Polls show that “poor communication” is the key to marriages falling apart.
Here are some reasons for poor communication:
- Victim thinking
Victim thinking means that someone is interpreting every communication in which another person expresses a desire for something as an accusation or attack.
So for example, Alice says, “I would like more affection.” Victor, the Victim interprets that to mean, “Alice is mad at me for not giving her affection. That makes me really mad because I take real good care of her. I earn the money, I help with the kids, etc. Then Victor the Victim might either
(A) Blow up
Or
(B) Sulk
- Doesn’t Listen
The reason for this started when he or she was about six years old. When all you hear is criticism, that is exactly what you need to do to survive.
However, the tricky part of this is that Leslie, the non-Listener, doesn’t even know that she’s doing this. See, the brilliant part of our brains is that we leave most of what needs to be done on automatic and rely on our brains to just do what we need them to do. And they do it well. So Leslie, the non-Listener wouldn’t be aware that decades ago, she learned to not listen.
- Emotional Impoverishment
How many times do parents, annoyed at their children’s non-compliance, get really angry when the child cries? “Stop carrying on!” “Be a man!” “Don’t be a crybaby!”
The truth is that those parents themselves don’t know what they feel – other than annoyed – and they have no patience to hear what their children feel.
Besides, from their point of view, what their children feel doesn’t even matter since these kids are not listening to them.
When the subject is about the child being hurt by insensitive people at school, the message is identical: “Deal with it!” “Grow up!” “Let it go!”
The child learns that his or her feelings are bad, pointless, and useless. It’s better to pretend they don’t exist. Now the child grows up and marries someone with feelings – it happens all the time (That’s what we mean by “opposites attract”) – and has no clue what their partner is talking about when they say they’re hurt or feel neglected.
Their response is: “Neglected? Are you kidding? Talk about neglected. *I* was neglected by my own mother. Deal with it!” And we’re off to the races.
- Triggering Trauma
When young children are dismissed and invalidated by their own parents, it’s scary. Who else is going to be the protector, advisor, and guide for the child if not their parents? A child living through that, whether it’s because the parents are just tough, or because they went through too much of their own that remains unresolved, or because they’re out on the streets getting high – whatever it is – it’s traumatic for that child.
The child may grow up to “handle” life very well. The child may become a business tycoon. Anything is possible. But that raw, unhealed spot in his soul remains open and easily triggered by circumstances.
What do I mean by “triggered”? It’s when the emotional tone of a current situation feels like the emotional tone of a past one.
So when Tom’s wife tells him that she wants to go to a women’s retreat for a week, it triggers his experience of his parents not being home when he came in the door from school. Repeatedly.
He’d come in, age six, and no one was there. Sometimes they didn’t show up for hours. He would turn on the television and grab something to eat. By keeping his hands, his eyes, and his ears busy, he didn’t have to hear the scary voices in his mind telling him that they left him alone because they don’t love him.
Needless to say, Tom’s reaction is not the rational, reasonable one you’d hope for. Blame his amygdala (emotional center in the brain); it’s not his fault.
- Escapism as a Way of Life
Sometimes kids develop escapist measures of coping with stress that they couldn’t otherwise deal with. These include drinking, drugs, gangs, hanging out – which nowadays amounts to phone/internet addiction – workaholism, shopping addiction, gambling, porn, cutting, and more.
They’re all ways of not being there. They’re not engaged in them because they’re fun. They aren’t fun. They’re doing it because they’re used to living and not living at the same time. They no longer know the difference. They’ve created a fake universe which is composed of their experience of not being “there” but which they tell themselves is real life.
You can’t argue with them because they really don’t know fake from real any more. They lost that a long time ago.
The thing about these methods is that the person doesn’t ever have to come right out and state what they actually want out of life. They have no clue how to do that or even that it’s permitted.
- Sexual Fears, Fears of Abandonment
One way of avoiding coming face to face with your own fears of inadequacy or abandonment is to avoid the whole thing. If you push your partner away – again, this is all unconscious – then you don’t have to worry. So a certain amount of “miscommunication” is a great way to avoid getting too close, emotionally and sexually.
If you avoid the closeness you can’t be rejected. Even if you end up causing the breakup of the relationship, at least it wasn’t done to you. You did it; you remained in control. Good for you. Of course, you destroyed the relationship. Oh well.
These are just of few of the top reasons why “communication” cannot be fixed by simple “communication tools.”
What is needed goes far deeper. There has to be
- healing from trauma and learning healthy self-soothing for the pain you have experienced,
- recognition that you are supposed to have a Voice – and how to use it so it’s not offensive,
- understanding that the other person is up against many of the things on this list so there’s no need to blame (i.e., having patience),
- being ready to feel your own feelings,
- tip-toeing into the world of your partner’s feelings.
- Amongst others.
The good news is that there are tools for these things. Tools that work. And work fast.
Book a call with me if you want to solve the problem instead of skimming the surface and not getting anywhere. https://drdeb.com/book