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Complain Your way to a Better Relationship

We all need to complain, gripe, and let off steam about our relationships. No matter how wonderful someone is, there will be things about them that annoy you. If there are no big flaws to be annoyed with, we start looking for smaller ones. If our lover likes most of the same things we do, we will eventually become annoyed with the few things they like that we don’t. No one is exactly like us, so there will inevitably be things about our partners that aggravate us. They are usually petty things, but they drive us nuts nonetheless. How you handle this aggravation will make or break your relationship.

Some people handle their partner’s annoying qualities by simply declaring that they won’t say anything negative, ever. Perhaps, after reading a book or going to a seminar about positive thinking, you have tried this yourself. The problem with never being negative is that it’s impossible. You end up being negative anyway, the only difference being that you’re telling everyone that you are being positive while you do it. The net result is that everyone else gets to see your negative, complaining side, while you have no idea that you are even showing it. Denying that you have negative thoughts will not make you a positive person—it will only make you a closet negative, and not much fun to be around.

Other people handle their partner’s annoying qualities by telling their partners about it every time they are annoyed. While it’s honest, it’s still “wrong action,” and creates relationship work. Your telling your lover how annoyed you are by how he or she slurps soup off a spoon or laughs like a hyena will probably not change his or her behavior. Your partner will think you are being petty and controlling (because you are being petty and controlling), and argue with you. Just as hiding every negative thought about our partners doesn’t work, no positive outcome is served by sharing every little annoyance with them, either.

In the face of this quandary, most of us gripe to our friends. The problem with this is that griping to friends tends to reinforce the annoyance, rather than to resolve it. We get into “one-upping” each other, inflating our complaints into a competition over who has it worse. We give each other advice that is too dramatic or over-reactive. We end up more annoyed than we were when we started.

Kay had this problem. Every time she complained to her friends about her husband, John, she and her friends got into playing what she called “ain’t it awful.” “It seemed like we just whipped each other up into a frenzy of hostility towards men,” she says about it. “I’d always end up going home more angry and confused than I was before. I needed somewhere to talk about the things John does that drive me nuts, but talking to my friends was making me fight with my husband.”

Never being negative doesn’t work, telling all doesn’t work, and playing “ain’t it awful” with friends doesn’t work. So how can we handle the annoyance we feel with our partners in a way that does work for the relationship? The solution is to gripe positively. When you know how to gripe positively you will be able to express your annoyance with your lover, then be able to go back to him or her free of upset or worry. Griping positively cools down the wrath of annoyance, rather than heating it up.

The technique of griping positively is based on the idea that it can be hard to freely express your love for someone if there’s no place in your life where you can really “let it all hang out” about how much they sometimes annoy you. The key to griping positively is managing the environment in which you “let it all hang out.” An environment in which griping seems to “just happen,” and in which other people whip you up into a frenzy of rage is not the environment for griping positively. When you take the following simple steps and set up the right environment for griping, then griping will free your relationship, rather than making it feel even more constrictive.

Keys to griping positively:

1)    Have a start point for your griping. Positive griping has a discrete start point and end point. You start a session of griping positively by saying to a friend, “I want to gripe now.” If they are open to it (and know how to do it), they say “Go for it!” This simple exchange makes griping something different than everyday, random conversation. Instead of complaining being something that “just happens” to you, you are suddenly choosing when and where you will do it. Immediately you are taking control of griping, perhaps for the first time. You are deciding, consciously, when to switch it on. Learning to switch griping on when you decide to will also give you the ability to switch griping off when you decide to. It’s a very simple way to take control of a behavior that you may have been doing randomly and destructively.

2)    Really get into it. After you’ve set your start point and your friend is ready, really get into your griping! Make it big, bold, and sassy! Exaggerate your complaints, and really let yourself enjoy your griping. Once again, this step is different than regular griping because you are consciously choosing to gripe, rather than having it be something you do helplessly and powerlessly. It puts you in the driver’s seat with your complaints, which is a much more powerful place to be.

3)    Just listen and support. If you are in the role of the supportive friend, then just listen and support the other person’s griping. Resist any impulse you might have to advise, to share your own complaints, or to one-up the person who’s griping by giving examples of how you have it worse. All you need to say is “Great! What else?” until they are done griping.

4)    Have an end point for your griping. Just as it is important to have a start point for positive griping, it’s important to have an end point, too. When you have exhausted your complaints, you simply say, “I’m done griping now,” and it’s over. After you’ve said you are done, be done. If you need to gripe more, do it consciously, and create another start point. Don’t let it just happen, or you’ll slip back into negative, destructive griping behaviors. After you are done griping, feel how free you feel having consciously chosen when you will complain, how you will complain, and when you will stop.

Most people who learn this technique find that griping positively makes them feel in control of their problems, rather than controlled by them. They learn that they can decide when to be effected by the things that annoy them. And, knowing that they can set up a positive gripe session any time they want, they find it easier to avoid griping by accident.

When Kay learned to gripe positively, her whole relationship to the things that bothered her about her husband changed. “I agreed with several of my friends that we would only gripe positively,” she says now. “I just go up to one and say ‘I want to gripe now,’ and we start. It’s actually kind of fun, and I no longer go home and fight with my husband after being with my friends. It’s easier for me to love him, in spite of his flaws, now that I know that I have somewhere to complain positively.” By using these simple steps, you can have these benefits in your relationship, too.