DAY ONE: AFTERNOON (III) – Susan

Susan: Magnes, could I pick up on your point about relationships, because I would definitely like to have more fun than I’m having at the moment!

MAGNES JACK: Sure Susan. Any particular relationship you want to explore here?

Susan: The relationship with my husband. We get on ok, but there are certain moments, flashpoints if you will, where he gets upset at me, or I get upset at him and the whole thing simmers for days. And no matter what I do, I can’t seem to get to the bottom of it.

MAGNES JACK: Susan, I’m about to ask you a very odd question, but I’m asking it because I think it might help people to understand a little bit more about the role of fun in relationships.

The question is this: Have you ever considered having some fun with these flashpoints?

Susan: Fun?

MAGNES JACK: I take that as a “No”. [Laughing]

Susan: A definite “No”. Usually, it gets very heavy, very quickly, like BOOM! And then, we are in Crapsville, Arizona.

MAGNES JACK: Right. Now, first of all, notice how radical it is to even entertain having fun with something so “serious” as a close relationship. It’s almost taboo!

Well, ok, here is a way you can have some fun. Actually, a little background first. When it comes to relationships, particularly close one’s; we think we know each other so well, that the interactions can even feel programmed: I say this, you say that and so on.

It reminds me, in fact, of the old philosophical story around being in a boat on a boating lake. And you are paddling along, when out of nowhere, another boat hits you. THUD. You look up and see someone in the other boat and you get angry at them, “What the **** are you playing at?”

Now, imagine that when the boat hits, you look up and there’s no one in the boat. It’s an empty boat. Would you get angry just the same? No. Why not?

So, just let that one simmer in the background…and let’s get back to relationships and having fun with heavy situations. Things recur because we are so fixed in the way we see things. So, to have some fun we need to shake up what we are seeing.

How? Fluid-framing. In this case, what we can do is speak with our partner as if they were a complete stranger, of whom we knew nothing, or perhaps very little.

That being the case, we can make no assumptions at all about what they meant, or how they took our statements. Nor do we have any history of reacting to them. Having no assumptions, all we can do is ask questions to find out.

And the important aspect is the way in which we ask the questions, the tone of it. Rather than the somewhat accusatory tone, which comes from making assumptions about motive.

I would recommend it, for sure.

What do you think Susan? Would you be willing to have some fun and give it a go?

Susan: Oh, definitely. I can see actually how we spark each other off. It is really so predictable.

MAGNES JACK: That’s right. We really need to blast that predictability out of the water by having some fun and challenging our current stuck view of things. Seeing a partner as a complete stranger is a great way of doing this.

My hope is that you will discover something new about him, and in so doing; he will discover something new about you too, that was not at all expected. From such fruitful beginnings, a new relationship can come about. But we all need to be sensitive to where we are at.

Susan: Thank you Magnes.

MAGNES JACK: No problem. Have some fun for goodness sake. The world is serious enough as it is.