Relationship communication: Say what you know, ask what you don't
A guideline to help us avoid emotional misunderstandings
Recently my partner and I had an emotional misunderstanding. I said something which hurt her (it’s personal and not important here). When we talked about it the next day, she told me “the way you said it was a cruel” which in turn hurt me. We talked about it again the next day and I told her that saying I acted in a cruel way means she sees me as a person capable of being cruel towards her. We both made the same mistake of assuming and talking about what we don’t know: what’s in the other person’s head and heart.
In the end we cleared the misunderstanding, I apologized for unintentionally hurting her and assuming she sees me as capable of being cruel, she apologized for saying I did something cruel. No harm was done, but more importantly, we both learned a valuable lesson, for which we are grateful now.
After we cleared the misunderstanding, I reflected on it and figured we could have avoided it by following a simple guideline: say what you know, ask what you don’t.
When I said the thing which hurt my partner, she was triggered by it, but she didn’t know what was my intention. In my mind it was a joyful thing said in a playful way, so I assumed she would see it the same way. The thought it could hurt her didn’t even cross my mind. It was foolish and insensitive from me to assume she would see it the same way as me, but it wasn’t cruel. This is where my partner made the mistake of stating something she didn’t know instead of asking about it. If she asked me why did I say that in a such a way, we would have cleared the misunderstanding right in the beginning and saved her some worries.
I, on the other hand, made the same mistake with my emotional reaction to her saying I behaved in a cruel way. I assumed she saw me as person capable of such cruelty, which hurt me. But she didn’t actually have such a perception of me, she just expressed herself incorrectly because she was triggered by being hurt with what I said earlier. My mistake here was assuming that she has such a perception of me, instead of asking about it. If I asked her why she thought I behaved in a cruel way, we would have resolved it sooner and I would have saved myself some sleep.
This is where the guideline “say what you know, ask what you don’t” comes in.
The thing we can know about (and usually do, on some level of consciousness) is how we feel. We should always be free to tell our partner how we feel, and in case of misunderstandings or other emotional challenges, our feelings are the only thing we can know for sure.
The thing we usually don’t know about (but often assume) is what’s in the other person’s head and heart. We don’t know what was somebody’s intention or emotional state in a certain situation. We can read some outside signs (even misread them if there’s our emotional trigger involved), but cannot know for sure what’s inside the other person. The only way of truly understanding our partner’s emotional state or intention is to ask instead of assume. Unless you have an dishonest or emotionally unaware partner, but then you have bigger problems than just communication.
This doesn’t mean we should never give a critique to our partner’s behavior. Anything which helps in introspecting and changing undesired behavior is beneficial both for the partner and the relationship. But when we do it, it’s important that it comes from a benevolent place instead from a place of being hurt or experiencing an emotional trigger. And we have to be sure we are saying what we know. In order to do so, we need to introspect and think it through thoroughly before giving a critique.
If we have doubts, if something is unknown or unclear, it’s healthier to ask than to assume.
