Page 67 of About that Fling
He looked around, curious to see who’d been paying attention. Jenna was watching with an uneasy sort of alertness. Beside her, Mia sat biting her lip and scribbling notes on a spiral notepad with a blue cover.
“Disrespectful,” Jenna said, surprising him. Then again, it was probably good for her to speak up. It would look suspicious if the two of them avoided each other altogether.
“Good. Exactly. Disrespectful is definitely a judgment word. Anything else?”
“Nagging.” Nancy Jensen crossed her arms crossed over her chest. “I hate that word. Men use it all the time when they want to degrade a woman or dismiss whatever she’s saying as petty and annoying.”
“Hey,” called Brett Lombard, scowling. “No generalizations about how men always do this or always do that.”
“Good, this is good,” Adam said, scrambling to divert the conversation back to the example. “You guys are doing an excellent job of modeling the sort of language we don’t want to be using.”
Several members of the group frowned at the backhanded compliment, but no one argued.
“As I was saying,” Adam continued, “there were a number of examples of judgmental language in the dialogue John and I just had. One example is something you may not have picked up on because it sounded very much like I was trying to be sensitive and express an emotion. Did anyone catch that?”
He surveyed the room, wondering who’d picked up on it. On the far side of the room, his ex-wife tapped her pen three times on her notepad. A familiar gesture, one Adam remembered well. She had a thought, and was wrestling with whether to voice it. When she looked up, her eyes met his, and Adam forced himself not to look away.
“You said ‘I feel like you never listen to me.’” She glanced down at her notes as though confirming she’d gotten the words right, then looked back at him and nodded. “Never is a very inflammatory word.”
“Exactly,” he said, his voice hitching a little on the second syllable. “And that’s only part of what makes the sentence so judgmental. Can you pick up on anything else?”
She hesitated, tapping her pen again. “I’m not sure.”
Adam swallowed. How many times in their marriage had she uttered that phrase? Never, not that he could remember. She’d always been so goddamn certain about everything, sure he was working too many hours and not being spontaneous enough, sure he should be listening better instead of?—
“It’s the word ‘like,’” he said. “It’s a tricky one. On the surface, it sounds as though I’m trying to express a feeling, right? The sentence began with ‘I feel like,’ so it’s gotta be an emotion, right?”
She shook her head, but didn’t say anything. Something in her expression said Mia was dangerously close to tears, and Adam had no earthly idea what he’d done to provoke that. So much for being a perceptive professional mediator.
“Generally speaking,” he said, softening his voice a little. “If the word ‘like’ follows the words ‘I feel,’ you’re expressing a judgment, not a feeling. For instance, ‘I feel like you’re being unprofessional,’ or ‘I feel like you aren’t hearing me’—those are judgments, not genuine feelings.”
Mia nodded, then looked down at her notebook again. She began to jot something in earnest. She was taking this whole process very seriously. Part of him wanted to be flattered. Hell, had Mia ever hung on his every word before?
Part of him just wanted to be pissed that the answer was no.
Adam took a breath. He needed to move on. “The worksheet I handed out at the start of this exercise has a list of universal feelings,” he said. “These are internal sensations without reference to thoughts or interpretations. They can range from embarrassment to uneasiness to suspicion to helplessness, and they are feelings everyone can relate to. Every single one of us.”
Every eye in the room was watching him now, and for the first time in days, Adam felt sure he was getting somewhere with the group. He held up his copy of the sheet and pointed to the list at the top. “Up here we have a list of universal human needs. I want you to study these without reference to specific people, actions, or things.”
He gave the group a moment to look at the sheet. He stole a glance at Jenna and saw her staring down at the page. She had a furrow between her brows that Adam wanted to stroke with the pad of his thumb, caressing the worry away. He forced himself to look someplace else, turning his attention back to the CEO.
“Okay then. John, could I get you to walk through that example with me again?”
“Sure. Yes, absolutely.”
“This time, I’d like us to use language that expresses feelings and needs. I’ll start by being Ms. Archibald again.” He looked down at the sheet, though he pretty much had it memorized. He hadn’t always known how to work through conflict like this, but it had become second nature to him now. How would it have changed his marriage if he’d found the tool seven or eight years ago?
He folded his arms across his knees and cued up his Sharon Archibald voice again. “John, I’m feeling anxious and overwhelmed and a little helpless.”
“Okay,” the CEO said, looking leery, but he didn’t interrupt.
Adam continued, treading carefully. “When it comes to the household, I have a real need for order and harmony. It’s what helps me feel safe in our home.”
He heard someone on the opposite side of the room mutter “cheesy,” but everyone else was paying attention. Even the CEO sat blinking at him in surprise.
“Did you catch how I expressed both feelings and needs?”
John nodded, saying nothing.
