Why You Shouldn’t Use Motivational Interviewing on Your Partner
You come home from work after an exhausting day, and all you want to do is relax for the rest of the evening. You set your keys down on the counter and look into the sink to find...a huge pile of dishes. Your partner told you they'd take care of them yesterday.
Ugh.
So, you have a conversation with them, and like a good coach, you lean into your Motivational Interviewing techniques. You ask questions like: “how important is it to you that you do the dishes?” or “what would need to be different in the future in order for you to do the dishes?”
While MI can be helpful to resolve conflicts and create open discussions, there are some problems. Let’s go through why using motivational interviewing on loved ones might not be a good idea.
1. They didn’t ask you to coach them.
Remember, the whole premise of coaching is that the person you’re working with has asked for your help. You wouldn’t walk up to someone in the grocery store and MI them out of buying a bag of chips, would you? While your partner probably wants to come to a solution here (and if they don’t, that’s a whole different conversation), it’s unfair to assume they want you to coach them to that solution.
Using MI should be reserved for your clients.
2. They know what you’re doing.
You talk to your partner about your work. You may have even practiced your coaching techniques with them. They understand the questions and phrases you use to guide your clients towards change. So, you can assume that when you start asking your partner “coachy” questions, they get what’s going on. A “how do you feel about that?” is only going to elicit an eye-roll. Resistance, anyone?
3. It’s not what MI is for.
Motivational Interviewing isn’t meant to get the outcome that YOU want. MI is a tool to help you help your client reach THEIR goals. Coaches are not supposed to push their own agenda. We shouldn’t be using our coaching skills to get our loved ones to see things our way.
So, what should you do instead?
Try nonviolent communication. Marshall Rosenberg’s technique of nonviolent communication focuses on solving conflicts in a way that minimizes hurt feelings as much as possible. You can learn more about it here!
