Silence is a Realtionship Killer
One of the most striking revelations for me came during a breakup: “I never knew what you were thinking,” he told me, without accusation.
“But I’m always truthful when you ask,” I replied.
He shook his head. “Telling me what you think is different.”
I’m honest, truthful, and direct. But it turns out, when my heart is on the line, I’m not exactly forthcoming. It probably stems from years of dating “bad boys”, with whom I practiced holding back my emotions in order to seem cool. Part of my Year of 2014 Is mantra involves being forthcoming—what I feel simply is, and needs to be made known to the people it affects.
Mel Schwartz, who we’ve tipped our hat to here, here, and here before, recently wrote “Silence: a Relationship Killer“, in which he writes: “Learning how to be heard is an acquired skill.”
He goes on to explain a few really important communication concepts:
“When you can express what you’re feeling – in the moment that you’re experiencing it – there’s much less likelihood that you’ll act out on that feeling. Problematic feelings that go unexpressed tend to percolate and boil over – they take on energy of their own, and the ensuing conflict hours or days later may have little correlation to the original emotional insult. When this occurs there’s little chance of being validated, as there may be little correspondence between your hurt feelings and the disruption of the moment.”
Being heard, and therefore vulnerable, is hard and scary. But when we don’t, the consequence is equally scary:
“When we resort to silence, we create an internal monologue, typically ascribing onto others our projection of how we assume they would respond if we actually shared our thoughts with them. In other words, we play out an entire script in which their role is predetermined. In doing so, we are locked into a state of stagnation, the communication stalls and the relationship has little chance to evolve. In such situations, it ordinarily withers. There’s certainly no opportunity for resolution, let alone growth.”
Click here for the full Silence: a Relationship Killer article.
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