Choose to be Happily Married by Bonnie Jacobson PhD

Author:Bonnie Jacobson PhD
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Self-help, relationships, sex, marriage, love
Publisher: Adams Media, a division of F+W Media

Chapter 14: Speaking Up versus Silence

Share Your Thoughts, Share Yourself

Undoubtedly, relationships would be simpler if you could read your partner’s mind. Can’t he just know I’d rather not spend my birthday with his parents? Do I have to spell out how I like to be touched in order to have an orgasm? Why must I explain to her that I’m terrified of looking for a new job? Speaking up can make you feel needy, embarrassed, too aggressive, too vulnerable. Hoping your partner will instead read your mind seems at first glance the less thorny path.

This Turning Point is related to desires originating in the first years of life. When you are in a long-term relationship, memories of infant love with your caregivers are triggered. Surrendering to a lover engages basic feelings of safety. Before language, you relied on others to intuit your needs. And it mostly worked—you were fed and kept warm and dry, despite your inability to verbalize your desires. Because of this early association, there are times when you wish your lover could just read your mind like your first love objects did.

A Verbal Mismatch

Silence can have negative consequences in an intimate relationship. Besides risking the real possibility of being misunderstood, hitting the mute button on your desires can eventually result in an angry explosion when your unwitting partner is deaf to your soundless pleas. When you’re frustrated by the weeks—or years!—of unmet needs, anger inevitably swoops in like a hurricane, leaving in its wake love’s ruins. Frustration will find an outlet, whether through self-destructive behavior (such as an eating disorder or depression) or putting a fist through a wall. A community of isolated farmers in Norway—a culture not known for its loquaciousness—has its own solution. After the long, dark winter months spent only with their small family group, rather than risk conflict by voicing their desires, they walk across the frozen fields to yell at and share their dark emotions with the nearest mountain.

Most of us don’t have a mountain to yell at and, although it’s sometimes tempting, we would look nutty screaming or crying at an office building or a Starbucks in frustration. So how do you resolve this dilemma if one partner is uncomfortable speaking up and the other is not? Or, worse and not uncommon, what happens when both people are shy about verbalizing needs? Review the following table and decide into which category you fall.

Four Verbal Tendencies

Speaking up as a barrier: Taking all of the space, saying nothing personal, addicted to the limelight.

Staying silent as a barrier: A verbal introvert, offering space but not yourself, saying little that is personal, being averse to the limelight.

Speaking up as a boundary: Being a verbal extrovert, revealing authentic feelings, noticing when the other person may need floor time.

Staying silent as a boundary: Preferring to speak little, but when you do, speaking from the heart.

Outgoing Types

If you’re comfortable with verbal interaction, communicating your thoughts and needs seems natural and right.

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