What You Can and Can't Negotiate in a Relationship

The starting point in any negotiation between partners is sorting out what sits on the table and what never will. Values don't belong there. Nobody gets to say, "I'll trade away my spiritual beliefs if you drop the idea of spanking the kids." That kind of thing isn't up for trade. The one category you can genuinely work out together is behavior: who does what, held to which standard, finished by when. Attitudes and interests aren't negotiable at all, so trying to bargain over them goes nowhere.

A lot of it comes down to slowing the whole thing way down. Someone opens with a phrase like, "We seem to disagree about X," rather than labeling it a problem up front. Take clutter, a fairly ordinary one. It came up for Ellyn and Peter early on. Once they moved in together it was obvious that Peter could put up with a lot more visual mess than Ellyn could. She'll say the same, that her tolerance for disorder runs low.

The moment you frame it as "the problem is," a finger goes up, either at the other person or at yourself. Ellyn might land on, "Pete, you're a slob," and Peter counters with, "No, the problem is I don't want to live inside a museum." Nothing good follows from that. But if one of you can begin with "we seem to disagree about X," and you both reach agreement on what the disagreement actually concerns, a large part of the work is already behind you.

For them it sounded more like, "We seem to disagree about how much clutter is acceptable in the living room, the kitchen, and the dining room." Worded that way, no one carries the blame and you end up with an honest picture of where things stand. No accusation is baked into it. From there each person takes a turn laying out their interests, their priorities, what they actually want. You ask plenty of questions along the way so you can see the situation the way your partner sees it. There are a handful of steps after that too.