Reddit reviews Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most

What you have written here may be a really good start for how you could express these feelings to her. You know what you need and your sister, so definitely modulate based on those things. What about choosing a card you like and sending her a handwritten note expressing this - or an email - either way I think you'll benefit from writing it at some point? Let her know how much you love her and how much you look forward to being there for your niece/nephew. And that you know she only wants to share her joy with you out of a sense of love. Then maybe say that you also are experiencing a depth of sadness and struggle that you have a hard time expressing, and it means that hearing these day to day updates are really hard for you. Close with something about hoping that knowing how much she cares for you that she can also support you by trying to understand why you can't be the one with whom she shares this kind of thing, as much as you'd like to be.

Whatever you do - written, verbal; in any difficult conversation it helps to avoid saying "but," in place use "and." The book Difficult Conversations helped me with feeling more confident about how to address this kind of thing in my personal and professional life, that was one point that stuck. I read it while earning my principal licensure, but I swear I used it more with dealing with my MIL!

Difficult Conversations is a phenomenal book for this.

Look at it for a second from the other way around. Anxiety leads up to anger.

Anger is often called a secondary emotion. It gets built up like a reservoir of gasoline by anxiety, frustration and fear about your situation. And when the appropriate trigger comes up the anger blows up like a match to a can of fuel that was already sitting there.

> "the desire to punish" and "rage"

These are efforts to restore control over what is happening in your life. These feelings can be managed by improving communication and using positive assertiveness. If you're having difficulty at work check out Difficult Conversations.

Something you can do now is try this free Anger Management Workbook. Don't even need to print it out. Just grab a pen and paper and get to work. It is very concise and quick to work through and find helpful techniques. You can take the notes with you the next time you see your therapist to help stay on topic for what's really problematic right now.

Generally speaking it's a good idea to keep a journal of your therapy visits. You can write down things that come up that you want to remember to talk about and work through. You can do it on your phone's notebook app or use Google Docs app. Field Notes are nice and small if you want a hard copy to carry around.

Also check out books like [Anger Management for Dummies](https://hmt.es/Anger Management For Dummies.pdf), When Anger Hurts or other books at your local library. Totally free to get a library card.

Good for you for getting help! Sometimes we just need to learn a few better techniques for dealing with our family and life's challenges. Good luck!

Maybe Difficult Conversations by Douglas Stone, the Harvard Mediation guy? (He also wrote 'Getting to Yes') I have found the book helpful, and your team might like it because it applies to all areas of life, not just work. http://www.amazon.com/Difficult-Conversations-Discuss-What-Matters/dp/014028852X

Also, the Harvard Business Review has some good anthology-style books. Might be nice to get one on teams, management, strategy, or whatever looks good (they're all on Amazon) and discuss. I read one on management and thought it was really useful.

Also agree that 'Getting Things Done' is a good book to have in the office library!

This known as uncommitted complaining. People often do it to vent, but as you've found it can become tiresome. I have a policy of not listening to uncommitted complaining for very long. If you want to complain to me about something repeatedly, you better be prepared to fix it. Of course, talking to people about that can be difficult. I've learned a lot from Difficult Conversation and [Leadership and Self Deception].(http://www.amazon.com/Leadership-Self-Deception-Getting-Out/dp/1576751740)

I'm so sorry this is happening to you. How do you get along in other aspects of your life, raising a child, sharing a household etc? I can't imagine that he doesn't know something is wrong.

I highly recommend the book Difficult Conversations for looking at a variety of ways to approach this conversation. People can say a lot of things without understanding what effect it will have/did have on other people.

Couples therapy can also be really helpful, at least for getting you both to a space where you can say what you need to say, with someone who's profession is mediating relationships and conflicts. I might not save things, but it will definitely help you both understand the other one more.

There's a common trap that I fall into when discussing something emotional and vulnerable like this. If I am hurt by something person B does, and I bring it up to person B, ideally we can talk about how I was hurt and why it happened and how we can do better. But, often it ends up bring about person B feeling attacked and defensive, and the conversation becomes more about catering to B's emotional reactions.

Similarly, if I do something that hurts person C, and they tell me so, I should be able to talk about it, but it's really easy to shut down, become unresponsive. It's tempting to just keep apologizing or beating up on myself, as though self-abasement will solve the problem. It doesn't; it makes it worse, and takes attention away from the original issue.

I've had one partner who was pretty squicked by any bodily fluids. It wasn't really something he could change, and while there were other reasons we broke up, my worry that on any given date I wouldn't be clean enough was a contributing factor.

I hope you're able to find a way to address this. You are strong and beautiful. You and your body should be respected.

I'm not sure this will help with your situation, but for general conflict resolution, I like Difficult Conversations