What not to say
Nov 23 2012.
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Effective communication and its many benefits are an ever common topic in all basic dating and relationships discussions. Most of us are adequately eloquent to maintain a conversation long enough and not offend our conversant, a skill that serves us well in all social situations.
For those of us who aren’t quite as skilled at making and holding a conversation, there’s a vast amount of content out there; however a commonly foregone problem is the issue of maintaining conversation pleasantries beyond the courting stage.
It’s no secret that we portray our best side when courting but following the point of attraction and initial stages in a relationship it’s common to see the niceties fade and the stressors of everyday life creeping into the romance.
Aggressive and offensive conversation patterns are the beginning of full blown arguments and disheartenments further down the line. There are a few basic conversation bummers you can avoid to stay away from that rut.
Blame
Most people come to their partners for the sole purpose of having someone on their side. An important aspect that you need to realize is that most times when your partner is complaining about gaining weight she already knows that the chocolate pudding she ate the other night had something to do with it, but she doesn’t need to hear it from you.
Before you start stuttering your diplomatic lies about how the unconscious body in the front yard isn’t her fault, there’s an important distinction to make between comfort seeking behaviour and delusional attitudes.
While comforting her is important, it’s equally important to ensure that she realizes she has to take responsibility for her actions. An effective way to tackle this issue is to ensure that the situation is revocable instead of claiming it isn’t her fault.
For example if she complains about weight she’s gaining it might be a good idea to mention that she can hit the gym over the weekend instead of claiming that she’s not gaining weight due to any fault of hers and that the weather gods are to blame.
Passive
Remember relating a long drawn story about how everything seemed to be going wrong today only to hear a non committal murmur from your partner? Well truth is most of us do.
Interest in minute details of your partner’s life fades over time and we tend to tune out when hearing something that isn’t of much interest to us or something that we’ve heard before. It’s important that you commit to these conversations by understanding how important the topic is to your partner.
While it may be acceptable to tune out from her commentary of her favourite TV show it might not be a good idea to tune out when she talks about her dead aunt who she was very close to as a child.
Ignorance
This is something most of us are guilty of, men in particular and women to a certain degree tend to focus on the principle mechanisms of a problem when we aren’t directly faced with it.
It’s easy for us to quickly make very harsh decisions on behalf of other people, completely ignoring their emotional turmoil when in reality we ourselves wouldn’t be so rash if faced with the same circumstances.
Most issues that people require counsel for have no easy solution and by providing a quick rash solution while ignoring the emotional elements, we are necessarily communicating our unwillingness to commit to helping them solve their problem.
By Dilshan Senaratne
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