Cary And Don Reaction Paper

The first step toward acceptance that Carys and Don took was in trying to understand the objective story of what was going on. They realized that the other person was the way that they were for a reason. It made it easier to accept one another when they learned that watching patterns of behavior, communication, and relationships of their parents had an enormous impact on how they interacted with each other (Observational learning). This realization helped them both see that it was circumstances that made the other act the way that they do, rather than who they are at their core personality (overcoming the fundamental attribution error).
They started to try many of the tips in the book to help understand what the other person was feeling and thinking during an argument. For example, one day Don got a phone call. Carys did not know who it was from but she did hear that it was a woman’s voice. Even though she was trying to extend trust to him, the phone call worried her. Rather than simply assuming that she was cheating on her, she decided to confront him about it (overcoming confirmation bias). She went to him and said, “I’m feeling anxious about the phone call that you had. I could hear that it was a woman’s voice and just wanted to know what was going on.” (Tip 1, 3, and 4 on pages 162, 165, and 166). Don responded, “I can understand why you would be worried, Carys. It was just my cousin Lynn calling to tell me about Christmas plans for this year. There’s nothing to worry about, but thank you for asking me about it.” In responding like this, Don was acknowledging the validity of Carys’s concern (Tip 5, Page 167). On one particular day, Don made a powerful step in coming to accept Carys’s difference. He had gotten upset at her because she was upset at him for not trusting her with her coworkers. Don felt as though his question was a fair one: “So, do you work with any guys your age?” She was indignant and said, “Why does it matter if I work with guys my age? Do you think I can’t control myself? I’ve tried to make it clear that I really want to be faithful to you so why do you keep trying to monitor everything that I do?” In the heat of the battle he took a step back and tried to implement the STOP procedure. He stopped what he was doing, took a deep breath, observed what was going on, and then proceeded with what he was doing (Broadening the context, page 183). Even though this was completely unnatural for him to do because he grew up seeing adults interact impulsively and in the moment, he managed to remove himself briefly from the conversation and look at in objectively (overcoming observational learning). By doing this, he was able to deescalate the situation: “It looks like you’re upset because I’m not extending trust to you right now. I know that this is our usual issue and so I would like to discuss it without getting ugly with each other.” They were then able to have a civil discussion about the issue without …show more content…
Because Don understood that Carys was trying to give him opportunities to show that he was trust worthy, he started doing the same for her. Carys also was able to understand why he was so worried about her outside relationships and so was more open with him about her day to day life (Acceptance and change: the chicken or the egg? Page 131).
Even though unintentional change had occurred in their relationship, both of them wanted to see more deliberate change both in themselves and in the other person. They sat down and had a discussion of how this could happen. Instead of asking for general requests such as, “I want you to be more open with me,” they made more specific requests of each other. For example, Don asked Carys, “I would like it if you would let me know when you have to spend time along with a male coworker during your shift.” (Specific versus general change, Page