Why are you not communicating
A recent client came to me with issues about her relationship. Obviously we all want to have a perfect relationship, and of course it is hard work to be in a relationship. Anyone who tells you it is easy, is living in a dream.
We started going through a few basic things, and towards the end of one of the sessions, I asked the question. Are you telling him what you think he wants to hear, or are you telling him the truth?
You see we sometimes paint a picture of the other person and how we think they will behave, and we start to control what we say. We tell them the things we think they want to hear, instead of the truth. There are times when we hide certain bits of information from them, because we think they will get angry, or they will react in a bad way. But all that this does, is start to create a fake viewpoint of who we are, of what we think, of what we do. The other person starts to get complacent, why? Because we smooth things over by not telling the truth.
For example – If we don’t tell our partner that the colour of the shirt they have on, looks hideous to us, then who are we lying to? And when it comes to a point where we are under incredible pressure – and we crack, and we tell them we hate that colour and we despise the shirt … what have we really done?
The first question they will ask is this : “why did you hide the truth about the colour of my shirt ?” and then they will say “how many other things have you told me which are not true?”.
Should we be truthful all the time ?
Should we keep certain information hidden from our partner ?
Should we tell them lies to smooth their ego ?
Communication in a relationship is not always easy. Yet we need to consider this. We fear rejection from our partners so much that instead of telling them the truth in the kindest ways possible, we start to tell them “white lies”, and soon we get caught up in a spiral of not telling the truth. And in the end – it is ourselves, it is us, not our partner, it is us that start to become unhappy and unsatisfied with the relationship. And sometimes – we blame the other person.
If we could only learn the art of communication, the art of telling the truth in the kindest of ways – then, we are bound to have better, healthier and stronger relationships with our partners.