Last week, I was knocked back on my heels, not literally, but the impact was real, and recovery surprisingly slow.

           The mediation sessions I was conducting had proceeded, at intervals, for several months. From the outset, the husband’s intensity, his determination to control a situation in which he felt out of control, was clear. His wife was seeking a divorce he did not want.

           I always question both parties privately on the day we first meet. I ask about their negotiating style, aware of the importance of uncovering a history of past intimidation, whether physical or not.

           She reported there were times when during an argument he would shout at her, and sometimes prevent her from leaving a room by blocking the doorway. I did not take this information lightly, even though she assured me that after many months of counseling, she felt strong and believed she could withstand any undue pressure brought to bear by him in the decision making process. Should I have known better than to proceed?

            As it turned out, she did well. I did not.

            They were almost finished. Relatively minor details remained to be settled. Although pressing to quickly terminate the painful process, he made unrealistic demands she would not accept. Then, something I said in my effort to lead them to compromise triggered a rage I’d never before experienced. He shouted, not at her, but at me. Over and over he told me I was incompetent, didn’t know what I was doing, and loudly insisted they had wasted their time and money.

            (When I later tried to recreate a mental picture of the event, I’m seated and he, a large framed man, is standing and looming over me, although I know that was actually not the case. He only stood when he rose to walk away.)

            Well schooled in what to do on such occasions, I did just the opposite. When he raised his voice, I raised mine. I ordered him to leave. He would not. I countered his intemperate words with my own. The situation did not calm, but escalated. It went in waves, quiet for a moment and then crashing once again.

            Did I fear a physical assault? I did not, even with hindsight. But the verbal blows hit their mark. My heartbeat was rapid, my breathing shallow, and I think it remained so, off and on for days, as I repeatedly brought the scene back to mind.

            With hindsight, this is what I should have done: Remain quiet and breathe deeply to calm myself, and take a mental time-out to refocus on my goal. Then try hard to understand what was going on in the mind of the one in the grip of negative emotion, try to calculate what upset him to the point of verbal attack. I took none of these intelligent steps.

            Foolishly, I had failed to mentally prepare myself in advance, even knowing of the potential for his volatility.

            Roger Fisher, author and negotiation teacher from whom I’ve learned so much, asked a student in a workshop I attended many years ago: what are the three most important things to do in advance of starting to negotiate? The right answer: prepare, prepare, and prepare.

            We all negotiate every day, with a partner or spouse, a teenager, the dry cleaner. Most often we do so without much advance thought and no immediate crisis arises, although unhelpful patterns are often repeated and tensions then build in our important relationships. 

           I saw a picture on the front page of my newspaper this week of a 14 year old in a hooded sweatshirt, slumped on a park bench. She had run away from home after an argument with her mother. I read on to learn that the number of runaways has sharply increased in recent years. Although most of these kids return home within a week, a third of those who do not, end up selling sex in order to survive. In the aftermath of my own experience, I imagined the argument that led to this serious breach, the risk to the child, and the grief of that mother.

            Might it have gone differently had that encounter been prepared for in advance?

            I plan to be prepared for the next time.