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[av_heading heading=’RAMBLINGS OF THE UNMARRIED | Speak or shoosh’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY GORDON Q. GUILLERGAN
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Sunday, May 7, 2017
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“You are most powerful when you are most silent. People never expect silence. They expect words, motion, defense, offense, back and forth. They expect to leap into the fray. They are ready, fists up, words hanging leaping from their mouths. Silence? No.” ― Alison McGhee, All Rivers Flow To The Sea
SILENCE is the best reply if you feel that speaking up can only aggravate the situation more than mending it, but it is in the constant silence where wrong assumptions and misunderstood emotions and bad relationship communication spring from.
One of the seven relationship problems noted by Carol Sorgen on WebMD is the absence or poor communications in relationships.
Elaine Fantle Shimberg, author of Blending Families, mentioned how all relationship problems stem from poor communication. “You can’t communicate while you’re checking your BlackBerry, watching TV, or flipping through the sports section.”
Sorgen marked certain strategies to combat these communication problems.
It is ideal to make an actual appointment with each other. If you live together, put the cell phones on vibrate mode, put the kids to bed and make the situation more conducive for communication.
If you can’t “communicate” without raising your voices, go to a public spot like the library, park or restaurant where you’d be embarrassed if anyone saw you screaming.
Set up some rules. Try not to interrupt until your partner is through speaking, or ban phrases such as “You always…” or “You never…”
Use body language to show you’re listening. Don’t doodle, look at your watch, or pick at your nails. Nod so the other person knows you’re getting the message, and rephrase if you need to. For instance, say, “What I hear you saying is that you feel as though you have more chores at home, even though we’re both working.” If you’re right, the other can confirm. If what the other person really meant was, “Hey, you’re a slob and you create more work for me by having to pick up after you,” he or she can say so, but in a nicer way.
These strategies may not be applicable to you, and each marriage may have their own way of dealing with conflicts but the fact that you both are dealing with conflict accounts for something.
Articles 68 to 73 of the Family Code rested the Rights and Obligations of the husband and wife. If we look into these rights and obligations – to live together (and procreate); to observe mutual love, respect, and fidelity; to render mutual help and support; to fix the family domicile; to be jointly responsible for the support of the family and to manage the household – we will notice that these may only be made possible when open communication is present in the marriage.
I am a very confrontational person but I feel we must understand that there are certain occasions needing silence. It is not always ideal to confront the problem; sometimes it is better to let the heat subside before talking about the problem.
It is during a very intense atmosphere that we may say or do something we may later regret, hence the need to stop and get some air. And talk is important. Communication does not mean talking only; it means understanding. (gordon.qg@hotmail.com/PN)
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