They said, “What do you mean?”
And I said, “I have made a decision and purchased the equipment to shoot each of my children as they come in the door from school and then to turn the gun on myself because life is unbearable.” At that time I was thinking that the world was a big and wicked place anyway, and the best thing to do for them would be to take them with me. It scared the heck out of me when I realized that that was my decision. Luckily, I was lucid enough to be able to go to the hospital and say, “I have decided to do it, I have the stuff to do it, and I plan to do it. But I know it’s not right. Please help me.”
I look back now and realize how interesting it is that I wasn’t going to shoot him. It was me. It was always me.
Ultimately, this woman showed tremendous proactive courage in realizing that this was her husband’s problem. She ended up getting a college degree, moving her family to a new location, and building a new life—without “Steve.” But just look at what happened as a result of all those years when her attitude was essentially lose-win and she was codependent on a husband who was filled with the spirit of chauvinism and irresponsibility.
For most people the lose-win attitude is “I’m a martyr. Go ahead, step on me. Have your way with me. Everyone else does.” But what is the consequence of this type of attitude in a relationship? Is there any way that this pattern is going to build a rich, long-term relationship of trust and love?
Win-Win—the Only Long-term Viable Alternative
Really, the only long-term viable alternative is win-win. In fact, it is the essence of a beautiful family culture. Both win-lose and lose-win will ultimately result in lose-lose.
If you’re a parent, habitual win-lose will absolutely bankrupt the Emotional Bank Account. You may get your way in the short run, particularly when children are little. You’re bigger, you’re stronger, you can get your way. But what happens when those children become teenagers? Will they be clear-thinking adolescents, empowered to make good choices on their own? Or will they be so engaged in a reactive struggle for identity, so focused on “winning” in the relationship, that they have no real chance to connect with their own unique gifts or with you as a genuine source of help?
On the other hand, with lose-win you may be popular in the short run because you essentially take the course of least resistance and continuously let others have their way with you. But there’s no vision, no standard, no respect. And children end up reaping the consequences of myopic decisions made without the perspective of a parent’s guidance and experience and decisive strength. There’s no doubt that it’s a long-term loss for a child who grows up without principle-based values and a relationship of respect with parents. And it’s a loss for both child and parent when the relationship is based on manipulation and popularity rather than trust.
And what about a marriage? What kind of impact does it have on the relationship and on the culture when marriage partners are constantly engaged in ego battles, when they’re more concerned about who is right than what is right? Or what is the impact when one spouse becomes a doormat, a martyr? There’s no win in it. It’s a lose for everyone in the family.
I’ve been working with this win-win habit in the context of the 7 Habits now for over twenty years, and many have asked, particularly when it comes to the family, whether or not it’s always applicable. It’s my experience that the concept of trying to develop a win-win relationship is always applicable, but all decisions and agreements won’t necessarily be win-win.
Sometimes you may make an unpopular or a win-lose decision with a child because you know it’s wise. You know it’s not a win, for example, for a child to stay out of school, to avoid being inoculated, or to play in the street instead of the playground—even though the child may really want to. But you can explain unpopular decisions in a way that does not show disrespect to that child and that keeps your decisions from becoming withdrawals. If it’s on an issue that is terribly important to the child, you may need to spend more time understanding and explaining so that that child will eventually feel the spirit of win-win even though he or she may not like the decision—and sometimes even you—for a short season.
At other times you may choose to go for what appears to be lose-win because of time pressure and because the issue is peripheral or secondary and the person is central or primary. The principle is this: What is important to another person must be as important to you as the other person is to you. In other words, in your heart you essentially say, “My love for you is so great and our happiness is so entwined that I would not feel good if I got my way and you were unhappy—particularly when you feel so strongly about it.”
Now some might say that by doing this you have given in, capitulated, or compromised. But this is not so. You have merely shifted your emotional focus from the particular issue or decision to the value of the person you love and the quality of your relationship with that person. And in doing so, what might seem to be lose-win is really a win-win.
In other situations it may be that the issue that is important to someone else is also really important to you, and so you’ll need to move toward synergy—to find some transcendent purpose or value that unites you, enabling the release of creative juices to find a better way in actualizing that value or achieving that goal or purpose. But as you can see, in all of these instances the spirit and the eventual outcome is always win-win.
Win-win is really the only solid foundation for effective family interaction. It’s the only pattern of thinking and interacting that builds long term relationships of trust and unconditional love.
From “Me” to “We”
One man shared this experience:
One day several years ago my wife and I learned that my mother and stepfather had died in a plane crash. We were devastated. Family gathered from all over the country to attend the funeral, and afterward we sadly turned to the task of packing up all their possessions.
During the packing it became evident that some of my siblings had strong feelings about having certain things, and they did not hesitate to make them known.
“Who are you to assume that you get that chest?”
“I can’t believe that he thinks he is going to get that antique painting!”
“Just look at how ‘grabby’ she is—and she’s an in-law.”
I found myself being sucked into the same spirit of criticism, and I soon realized that dividing these possessions could deeply divide the family and leave a wake of hurt and isolation. To keep that from happening, I decided to focus on things I could influence in a positive way.
First, I suggested to the others that we allow ourselves some time—weeks or even months if necessary—before we attempted to decide who got what. Meanwhile, everything could be placed in storage.
Second, I suggested that we all work on developing a process for dividing the things that would help draw us together as a family and strengthen our relationships, and would also enable us to have items that we either needed or would really enjoy and that would help us remember Mother and John. Everyone seemed to like the ideas and agreed.
But it wasn’t that simple. In the months that followed, it was easy to get sucked into thinking, Hey, wait a minute! I wanted that, too. But I kept coming back to the end in mind. I said, “Okay, what’s most important here? It’s the relationships. It’s the outcome. So how can we do this?” I just kept trying to affirm that we needed to work so that everyone would be happy.
We finally put together a list of all the possessions so that everyone knew what was available. We gave a copy of the list to everyone with a little note reminding them of our end goal as a family. We said, “Would you please go through this list and number in order the top five things that you would like? As you do that, consider the other members of the family, because we want everyone to be happy.”
We asked all to come prepared so that if another family member was bashful about expressing a desire, they could be sensitive and plead for that family member’s getting a certain thing.
When the day for dividing the possessions came, I realized that, despite all our good intentions, there was a high potential for quite a volatile situation. Feeling the need to reconnect with our purpose, I said, “Remember, we are here because we love these two people and we love one another. We want to come out of this experience happy. We want these next few hours to be something that would bring Mom and John happiness if they were here.”