Connection Breakers - What PARCHeS Relationship Pools of Connection?

The last post was about “relation dehydration” – or losing water from your emotional connection pool (reading it will help make more sense out of this post). In a nutshell, the icy distance between spouses stems from one of three sources: evaporation (neglecting the relationship), dipping (negativity in the relationship), or cracks in the pool (lack of trust and/or commitment in the relationship). But what are some specific things that lead to disconnection in relationships? While there are countless thoughts, words, and actions that lead to loss of connection in relationship pools, they almost always stem from one or more of the following “Connection Breakers”.

The acronym is PARCHeS – very fitting considering what these literally do to relationships – they leave pools of emotional connection feeling shallow, empty, hollow, and dried up.

P – stands for Pride. Pride is the universal sponge that often finds its way into relationship pools. It is THEE deadly cancer in relationships and any other nasty and mean thing that spouses do to each other is ultimately a manifestation of pride.  A “me-first marriage” is rarely a happy one. If left unchecked and pride continues, it ultimately leads to pulling the plug at the bottom of the relationship pool. People who wreak of pride and arrogance literally repel others from wanting to get close to them.

A – stands for Attitude. It is difficult to feel close to someone else when a constant negative attitude is radiated. When I’m cranky and irritable sometimes even nice things my wife says or does might bug me! Negative attitudes are manifest in countless ways, some of the most hurtful include attitudes related to being sarcastic, impatient, bored, pessimistic, suspicious, irritable and critical. Impatient attitudes may result from feeling what someone has termed H.A.L.T. This stands for Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired. These four buggers can easily influence our attitudes. In short, negative attitudes lead to “dipping” words and actions from the relationship pool of connection.

R – stands for Response. This one is so critical it deserves its own blog post – for another day, or review the post “Turn toward calls for connection” for a reminder. When interactions in relationships get heated, our response often matters more than the stressor itself.  Perhaps the most important part of our response to others is our TONE of voice. Tone changes everything!

Take a look at the following sentences. In your mind (or out loud J) you can only say the word “Honey” in response to each bullet. Notice how your tone and pitch in your voice (or mental voice) changes.

• You just found out your spouse received a pay raise
• Your spouse calls to tell you he/she was just rear-ended in your car
• Your spouse brings flowers or a gift home to you
• Your spouse is playing on his/her cell phone instead of listening to what you are saying (this one never happens right?)
• You were just given a great welcome-home hug and smooch from your spouse (the tone could really be different here—depending on your attitude…uh…honey?)
• You are in the bathroom and just ran out of toilet paper

Wow! You can see (and hear) how tone matters. The point is this: we CAN control how we respond to our spouse, our kids, our coworkers and our environment. We can choose to ACT, rather that REACT. Think about the last time you answered the telephone in the middle of an argument with your spouse or child. You immediately went from harsh to pleasant! A harsh tone or response is really an invitation for the other person to either: 1) get defensive (shut down, which results in evaporation in the relationship pool) or 2) go offensive (respond right back at ya!) This results in dipping from the pool.

Relationship expert John Gottman found that when couples began a conversation with what he termed a “harsh startup”, 96% of the time the conversation would spiral out of control and it ended worse than it began So if you begin a discussion that way, you might as well pull the plug, take a breather, and start over.

C – stands for Competition and H stands for Hostility. Again, no surprise here that feelings of competition and hostility come from pride, the mother of all messes. Competition means “me against you” instead of “me and you”. And competition inevitably means a winner and a loser. Competition and hostility frequently go together. Last year my wife and I were watching our daughter’s soccer game. Just down from us was seated a man, then his father, mother, and his wife was seated on the end. Throughout the game the man and his wife would occasionally make little pokes at each other. Geez! Talk about feeling uncomfortable and awkward sitting by them. Things were getting a little heated when finally the man’s mother said, “You two need to quit this. You are on the same team!”. Then the man launched a grenade into their relationship pool (I’m certain it was more like a puddle) when he said the following in a sarcastic tone, “I don’t want a loser on my team!”. Ouch! The feeling of competition with each other, trying to out-do each other led to hostility and relationship grenades!

Competition almost always leads to contention and hostility, which leads to dipping from the pool of emotional connection. John Gottman found that criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling were sure signs that relationships were cascading toward a waterfall of destruction if left unchanged.  Unfortunately it also leads to evaporation – who wants to add cups of connection to their pool when they are feeling like they are on opposing teams? Remember marriage is not a contest - never keep score!

S – stands for Stress and Selfishness. Research studies show that when people feel stressed, they turn inward and basically lose the ability to have empathy and compassion. It’s difficult to feel close or even want to feel close to your spouse when you are stressed out. It is not uncommon for stressed spouses to focus only on the negative and the problems in the relationship. But remember this: when you focus on problems, you will have more problems. When you focus on possibilities you will have more opportunities (for connection).

Research also shows that we generally like and admire about 80% of our spouse, while 20% might bother us occasionally or sometimes just downright drive us nuts. However, when we feel stress in the relationship, the 20% that we don’t care for all of a sudden FEELS like 80% and we focus on that. We talk to others about it. We complain about it. We dwell on it. It’s a vicious cycle that pulls us down. Hidden feelings of selfishness combined with toxic stress all scream that the problem is THEM! If they would only change! Even worse, we may experience a “loyalty leak” in our pool of connection as we start admiring others around us and notice that the woman/man at work listens to us, appreciates us, and laughs at our jokes. We may even think to ourselves that we like 100% of this “other person”, not realizing that we all have our own 20% that bugs others.

I think there is truth in this quote about selfishness, “Every divorce is the result of selfishness on the part of one or the other or both parties to a marriage contract. Someone is thinking of self-comforts, conveniences, freedoms, luxuries, or ease.” – Spencer Kimball.

Wow! Talk about a depressing post! So that’s what research shows dries, or PARCHeS relationships. Most relationship issues stem, in some way, back to one or more of these areas. Take another look at PARCHeS. What do each of the words have in common? They all focus INWARD – it’s about ME, rather than WE. They are concerned about WHO is right, not about WHAT is right. Stay tuned for the next post about Connection Makers – the cure for a PARCHed relationship! Better yet, subscribe to the blog and you'll be notified when it comes out. ;)

I would love to know what you think. Leave me a comment below!