Every Healthy Relationship Requires the Ability to Work-Through Misunderstandings



Functional communication is essential to every relationship. I grew up in an alcoholic household where we never really learned to communicate with each other. It wasn't OK for me, as a child or a teenager, to speak my own truth, have my own opinions or voice anything unless it echoed my parents.

I also learned to make assumptions instead of inquiries. For example, someone in the family aimed a comment toward me, and instead of learning to ask "What did you mean by that?", I learned to assume they meant the worst and to quietly take it shame-faced on the chin. I also learned to have unrealistic expectations of others without voicing them. People were supposed to somehow know (mind reading?) that I had these expectations, and when or if they didn't live up to my expectations, I learned to give them the cold shoulder, or silent treatment.

There was no possible hope of actually understanding anyone in my family, much less coming to positive terms over our misunderstandings, which were numerous and painful.

Today, I try to never make assumptions, and when I do, I have gotten pretty good at catching myself at having made an assumption before it can cause a problem between another person and me. I also do a much better job of keeping my expectations to a minimum and making sure that they are reasonable and voiced to other people, because no one is a mind-reader. And I also remind myself that I can have all of the expectations I want, but NO ONE is required to live up to them. And likewise, I'm not required to live up to someone else's expectations of me.

If we find ourselves disappointed with each other, I also know now how to engage in appropriate conversations about our misunderstandings, how to take responsibility for my mistakes in the situation and how to come to a peaceful resolution to any problems that have arisen due to our misunderstanding.

It's great when we get to know other people well enough to understand them and all of their quirks, and vice-versa. But it's even better when we have the proper tools to work through any misunderstandings we may have between us.

And this is what Recovery programs, the 12 Steps, a Higher Power and our own choice to learn new behaviors and change from our old ways give us!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

No One Can Calm Your Codependent Crazies, But You

Image
Ah, the codependent crazies. Those needy, needy feelings. I remember well the deep emotional pain in the pit of my stomach: The throbbing sting of shame, fear, loneliness and anxious desperation. Those feelings that are like fingernails on the blackboard of your soul. They eat you alive from within as they dig deeper and deeper into the black hole of your inner-emptiness. Yes, I remember them well. And I remember evenings of mental and emotional insanity-- squirming with a magazine, pacing back and forth, indulging in chocolate, chasing up and down the stairs hoping the doorbell would ring, and staring endlessly at the telephone for a sign of hope. All I needed was a call from my false higher power; a call that would help me to know that I was OK, that I was needed, that I was worth thinking about in some good way. I was dying to be emotionally caressed on the head like a poodle desperate for the attention of his master. And certainly I had made that other person into my mas...
Read more

Happiness is Something We Cultivate and Share

Who makes you happy? In reality, no one can make you happy. People in your life can enhance your happiness through sharing your interests. Or they can add to your frustrations by pushing your buttons. But no one can be responsible for your happiness or your misery—aside from you. One of the biggest problems for codependents is that we too often enter relationships looking for everlasting happiness. We expect that the person we choose to attach our dreams to should be responsible for making us happy. In our minds, we fantasize that he/she will be focused solely on us, will spend every waking hour with us and will do everything in his/her power to insure that we are as happy as we can possibly be. In other words, we assume this person will meet all of our mental, emotional, physical and spiritual needs in the same way that we plan to meet all of his/her needs. In our little dream world we will smother each other with attention and we will both drip with the honey of happiness. R...
Read more

Where There Is Kindness, There Is Goodness

Image
Author’s Note: The next few meditations will be from a retreat I directed recently called The Good News According to Disney . If you aren’t familiar with the films that are referenced, I’d suggest to take time to see them and to look for the deeper meaning within them. Many people today still live by the biblical adage “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” They actually believe that they will be at peace if they achieve revenge or restitution for any mishap that has befallen them at the hands of another. They believe they will reclaim their personal power once they have achieved their revenge, but this is impossible. Disney’s Cinderella (2015) reveals the true secret to owning one’s personal power and to retaining it no matter what we experience in life: “Have courage and be kind.” On the surface this motto looks a bit simple and wimpy. But in reality, it holds great power. That power comes from the heart of a person, or in this case Ella, who sees the world not a...
Read more

Become the Person You Want to Spend Your Life With Everyday

Image
I really don’t have to say much about the above quote. It says it all and it’s so true. We are too often taught faulty ways of thinking as children. So many of us get the wrong message at very young ages: Love is about finding the right person to love you. Looking back I realize I wasted many years trying to find that “right” person— the one who could love me into loving myself— instead of trying to BE that “right” person myself. It never occurred to me that I needed to love myself, nurture myself and accept myself enough to become the right person— the person I really needed most in my life. After all, what is my life without me? Now I know that I’m what’s been missing from my own life for years. My life is empty without me and without my spiritual Higher Power. This is true for all of us.  Once We find ourselves, become the “right” person God intended us to be, and become the person we want to spend the rest of our lives with, then we attract others into our lives who ca...
Read more