by Beau Sharbrough

22 November 1999

Disagreements in relationships are often based on different values. Just as often, it’s due to a different view of the other person. The process of reviewing your thoughts in this respect is called Evaluating Relationship Dimensions. The following exercise can shed a lot of light on whether you disagree on an issue, or whether you just don’t understand your partner.

GATHERING UP YOUR OPINIONS

First, each person privately fills out the form below by placing a number between 1 (low) and 5 (high) in each column. No further definitions or instructions will be offered. (Note: I got this form out of a magazine, but I can’t remember the article to properly credit the author, as much as I’d like to. The contents of the table aren’t critical – you could make up comparable questions for your work associates, or to analyze marriage in other dimensions. I find this one very useful and recommend it. You could just as easily choose a list of books or movies and compare them, but the results might not be as enlightening).

After you and your partner have filled out the form, draw a line down the center of each of your two columns and write the scores that your partner put for that same line, in the opposite column from the one they used. The rating from your partner’s form in the "Your partner" column will be written in the "You" column for that row, and vice versa. After you complete this step, you will have, in each box, the ratings that you and your partner gave to the same 22 dimensions of your relationship.

EVALUATING THE ANSWERS

There are four areas to investigate when evaluating the form:

1. Gaps inside a box of 2 or greater.
2. Gaps in the ratings for a given dimension by a single partner of 2 or more.
3. Low scores (scores where the sum of the numbers in a box is 4 or less).
4. The frequency of same answers.
5. The frequency of gaps.

Review the information below, and see if you follow the evaluation process.

Is the price right? Before you do anything else, see if you have much agreement (within 1) in most of the columns. In this example, there are 22 columns and there is a difference of 1 or 0 in 18 of them. That indicates that they are using the same kind of numbers, and that in most areas they understand each other well enough to agree about what the other thinks. If this percentage is low, you will not be able to compare the raw numbers, and will have to take into consideration some factor to make the scores comparable. You might consider looking at the totals and seeing how much of a factor it would take. In this case, Bob gave out 72 points, and Sally gave out 57. That’s a big enough total gap to ask yourself about, but since so many ratings are within 0 or 1, it’s not necessary to scale Bob’s answers down or Sally’s up.

Find the misunderstanding. Look for columns with a gap of 2 or more. In conflict resolution, Sally rates each of them significantly lower than Bob does. It looks like Bob thinks that arguments are over when Sally thinks they’re not. In financial management, Bob thinks that Sally has an average amount of agreement, while she sees herself as having almost none. In religious orientation, Bob thinks that Sally sees them as sharing values while she does not.

In each of these situations, discussion of the issue is not likely to produce agreement. Each of them is speaking to a different person, at least on these topics.

I’m lousy at this. Look for cases where the sum in a cell is 4 or less, meaning that both partners think that person sees that dimension as lacking. Both Bob and Sally think that Sally isn’t very happy about Financial management, Sexual relationship, family and friends, and religious orientation. They both expect her to be unhappy, but to varying degrees. Hint: any category where you both put a 1 is a real problem for that person. In all four of these dimensions, it appears that they both know that she’s not happy. On Bob’s part, they both expect him to see a lack of agreement on egalitarian roles and on religious orientation.

I’m okay, you’re not. Look for cases where one partner sees a gap of 2 or more between the two of them. These are acknowledged disagreements, the land mines of interpersonal relationships. These are the buttons that they push when they want to get a rise out of each other. Bob sees himself as happier than Sally with respect to sex and family. It turns out that they both see this imbalance the same – they both think that Bob thinks it’s average and Sally doesn’t. Sally sees a gap in their views on financial management, sex, family, and roles – thinking that Bob is happier in all but the last category, where she sees herself as agreeing more than her husband.

We both know we’re both lousy. Any row with a total of under 10 is one where both see pretty low ratings for each other, and is a well-acknowledged problem for both people in the relationship.

SUMMING IT UP

This approach tells you if you both see the same problems, and whether you give them the same importance or not. In the case above, this couple has trouble that they know about in the areas of communication, sex, and religion. They have disagreements that they don’t know about in conflict resolution and finances. And they see each other as having opposite views on sex, family, and fair roles. It’s very helpful to know what the problem is before you try to deal with it.

Yet, this knowledge doesn’t guarantee a smooth future. Agreeing that you see things differently or that you have different values may just as likely lead a couple to split up as to stay together. Some disagreements can’t be lived with forever. Still, it’s good to know why you are struggling in a relationship than to just see it as a mystery.

One of the appeals of this process is that in discussion you can actually hear someone say, "I never said that you thought that I thought you were unhappy about that."

Okay, the process is on the anal side if you ask me. Still, I think it’s useful when you don’t know what’s wrong. Change the names to protect the guilty and send me your scores so I can see how closely I can understand the insight and usefulness of this approach.