POJA and Provisional Agreement - 08/19/12 05:46 PM
So, I came across the following quote from DNM and it intrigued me. It was on 20YHistory's thread:
I didn't want to disrupt that thread, but it seems to me that Dr. Harley has discussed provisional agreements (say, moving) and has endorsed them when it simply isn't POSSIBLE to know how the parties will react after a period of time. But, here, DNM is saying that the new fridge has become the status quo and changes to THAT must be POJA'd. That would seem to sound the deathknell for the possibility of reaching agreemnent where there is deeply opposing emotions/feelings, ie., over where to live.
That seems wrong. Obviously DMN must continue to avoid IB and SDs, but...something about this just seems off. I wonder, too, about the Type A/Type B resentment as applied to this kind of sitch. Nor am I so sure that DNM's resentment will fade once they get a new fridge. Why wouldn't it fester in the back of his mind? $10,000 is ALOT of money.
But....I don't know. Hence my new thread.
Quote
Yep, those statements really transform a conversation. "I'd like to brainstorm about..." is sometimes a tough one if you don't keep the conversation focused right. You want to pick the things you are enthusiastic about, and ignore the ones you aren't! If you take the typical brainstorming approach of discussing the shortfalls of certain approaches, it makes the conversation very negative. Best to say "I'm not enthusiastic about that option by itself" and move on. Most of our best brainstorms are hybrids of several ideas, and end up something like "If we do this in this way, and that in this other way, then I'm enthusiastic about some other thing."
Be careful of time-dependent enthusiastic agreement. For instance, I was not enthusiastic about disposing of our old fridge. I gave provisional enthusiastic agreement: I agreed we'd try out this new fridge for three months, and if we didn't like it we could put the old one back. Well, I **hate** the new fridge. It's already cost us $10,000 in a flood due to a busted icemaker. [b]But my wife is no longer enthusastic about moving the old fridge back in from the garage, and since the default position is to "do nothing", we're stuck with a fridge I hate with a broken icemaker until we come to an enthusiastic agreement about replacing it.
Lesson learned: never make an agreement based upon a future promise. One of you is going to lose in that kind of agreement.
But I do keep complaining. "I really dislike this refrigerator", "I'm unhappy this heap is still in the house," "I'd like to dispose of this refrigerator", etc. Gotta make sure she knows how I feel, as this has put me on the losing end of a POJA. However, resentment due to passivity is less strong than active resentment due to something you've done! So if I remind my spouse how unhappy this refrigerator has made me, that's much better than if I drag the refrigerator out to the front yard unilaterally and take my chainsaw to it. My resentment over the refrigerator will be gone the day we get a new one; her resentment over me taking a chainsaw to the fridge, forcing us to use the old one, would last a long, long time...
Be careful of time-dependent enthusiastic agreement. For instance, I was not enthusiastic about disposing of our old fridge. I gave provisional enthusiastic agreement: I agreed we'd try out this new fridge for three months, and if we didn't like it we could put the old one back. Well, I **hate** the new fridge. It's already cost us $10,000 in a flood due to a busted icemaker. [b]But my wife is no longer enthusastic about moving the old fridge back in from the garage, and since the default position is to "do nothing", we're stuck with a fridge I hate with a broken icemaker until we come to an enthusiastic agreement about replacing it.
Lesson learned: never make an agreement based upon a future promise. One of you is going to lose in that kind of agreement.
But I do keep complaining. "I really dislike this refrigerator", "I'm unhappy this heap is still in the house," "I'd like to dispose of this refrigerator", etc. Gotta make sure she knows how I feel, as this has put me on the losing end of a POJA. However, resentment due to passivity is less strong than active resentment due to something you've done! So if I remind my spouse how unhappy this refrigerator has made me, that's much better than if I drag the refrigerator out to the front yard unilaterally and take my chainsaw to it. My resentment over the refrigerator will be gone the day we get a new one; her resentment over me taking a chainsaw to the fridge, forcing us to use the old one, would last a long, long time...
I didn't want to disrupt that thread, but it seems to me that Dr. Harley has discussed provisional agreements (say, moving) and has endorsed them when it simply isn't POSSIBLE to know how the parties will react after a period of time. But, here, DNM is saying that the new fridge has become the status quo and changes to THAT must be POJA'd. That would seem to sound the deathknell for the possibility of reaching agreemnent where there is deeply opposing emotions/feelings, ie., over where to live.
That seems wrong. Obviously DMN must continue to avoid IB and SDs, but...something about this just seems off. I wonder, too, about the Type A/Type B resentment as applied to this kind of sitch. Nor am I so sure that DNM's resentment will fade once they get a new fridge. Why wouldn't it fester in the back of his mind? $10,000 is ALOT of money.
But....I don't know. Hence my new thread.
