Once upon a time there was a little boy who very much wanted to be good.
Like most little boys, he was often distracted and slow to listen. His mother almost always called out her instructions twice in a soft voice. But when he didn’t respond the second time, she would snap at him in frustration then swat the back of his head to send him on his way. It was just a little slap.
One day, at the snap of her voice he flinched away from the expected little slap. She felt insulted. Instantly, the thought went through her head: “He’s acting like I’m abusing him! My little slap to his head, is just like that my mother used with me, and it doesn’t really hurt!” And in that moment between the snap of her voice, the flinch, and the swat to the back of his head, the swat became just a touch harder.
As usual, the boy was thinking: “Why is she snapping and slapping at me?! Doesn’t she know I meant no harm? I really am trying to be good!”
Some weeks later, the boy’s flinch was accompanied by his raising his hands to block her swat.
That defensive gesture made her even madder. She saw it as an accusation that she was at fault, when all she really wanted, justly, was for him to listen and act the first time she spoke to him, not the third. Both the snap of her voice and the slap to his head simply reflected her own rising frustration.
Scolded for the new fault, the boy soon learned to stop lifting his arms to block the swat, which he admitted wasn’t really that bad. But ever after that, whenever her voice snapped with that distinctive scolding tone, there was a slight flinch of his head and an upward flick of his hands.
Over time, his flinching was no longer limited to the snap of his mother’s voice. Any snap of disapproval, from anyone, could trigger a flinch.
Indeed, hearing any words of disapproval, even mildly offered, would arouse in him a desperate need to explain how he had truly meant no harm. He would blurt out his defense, in fast, high pitched words . . . which unfortunately made him even more annoying to whomever was already annoyed with him.
It was a vicious cycle. Whenever some word or behavior annoyed others, they rebuked him, he flinched in some way and often that occasioned yet another rebuke.
He couldn’t control it. Some would say it was a bad habit. Others that it was instinctive. Some said that there was an emotional brokenness in him, like a bone that never healed right.
So one day, when the boy turned man married, his spouse needed to make a choice. Was she going to feel insulted whenever he flinched, or blurted out his explanations whenever she complained or corrected him? Or could she accept that his defensiveness as just part of his nature, something to work with rather than scorn?
Moral of the story:
We all want to be understood. But many of us have some brokenness which makes it hard to express ourselves.
Few, if any of us, can react to complaints and accusations with perfect decorum. Our ability to patiently listen and empathetically hear can also be less than perfect. Indeed, its fair to assume that most people to have some difficulty fully expressing themselves and truly listening to others even when calm, much less in the midst of heightened emotions.
These natural limitations are further aggravated by the most of us prefer to be understood more strongly than we prefer to understand. We are egocentric. Our own point of view, especially when our emotions are aroused, is the one we want others to see and acknowledge first . . . even while they are wanting their point of view to be seen and acknowledged first.
It’s impossible to share, understand, and empathize with everyone’s viewpoints and concerns simultaneously. We are forced to take turns in speaking and listening, even though we may feel an urgency for our own thoughts and feelings to be expressed and be understood first. In short, we need patience. We need to trust that our partner will eventually listen and understand, but perhaps at the price that we must defer to first listening to and understanding him or her first.
Bottom line: We all have bits of brokenness. So it is inevitable that our loved one’s efforts to express themselves will often include a tone of voice, mannerisms, expressions, words, or even rambling long discourses, which are not only imperfect but may unintentionally aggravate our own feelings of hurt. We should try to recognize these defensive behaviors as evidence of and an expression of both their own brokenness.
These broken ways may annoy or even offend our sensibilities . . . but we should remember that they are still sincere efforts to be understood. And in many cases, these broken bits may not be fixable, which is why “it is how we choose to deal with these unresolvable problems that most influences the quality and depth of our relationships.”
To make relationships work, we need to be willing to expend the time, energy and most importantly the patience to try again and again to understand the other’s perspective and experience even while we try to seek their understanding of our own perspective and experience. While your own perspective feels more important, remember that your partner feels the same about the priority of their perspective. Be patient with each other. Try to listen as you would have your spouse listen to you.