BACK TO THE MOTEL

To see how all of the STATE skills fit together in a touchy conversation, let’s return to the motel bill. Only this time, Carole does a far better job of bringing up a delicate issue.

BOB: Hi, Honey, how was your day?

CAROLE: Not so good.

BOB: Why’s that?

CAROLE: I was checking our credit card bill, and I noticed a charge of forty-eight dollars for the Good Night Motel down the street. [Shares facts]

BOB: Boy, that sounds wrong.

CAROLE: It sure does.

BOB: Well, don’t worry. I’ll check into it one day when I’m going by.

CAROLE: I’d feel better if we checked right now.

BOB: Really? It’s less than fifty bucks. It can wait.

CAROLE: It’s not the money that has me worried.

BOB: You’re worried?

CAROLE: It’s a motel down the street. You know that’s how my sister found out that Phil was having an affair. She found a suspicious hotel bill. [Shares story—tentatively] I don’t have anything to worry about, do I? What do you think is going on with this bill? [Asks for other’s path]

BOB: I don’t know, but you certainly don’t have to worry about me.

CAROLE: I know that you’ve given me no reason to question your fidelity. I don’t really believe that you’re having an affair. [Contrasting] It’s just that it might help put my mind to rest if we were to check on this right now. Would that bother you? [Encourages testing]

BOB: Not at all. Let’s give them a call and find out what’s going on.

When this conversation actually did take place, it sounded exactly like the one portrayed above. The suspicious spouse avoided nasty accusations and ugly stories, shared facts, and then tentatively shared a possible conclusion. As it turns out, the couple had gone out to a Chinese restaurant earlier that month. The owner of the restaurant also owned the motel and used the same credit card imprinting machine at both establishments. Oops.

By tentatively sharing a story rather than attacking, name-calling, and threatening, the worried spouse averted a huge battle, and the couple’s relationship was strengthened at a time when it could easily have been damaged.