Doesn’t compromise really mean that one person gets his way? One person wins and the other one loses? So we aren’t going to get a replacement (used) car until the one with 220,000 miles falls into little pieces, probably on a highway out in the middle of nowhere.
Well then, my new curtains are going to have a fringe of red beads on them. Like it or not, buddy, that’s the way it is. Because YOU are going to compromise this time.
If you really compromise–each side giving a little–don’t both people get their 2nd, 3rd, or 4th choice? What good is that?
Compromising sucks.
Except my curtains have red beads on them, thanks to Kittenblue who sewed them for me.
There are many instances in life in which I’d rather have my 2nd choice than nothing at all, but ideally, compromise means finding a way for both people to get their first choice, just in a way they didn’t see until they started compromising. Think of the Great Compromise.
I was at some work conference seminar type thing, and they said sure enough, compromise means everyone gets their 2nd or worse choice, which isn’t very fun. The advice was to look for the consensus choice. Apparently the way you do that is to figure out why each person’s first choice is first, and then try to address that.
So if not replacing the car is a money thing, what other budget changes could you volunteer to make to offset the financial impact of changing the car.
If not replacing the car is because it has great sentimental value, what could you do to preserve the sentimentality when replacing the car. I don’t really know that this could be, maybe getting a portrait of it painted on black velvet so you could keep it forever and gaze upon it. (I thought of that example as a joke, but now I am sitting here wondering how much it would cost really to commission a portrait of my first car on black velvet.)
Because I learned it at a work seminar, it’s a little goofy. But I have found it’s somewhat helpful to pinpoint why something is the first choice. Sometimes (not all the time) it’s easy enough to figure out another option that satisfies the why.
Compromise is a bigger picture than that. In my relationship, the rules of compromise, in order of weight, starting with the most important, for choices that affect both of us. It absolutely relies on complete honesty about how much something really matters to you.
Hating something trumps someone else loving it.
You get your first choice when it really, really matters to you as long as that doesn’t violate rule #1 for the other person.
You give in on the things that don’t really matter to you and accept the other person’s first choice.
If something seems to matter the same amount to both people, you probe until it is discovered who cares more.
If both people don’t really care much, equally, you use something silly to decide, like rochambo.
If both people care a lot, equally, you find some other issue of similar importance and similar weight and decide both, one in one person’s favor and the other in the other person’s favor.
You never, ever settle on choice that is no one’s first choice just to keep anyone from getting ahead. That’s crazy.
No. What you are describing sounds more like alternating capitulation. The only way that is compromise is if you have previously agreed that whenever there’s a dispute you will alternate who gets their way.
Compromise is about finding a solution that you are both satisfied with. As **delphica ** pointed out, the key is figuring out why each of you feels the way they do about the situation, then working out a way that those aspects are conserved.
Figuring out “why” solves 99.999% of the conflicts I encounter at work. And maybe another 0.001% as well.
People come and say “I want this, and it must be this way.” Unless their request is completely standard for the product I implement, my first question is “why” (I think I just never outgrew the “why” phase of childhood). Most of the time, their first answer is “because it’s always been that way”… hello, I’m your friendly neighborhood change-the-computer-programs consultant, which part of “change” didn’t you understand?
Other times, two departments come to a meeting and they both say “it must be my way!” And after a bit of analysis and why-exploring, it turns out both have the same goals in mind, they’re just using different words and stuck on different “always”.
I don’t do compromise. I do “all win.” Except when the customer is composed of complete morons who refuse to let me do my job. But those customers never pay enough, no matter how much they pay.
There’s “we both give something in order to achieve something”;
and then there’s Compromised, as in “Security has been compromised”, or “the building’s structural integrity has been compromised”.
Some people never seem to get that difference and always think that others need to give up what they want, calling it “compromise” in order for them to get what they want by manipulation, by guilting the shit out of the other person. My ex-wife was big on that. Compromise to her meant that I surrendered my desires and she got her wish. Otherwise there was NO agreement.
The situations that you give are not ‘compromise’. They’re ‘compromised’. You and your SO need to work on this issue, because it isn’t Love, it isnt Respect.
I have what I call the Schadenfreude Theory of Compromise:
“A Compromise is a solution that is equally dissatisfying to all parties.”
It may sound pessimistic, but it captures the spirit of the thing. Most people don’t care if the other party’s happy. They’d rather that they were themselves happier, and got more out of the deal than they did. So satisfaction doesn’t lie in looking at the positive aspects.
But they’ll live with a solution that guarantees that everyone else is suffering as much as they are.
So, no, “compromise” doesn’t mean that “one person wins and the other person loses”. It means that both parties lose, in equal amounts.
If that’s not the case, then you’re not doing it right.
A little playful Misandry anyone? ;p