Saturday, October 5, 2013
Disagreement
In my personal life, I just reason broke of a relationship with my friend because of a disagreement. When I meet him, he had two little cute house puppies. I like dogs because I have one of my own, but I do not like them to stay in the house. After dating for a few months, my friend decided to take a better paying job at an electrical plant in Mississippi. He knew from communicating with me that I did not like house pets, but he asked if I would take care of the puppies and he would come to my house on Sunday which was his only off day. I thought about it for a while and decided to tell him I would keep the puppies only if he provides a cage for resting in the day and sleeping at night. I also told him that since I would be the one taking care of them, don’t he interfere with my rules as long as I did not mistreat them. He agreed that the puppies stay on the outside and come in throughout the day for rest and to sleep at night.
About four months later, my rules were no longer his concern, he start bringing the puppies back into the house. When I would leave to go out to run an area, he and both puppies would be lying in bed sleep when I arrived. The best thing for me to do at the time was to think before acting, because I was mad enough to jump rope. My feelings of thinking, being able to identify and express internal feeling states in a way that does not imply judgment, criticism, or blame/punishment is what I was trying to avoid in this relationship (The Center for Nonviolent Communication, 2013). We communicated once more about the rules that were put in place for the puppies that did not stand.
The third time, I observed him as he fell asleep with the puppies in his arms, I knew right then that all three of them has to go, because I did not want to get into no violence confutation about dogs. I believe in nonviolent communication, which is being able to carefully observe what is happening in my environment, and to specify behaviors and conditions that are affecting me (The Center for Nonviolent Communication, 2013). We are no longer together, he took the puppies to his ex-girlfriend and while in her care Morocco the boy puppy got hit by a car and died.
Reference
The Center for Nonviolent Communication. (n.d.). The center for nonviolent communication Retrieved from http://www.cnvc.org/
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Enjoyed reading your post.
ReplyDeleteI like puppies, but I agree not in the house and surely not in my bed. When you told him the first time, he should have taken that under consideration and let the dogs stayed on the outside to play. However, it's always good to talk about things and come to a conclusion without any kind of argument. Hope everything goes well with you!
Great post, Ida! I, too, am a dog lover, but I agree with you about the dogs in the house. I had a dog once that I kept in the house, and it was a job keeping my house fresh and clean until he was fully trained. And, some dogs are very territorial and they “mark” places in your home even if they are trained. However, I admire how you guys came to an initial mutual understanding about the care of the puppies when he took the new job. And, it seems to me that he tried to break the agreement you both had a little bit at a time hoping you didn’t notice. So, when you caught him sleeping in the bed with the dogs and breaking the rules that you both initially agreed upon whenever you left the house, it triggered a conflict. I do believe that power dynamics came into play here. That is why he did those things, especially when you left the house. “When one person has power over another, that dynamic can cause one or both of the people to handle conflict unproductively” (O’Hair and Wiemann, 2009, p.226). It was your house and he had no other choice but abide by the rules you set. Thus, he felt like he was pushed up against the wall because he needed to take the new higher paying job, but he also needed his puppies to have a safe home to reside as he worked, so he agreed without being totally honest with you how he truly felt about the rules you set.
ReplyDeleteReferences
O'Hair, D., & Wiemann, M. (2012). Real communication: An introduction. New York New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s.