tendency is to do well on 50% of that verse. Some of us have mastered ’speaking the truth.’ We’re quick to point out anything that we see or perceive in our spouse and are willing to use any method (attacking, judging, etc.) to drive the point home.

Others of us are stuck at the “in love” part of confrontation. We’ve come to believe in complete acceptance and tolerance of any behavior. Often we become paralyzed with a fear of hurting someone’s feelings and withdraw into passivity and silence.

Speaking the truth in love combines both of these concepts to allow us to confront sinful behavior without compromise, yet with absolute care and respect for the individual, saying things in a way that the person can accept. When a couple takes the stance of living out Paul’s challenge of ’speaking the truth in love’ to each other, the old models of judging and passivity must disappear.”

We need to be “on the alert” as the Bible talks about, so we learn to steer clear of that which can cause damage in the way we relate to each other. If the enemy of our faith can get us to fight against each other—we’re not fighting him. And even more importantly, we’re hurting the Kingdom of God and we fail each other when we don’t communicate in a God-honoring way.

True communication is supposed to compose of building a connection with each other—otherwise there is a breakdown in communication. As Dallas and Nancy Demmitt, in their terrific book, Can You Hear Me Now? say on this subject:

Let’s face it, the majority of our struggles in life—whether in a relationship with God, a spouse, a friend, or a colleague—center on a breakdown in communication. Unfortunately, many people have a wrong concept about the keys to communication.

The majority of people treat the process of communication like an airplane ride. They have a place they want to take us and they want to get us there quickly. Other people see communication as a subway, which has a preplanned route, unmovable guidelines, and a hidden agenda beneath the surface. In reality, good communication is more like a bridge.

Consider two people standing on opposite sides of a large canyon without a bridge to connect them. They have no way to reach one another—no way to communicate or collaborate or touch each other’s lives. Now insert a bridge between them. With the bridge in place, each person can walk across to see the world from a different perspective. They can travel freely back and forth to broaden their viewpoint and enrich their experience. Now they can pool resources and unite around common goals.

But not just any bridge will do. People need a bridge they can trust—a strong, safe structure that will support them and the ones they love in good times and bad.

It’s all about building a good bridge to communication and tearing down whatever obstructs the way of making that happen. This includes “pro-actively” learning all we need to so that we are truly eliminating “childish behavior” on our part, “speaking the truth in love.”

With this in mind we want to provide the following “lists” that come from various resources. You’ll need to find a way to obtain the resources for further explanation on their parts as to how to combat the type of game playing that each author describes.

Our intent in this article is to make you aware of just SOME of the different games people can play during their “communication times” so that you will see yourselves in a way that you may never have recognized before.

We pray that this will motivate you to DO something about your own behavior and “put away childish things” that hurt your marriage. That is our prayer for you… and for us. We pray that together, we’ll make our marriages the best they can be with the power of, and for the testimony of, our awesome God.

(2 Corinthians 10:5 NASB)

All of us entered marriage with deeply entrenched patterns of thinking programmed in us since childhood. (David and Teresa Ferguson)

 

Here are the lists of various “games” people play with each other. Each author has a different “spin” on them, but together they give you a general idea that could be helpful:

The following is edited from:
INTIMATE ENCOUNTERS -By David and Teresa Ferguson
Contact them at www.greatcommandment.net

Listed below are 6 of the most common unhealthy thinking patterns that contribute to emotional pain. We all seem to fall victim to one of more of these patterns from time-to-time:

• Personalizing
• Magnifying
• Over-generalizing
• Emotional Reasoning
• Polarizing/Selective Abstraction
• Minimizing

How do we defeat unhealthy thought patterns? Before you can begin to correct unhealthy thought patterns, you must clearly identify them. Let’s take a closer look at them individually:

PERSONALIZING—Life Events Are Personal Rejections and Attacks: It’s taking external events as personal rejections and attacks—overestimating the extent an event is related to him or her.

MAGNIFYING—Making Mountains Out of Molehills: It’s taking life’s events and exaggerating them until everything seems like a catastrophe. We take nickel and dime incidents and turn them into million dollar crises.

OVERGENERALIZING—History Always Repeats Itself: Generalizing is relying on past events to predict the future— casting doubts on your adequacy, and preventing you from trusting others or yourself. They hold on to past hurts, failures, and rejections, and recite them as evidence for their gloomy attitude toward the future. They figure, “Why try? The past will just repeat itself.”

EMOTIONAL REASONING—Interpreting Feelings as Facts: Emotional reasoning is confusing feelings with facts. Regardless of the evidence to the contrary, the person’s convinced that if they felt it, it must be so. What they feel, they think is true—despite what anyone else says to the contrary.

POLARIZING—Seeing Everything as Black or White: “Polarizing” is a perfectionistic thinking pattern that views life as all-or-nothing, good-or-bad, and/or black-or-white. They classify events as right or wrong, good or bad; and they judge their performance (or their spouse’s) on the basis of their own impossible standards.

SELECTIVE ABSTRACTION (An off shoot of Polarizing) Missing the Forest for the Trees: Selective Abstraction is focusing so intently on a few negative traits that the positive ones are overlooked. It’s focusing on what’s wrong rather than on what’s right—spending precious time and energy fussing over a few minor problems instead of investing their energies on positive solutions.

MINIMIZING—It Really Doesn’t Matter: “Minimizing” is denying or discounting any feelings associated with significant events of one’s life. They shut down their emotions and shrug their shoulders over life’s significant hurts and events. It can have a chilling effect on marriages.

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The following is edited from:
BECOMING A COUPLE OF PROMISE –By Dr. Kevin Leman
Published by NavPress www.navpress.com

7 UNFAIR FIGHTING TACTICS

Learn to fight fair. Refrain from:

UNIVERSALIZING: Making an unwarranted leap from a specific situation to a vast generalization. (This often makes use of “always” and “never.”)

CHARACTER KILLING: Switching from the issues of the conflict to making a personal attack on your spouse. (This may include sarcasm for a more devastating effect.)

CLOUD COVERING: Making a vague, foggy accusation instead of being detailed and specific about the complaint. (Again, sarcasm helps!)

UPPING THE ANTE: Instead of responding to the hurt or anger of your spouse, you just play “tit-for-tat” by citing a worse case that’s been done to you.

SCATTER BOMBING: Overwhelming your spouse with a barrage of faults and misdeeds that land all over the map. Dropping into the conversation a huge list of sins (usually unrelated)—including everything and the kitchen sink!

MOTH BALLING: Putting an old grievance in storage—for years or decades—and bringing it out at just the right time to hurt your spouse.

SPITTING IN YOUR SOUP: Using passive-aggressive comments to lay the guilt on the other party. Often involves sarcasm.

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Another unhealthy thinking pattern is:

MIND READING:
Expecting your spouse to “know instinctively” what you expect.

A few insights on this expectation:

• “Anger can be generated by mind reading. In your mind you create your own reasons for why your spouse did what he or she did and you project those reasons onto him.” (From the book: More Communication Keys for Your Marriage –By Dr. Norman Wright)

• “Keep in mind that hinting, pouting, and sighing won’t get the desired results. You need to ask clearly.” (Men Read Newspapers, Not Minds –By Sandra Aldrich)

• “Mind reading should not be your expected form of communication.” (From the book: Men Read Newspapers, Not Minds –By Sandra Aldrich)

• “Families are often spared heartache when the husband isn’t required to read his wife’s mind.” (From the book: Men Read Newspapers, Not Minds –By Sandra Aldrich)

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The following comes from an article titled:
KICK ‘EM OUT OF YOUR BEDROOM
-By Harold and Bette Gillogly www.marriages.net

The Sexual Approach/Avoidance Game: One of you has a greater sex drive than the other. Generally men have a higher sex drive than women, but that’s not always the case. The game starts when the spouse who has the higher sex drive starts believing he or she has to ask or hint for sex 6 or 7 times in order to get it once.

You feel like you have to go through this pattern, this game, in order to get sex one time. The problem with this is every time you hint, every time you ask, is seen as a full-blown approach to your mate with the lower sex drive. So what it looks like to your mate is approach, approach, approach, approach… that can be very intimidating.

If I were to run as fast as I can at you, would you want to lean forward to catch me or would you step back out of the way so you wouldn’t get run over? You’d step back out of the way, right? That’s called self-protection. That’s what happens with the mate who has the lower sex drive. She or he will back off from you out of self-protection and start avoiding sex altogether. If you are the “Approacher” in the Approach/Avoidance game, you are actually lowering your mate’s sex drive. That’s not what you want. You both have to talk about this. Together you have to confess you are playing this game.

If you are playing the game, you must decide together what you are going to do about it, because it takes both of you to stop it. If you’re the “Approacher,” you’ve got to back off lovingly without even subtly trying to lay guilt on your mate. If you lay guilt, you’ll lower your mate’s sex drive. You’ll shoot yourself in the foot. Back off lovingly.

If you are the “Avoidee,” then you have a responsibility here too. Talk about how you have been playing this game and together decide that it’s going to stop. As the “Avoidee,” you must be honest with your mate and with yourself. You can now stop avoiding sex with your mate, because he (or she) is going to stop approaching you so much. Start learning to talk together about your sexual desires. Learn how to mutually give to one another. Think about loving and giving to your mate, not about taking.

We’ve had “Approachers” complain to us, “I quit approaching last week and it’s not fixed yet!” We have to ask, “How long have you played the game?” You see, if you’ve played this game for years and years, don’t expect that in a week or two you’re going to turn things around and everything is going to be hunky-dory again. It’s going to take time and effort, but if you work on this together, you can stop playing this game.

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From the Document:
WHICH GAMES DO YOU PLAY?
(From: Dr Phil: http://drphil.com/articles/article/110/
which, if you visit it, you can view other “Related Links” )

Dr. Phil wants you to take a look inward at the roles and games you may be playing — and the consequences they can have on your most important relationships.

Which self-defeating games are you playing?

Playing the nice guy.
Do you tell people what they want to hear and just go along to get along?

Don’t participate.
Do you say “count me out” so you don’t have to take any chances?

Be a problem.
Don’t want to do the dishes? Is your strategy to just break a few so you won’t be asked again?

Change the game.
About 30 seconds into a “discussion,” have you changed the rules and the topic?

Hiding behind judgments.
Are you using your judgments of others as an excuse to disengage?

My way or the highway.
Do you always have to be right?

Get them before they get me.
Attack! Attack! Attack! It’s the “You can’t fire me, I quit!” attitude.

Analyze your situation and ask yourself these two questions:

• We often play these games because we have fear. What are you afraid you’re going to lose?
• What could you gain if you didn’t play these games?

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From the Document:
CONTAMINATING A RELATIONSHIP:
(From Dr Phil: http://drphil.com/articles/article/22
which if you visit it you view other “Related Links”)

Every one of us has an irrational and destructive emotional side to our personality. This dark side can sabotage your relationship in an insidious way.

Below are the most common characteristics of what Dr. Phil calls “bad spirits,” and how they can impact a relationship.

You’re a Scorekeeper
Competing can quickly turn a relationship into an ugly battle of one-oneupmanship. How can you possibly be a winner if it is at the expense of making the person you supposedly love a loser? Solid relationships are built on sacrifice and caring, not power and control. Competitiveness can drain the joy, confidence and productivity out of any relationship.

You’re a Faultfinder
There is nothing wrong with constructive criticism if it is designed to improve the relationship. But it can often give way to constant faultfinding — in which you obsess over the flaws and imperfections rather than find value in your partner. Get off your partner’s back and you may see your partner moving toward you.

You Think It’s Your Way or the Highway
If you’ve always got to be right, then you’re ready to fight till the end. No truer words were ever spoken, says Dr. Phil; you will fight to the end… the end of your relationship. You can’t be self-righteous or obsessed with control and do what’s best for the relationship at the same time.

You Turn Into an Attack Dog
When you get in an argument, do you have a killer stare, a harsh tone and hurtful words? Attack dogs may experience short-term gain, but the target of the abuse becomes filled with bitterness and resentment. While it’s easy to fall into viciousness, it’s much harder to repair the resulting consequences.

You are a Passive Warmonger
Instead of fault-finding or engaging in character assassination, these toxic partners try to thwart their partner by constantly doing that which they deny they are doing — in such an indirect way as to escape accountability if they are confronted. A passive aggressive person is as much of an overbearing controller as the most aggressive, in-your-face person you could imagine — only they do it insidiously and underhandedly.

You Resort to Smoke and Mirrors
Because you lack the courage to get real about what is driving the pain and problems in your relationship, you criticize your partner about one thing when you’re really upset about another. What is real never gets voiced, and what gets voiced is never real. The real issues will eventually burst forth in a torrid way.

You Will Not Forgive
When you choose to bear anger at your partner, you trap yourself in pain and agony — and the negative energy can crowd every other feeling out of your heart. If you wallow in resentment and refuse to forgive and move on, you will tear up your own life and your relationship. You can’t change the past but you can deal with the resulting feelings and hurt by truly forgiving.

You Are the Bottomless Pit
Are you so needy that you constantly undermine your chances of success? Can you never get enough satisfaction, love, attention or appreciation? Your partner will be frustrated by never seeming able to “fill you up.” We all want reassurance, but an insatiable appetite for it never gives your partner any rest. Free yourself from the internalized sense of inadequacy, and find other ways to feel your self-worth and value.

You’re Too Comfortable
If you’re in a comfort zone, you are failing to meet your responsibilities in the relationship. You aren’t contributing, you aren’t stimulating, and you aren’t energizing. If you don’t make a move, it becomes easier and easier to stagnate.

You’ve Given Up
When so many bad spirits crowd your life, you cannot imagine there being any way out. You become so forlorn, lonely, isolated, negative, cynical, and far from your core of consciousness that you believe you’re trapped. Be strong enough to confront your problems instead of giving up.

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