Kylie Ninow

Professor M. Jarvis
FHS 2400
March 9, 2017

OPTION B: ACTIVE LISTENING/CONFLICT RESOLUTION

One of the best things that a person can have in their relationship toolkit is the ability to

resolve conflicts through effective communication. Review the concepts found on pages 252 &

253 and try using them. Try emphasizing the concepts of summarizing, paraphrasing, validation

and clarification in your exchange. You may teach the concepts to your partner before the

conversation. The conversation should last for at least 5 to 10 minutes. In your paper, describe

your relationship with your partner, the topic of the discussion and your reaction to the

conversation. Interview your partner and get their reaction as well. What skills were most

helpful?

Being in a relationship you have to learn to support and love one another. With those two

traits, other things fall under them as well like listening, communication, trust and solving

conflicts within the couple. We are going to talk about listening and problem solving, for these

two things are major in how strong a couples relationship is with one another. Learning how to

listens to your partner and understanding where they are, will help bring you two closer. Being

able to resolve conflicts together will help keep the big things small and help strength the trust

and bond.

The happy couples are not what they seem. Yes, they are happy together and may never

fight, but it still happens. This couple handles their disagreements in a positive non-threatening
way. The unhappy couple are the couples that tend to deal with their issues in negative ways.

This couple tends to use the phrase if it bothers you than you do it! There are many negative

ways of how this couple resolves their fight like yelling, confrontation, demeaning

communication, criticizing, etc.

While in a conversation with my boyfriend we started discussing videos, which I am not

too fond of. We went on talking about how I feel about him playing video games too much with

me around and when I am not around. His feeling is that he does not play enough, which every

gamer probably feel this way. During this conversation, I witnessed him using validation which

is affirming the other feelings: I can understand how you feel (Strong & Cohen, 2014, p.

252), it felt nice to see him using one of the techniques I told him about earlier in the day, like he

actually listened to me. The conversation we had together about the video game issue helped us

to be on the same page and work out a compromise which is an intermediate position in

terms of both assertiveness and cooperativeness (Strong & Cohen, 2014, p. 253).

Some of the techniques I wished we would have used is clarifying and paraphrasing. If he

would have used these two as well, I would have felt better throughout the whole conversation

and not just at the end when we solved the issue. If we had used these I would have felt more

affirmed that he was listening better. If he had used clarifying which is each ask for further

information to make sure that he or she understood what the other was saying (Strong & Cohen,

2014, p. 252) this could have helped us not misunderstand what we wanted out of the

conversation and what we felt. Paraphrasing would have helped in the sense that we wouldve

been repeating back what we took out of what they have just said.

Listening to your partner and resolving issues together will help you two in the long run.

With the techniques, I have mentioned and briefly went over have helped me and my boyfriend
work out an issue. It also helped me to realized that we still need to be able to use the other

techniques we did not really use so we can understand the other side as well.

Work Cited

Strong, B, & Cohen, T. F. (2014). The marriage and family experience: intimate

relationships in a changing society (12th ed.). Belmont, CA Wadsworth.