Hey guys, welcome back to Partnership Aligned Podcast! Today I want to talk to you about compromise. What is compromise? And how much should you compromise in your relationship? How do you know when it’s appropriate to compromise and when it’s not? These are all such valid questions and I’m going to answer all of them! So let’s get into it.
First of all, let’s talk about what compromise is. Well, according to Dr. Google, compromise is the mutual concession between two parties. In English, what that means is that you find a middle ground between you and your partner’s wishes, habits, or preferences.
Now, my work revolves around thoughts and feelings. I help you manage them and change them if need be. Through that work one of the things that I’ve noticed is that you can take the same compromising action from two different emotions or from two different energies and create a completely different experience or result.
Let me give you an example of what I mean. Let’s keep it basic and simple by using the example of housework. Let’s say you and your spouse take turns cooking. It’s his turn and he asks you to do it instead. You prefer not to but you choose to compromise. Now, if you do the cooking that night from a place of generosity and love because you’re thinking “I want to give whenever I can because that’s the person I want to be in this relationship,” that’s a VERY DIFFERENT scenario than if you do the cooking that night from a place of resentment and people pleasing. In that case, you’re probably thinking something like “I don’t want to say no and start a fight or have him think I’m being a brat.”
Do you see how the action is exactly the same? In both scenarios, you compromised and did the cooking. But in one scenario it was out of love and in another scenario it was out of fear. Side note: Did you know that the two core emotions are love and fear?
Anytime you do or don’t do something, you can always bring it back to either love or fear. So if you’re not doing it out of love, you’re doing it out of fear. And fear masquerades as anger, manipulation, people pleasing, etc.
OK so back to compromising… now that we’ve identified what compromise is and how it can be used in different ways, how often should you be doing it?
So the first thing to look at is, are you generally on one extreme side? Do you constantly compromise and give? If so, you’re probably a people pleaser. I have a whole episode on this called The Price Of People Pleasing Your Partner. It’s episode 10 and I’ll link it in the show notes so you can listen to it.
Or maybe you’re on the opposite extreme, constantly expecting everything to be your way and your expectations are one sided. I have an episode on this too! It’s episode 6, Are Your Expectations Causing You Pain? I’ll link that one as well.
Clearly, if you’re on one end of the spectrum most of the time then you need to work on getting closer to the middle. We always want to be balanced. But aside from that point, how do you know when you should compromise and when you shouldn’t?
The answer is, check in with your gut. Most of your pain comes from your insides not matching your outsides. So, I want you to ask yourself one question, “Do I like my reasons?” So if your reason for compromising is because you care about having a relationship where you make compromises sometimes or it genuinely doesn’t affect you on a deep level to make that compromise, then I would consider those great reasons!
But if your reason is because you don’t want to get in a fight or because you’re afraid of being judged or rejected, then I would suggest revisiting those reasons and asking yourself “Is that a reason I want to base a decision on?”
I know we are talking about making decisions regarding compromises in your relationship but I just want you to know that this is how to make all decisions! Often when I coach women I notice there is a theme of indecision.
Indecision comes from the idea that there is only one right decision and by default a wrong decision. Which then, of course, causes anxiety about making the wrong decision which then leads to indecision.
Well I am here to tell you that that there is no such thing as a right or wrong decision! Do you know how to make the right decision? You make the decision that is supported by the reasons you like, and then you have your own back. It’s much easier to have your own back when you make a decision or a compromise based on your deeper values and desires. Why? Because now your insides are matching your outsides! Your actions align with your core. This is where you find peace, regardless of whether someone is mad about it or not.
You’ll notice that I’m not telling you which topics to compromise on. I’m not saying compromise on housework but not on geographical changes. I’m not saying never compromise on how to raise the kids but always compromise on where you spend your holidays.
That’s because, again, there is no right or wrong answer across the board. You have all the answers within you. Your body knows whether this is something you really need to stand your ground on or whether it’s totally ok to bend on it.
Susan Scott says, “We will be successful when there is complete alignment between who we are or wish to become and what we live.” In other words, when your words and actions match up with who you want to be, you are at peace.
So this is my invitation to you to look inward. If there is a particular conflict or tension in your marriage right now and no one wants to “concede,” I invite you to check yourself. Would compromising on this one violate your values and who you want to be? Or are you just not budging because you don’t feel like it or are acting out on some resentment?
Also, what are your motives here? Do you not want to compromise because you feel that would somehow give your partner more power? Do you want to be told you’re right? If you removed those less than honorable motives, would it actually bother you to compromise in this particular topic?
These are all just questions you want to ask yourself. If you’ve been listening to this podcast, then you’ve heard me share in several episodes that I really abandoned myself in my marriage. I compromised often. Sometimes I really was ok with it. But other times I was completely misaligned.
So one of the questions I asked myself when I started this work was, “did I just say yes because he’s used to me saying yes and I don’t want to change up on him?” Another one was “When I do say yes, what is the energy that I do that from?” “What energy do I say no from?” In other words, what is the emotion that’s driving my action?
I figured out that I was saying yes from an energy of fear – fear of conflict. And when I said no it was because I was feeling resentful and angry. So when I compromised and when I didn’t compromise, none of it was coming from reasons I liked. No wonder I was struggling!
It wasn’t until I started checking in with my gut and my core values that I began to make decisions around compromising from a place of authenticity.
And I’ve heard people say that sometimes you just have to do what you don’t want to do to make things work. And I get it. But my problem with that is that then you are left with low-key resentment. And if there’s one thing I know to be true about resentment, it’s that it always comes out somehow! Either directly or indirectly, resentment causes disconnect.
So what are your reasons for the compromises you make? What about the ones you don’t make? Do you like those reasons? Do they align with the woman you want to be?
There is a reason that my podcast and my coaching program are named partnership aligned. My goal is to help you align with yourself so that you can then align with your partner.
