More blog vision boarding. I was pondering this morning how, in my ideal relationship, we would address situations where there seems to be a conflict between what he wants and what she wants.

This could be in the arena of “small” things, such as where he wants to go to a concert and she wants to stay home. Or it could be in the arena of “big” things, such as where one partner would like to have children sooner than the other, and the other partner is worried about not having as much freedom as he/she would like.

I personally like to keep the overall frame of “if we stay connected and really listen to each other, there is always some way for all needs to be met in this situation.”

I’m intrigued by the idea of rating the intensity of each person’s desire to do a particular thing, such as, “this is my favorite band, and they never go on tour, it’s a 9 for me to go to this concert.” That person might also say, “and it’s a 7 for you to come with me to the concert, because I really want to share this music with you.” And then, the other person, whose desire to stay home may be only at a 5, might realize that the sharing of the experience is more important to her than staying home, so her 5 might drop to 1, and her desire to the concert might go from 0 to 7.

Mostly, I’m curious how you all address situations like these in your relationships, how you stay connected even when it seems like there is an apparent conflict, especially about big things.