Communication is hard. Most people don’t know the three forms of communication, which are (1) passive, (2) assertive and (3) aggressive. In passive communication styles, only the other person’s needs matter. For instance, you might catch yourself saying “we can go to get pizza babe. I don’t mind” when you really wanted tacos. Which is always the correct way because tacos are amazing. When you only consider your partner’s needs because you are either afraid of conflict, are used to succumbing to someone else’s feelings due to toxic past relationships, etc, then you are engaging in passive communication. This form of communication often leads to feelings of resentment because your needs are never being met, even though you are the one preventing them from being met because you aren’t communicating them. You will still feel anger that your partner lacks the awareness that we NEVER go get tacos and if they REALLY CARED they would JUST KNOW HOW YOU FEEL. But people aren’t mind readers and asking them to be a mind reader is an insanely inappropriate and impossible expectation that they will no doubt fail, leading to deeper resentment. How dare you not know how I feel after fifteen years of marriage. You should just KNOW me by now! How can someone know who you are or what you feel if you never told them or if you told them in an angry way that didn’t accurately convey your correct feelings? When you tell someone who hurt you that you hate them, you might, but you’re also lying a bit. You certainly aren’t telling them the whole truth about how you feel. Because if you were being honest, you would tell them that you were hurting and that was making you feel scared because people in the past have hurt you and you don’t want it to happen again because its so jarring to think someone cares for you and then hurts you intentionally.
In assertive communication, both of your needs matter. This week we will get pizza and next week we can get tacos because tacos rule all. However, few ever evolve to this healthy form of communication because it is rarely modeled in homes or in society. In reality tv, it has become acceptable common place for people to fight and say hurtful things, but never is it normalized to just tell someone how we feel. Most of the time, if we are able to just tell someone how we feel without throwing a jab into the mix, we can avoid a fight altogether. The jabs we take when we are hurt and afraid to admit it will inevitably cause the other person to put up their shield because you have just made it unsafe.
Aggressive communication does not necessarily indicate that you are speaking aggressively, but merely means that you are communicating in a way where ONLY YOUR NEEDS MATTER. That would look like a spouse begging you to go get tacos because they’re delicious and you continuously telling them “we are never going to get tacos. I hate tacos.” This would literally devastate me by the way. What about you go get pizza and I go get tacos? But you can’t even agree to that! Aggressive communication usually also leads to resentment, because again, your needs are not being met. If you want to communicate effectively, its important to employ assertive communication because its important to acknowledge both of your needs matter. There should be no scenario where only your needs matter. Marriage means two.
