Tag: silenttreatment

  • Silent screams

    Silent screams

    Crying, or a show of emotion, is still a sign of hope that things can be different.

    It’s a means to communicate our dissatisfaction because we believe that our dissatisfaction matters.

    Our emotional expression is exactly that. An expression.

    No one expresses unless there is an expectation of a response.

    That response may be from others, or even from within yourself.

    Expressing ourselves to others is driven by the belief that they may still care.

    Expressing ourselves to ourselves is driven by the hope that we will find relief in exhaling that pain.

    It’s when we lose hope of both, others caring about what vexes us, and finding relief through expression even in our private space, that silence seems like the only fitting tribute to the pain we have no hope of resolving.

    Silence is the absence of expectation, and the absence of hope.

    Don’t always look for signs of hopelessness, because the most intense form of hopelessness isn’t accompanied by a sign. It is accompanied by isolation and loneliness.

    It is silence.

  • Navigating relationships – 5 of 5

    Navigating relationships – 5 of 5

    As romantic as it seems, needing someone to complete you means that you’re not at peace with yourself.

    It’s not about whether it’s right or wrong. Instead, it’s about being aware of the demands that you’re placing on your partner, most likely without realising it.

    If both are equally invested in such an approach to the relationship, no problem.

    However, it also means that they need to experience emotional growth at the same rate, or else the one will outgrow the other, leaving their partner feeling abandoned or betrayed.

    Expectations from, or of your partner is a good thing.

    But, without mindfulness and understanding of what drives such expectations, and why they may or may not feel comfortable with such expectations being placed on them, relationships end up breaking down for all the wrong reasons.

    The most critical factor in making a relationship work is ensuring that you’re both similarly emotionally mature.

    When emotional maturity, and in turn self-worth from both sides, is in a healthy space, contentious and sensitive issues can be discussed and resolved with relative ease.

    That’s when you’ll move from completing each other, to complementing each other.

    The difference between the two is that you allow each other to be uniquely beautiful in the relationship without either one feeling threatened or smothered the moment there is a difference in the growth that either experiences.

    If you’re contemplating walking away from someone you once loved and dreamed of making a future with, pause to consider if the reasons you’re leaving are really the reasons that your relationship is not what it used to be.

  • Navigating relationships – 4 of 5

    Navigating relationships – 4 of 5

    The importance of having a healthy support structure cannot be over emphasised.

    Majority of relationships fail because support structures from one or both sides are focused on protecting their own from the assumed malicious intent of the other party, rather than trying to establish understanding between the couple, and supporting them towards building their relationship.

    This need to protect before seeking to understand is the very same culture that leads individuals to believe that what they need from the relationship is more important than what they need to contribute to the relationship.

    The old school wisdom that teaches us that we don’t only marry an individual, we marry their entire family, is true but very misunderstood.

    Not only do we need to understand that the extended family will have expectations of us, but also that the family culture will influence the expectations that our partners have of us.

    Believing that either our partner or we are capable of completely mitigating the impact of that extended family influence is naive.

    At some point, sometimes very early in the marriage, the loyalties are tested through guilt-trips or blatant demands where we feel pulled between our support structures and our partners.

    That’s when relationships go sour if the individuals involved are unprepared for that kind of emotional pressure.

    That’s when choosing an independent and informed advisor becomes critical towards breaking the patterns that are leading to the breakdown of the relationship.

    Choose carefully.

  • Navigating relationships – 3 of 5

    Navigating relationships – 3 of 5

    Understanding why you or your partner behave the way that you do is only the first critical step in creating harmony and establishing that bond that makes a relationship resilient.

    Once you have this understanding, you need to decide what to do with it.

    That’s when having mature, objective, and sound advisors become the next critical part in our efforts towards establishing healthy relationships, both with ourselves and with those around us.

    Loyalty often blinds friends and family towards protecting us, even when we’re not attacked nor being deliberately treated badly.

    Their need to protect us is more about their fears from their own experiences or their need to feel significant in our lives, than it is about guiding us towards the best outcomes.

    A sincere advisor is one who won’t protect you from the truth of your contribution towards the difficulties that you may be experiencing just because they’re afraid that you may be upset with them.

    This is true not only for friends and family, but especially for coaches and therapists.

    The golden rule when choosing an advisor is to confirm that they’re driven towards understanding your situation objectively, while offering insights into what is contributing towards it from both sides, before they insist on a course of action that you must follow.

    In fact, when an advisor insists that you take specific steps towards resolving something, they’re no longer advisors. They’re instructors.

    So be sure about whether you’re seeking instruction or advice on how to connect with your partner in a healthier and more meaningful way.

    Instructions are based on someone else’s value system, while advice is aimed at providing insight into your reality so that you can make an informed decision based on your value system. Not theirs.

    Choose carefully.

  • Navigating relationships – 1 of 5

    Navigating relationships – 1 of 5

    When faced with a serious disagreement in their relationship, couples often turn to their own families or friends for advice or support.

    This can be helpful if the people providing such support or advice are mature and objective, rather than loyal above all else.

    Most often, family and friends will support us in our complaints against our partners, hoping to protect us from being taken for granted, or treated badly.

    This is especially true if we come from a family that has very traditional roles that focus on duty and obligation, rather than mutual contribution towards making a home.

    When we are troubled by something that our partner is doing, we must seek to understand why they’re doing that, rather than judging them and rallying support for our position against them.

    If you don’t have such maturity and wisdom in your relationships or your support structures, it’s best to identify up front in the relationship who will be your go-to in such situations.

    Even if it’s a counsellor, coach, or therapist, be sure to find someone that you both trust when times are good, because it’s very difficult to agree on something like this when times are bad.

    If you focus on understanding, being understood will be easier to achieve.

    That’s why we should develop a good understanding with our partner’s support structure so that we can trust them to be objective when we need to figure out such issues in the relationship, rather than slipping into victim mode and presenting ourselves as the neglected or abused one to our own support structures, which often contributes to the break down of the relationship, rather than making it stronger.

    Choose your advisors carefully.



  • Silent trauma, or peace?

    Silent trauma, or peace?

    I’ve often seen claims that receiving the silent treatment from someone is the equivalent of emotional abuse – if not abusive itself – and I wondered how it is that doing nothing to someone can be considered abusive?

    I once read that what disturbs us is not the disturbance around us, but rather our inability to deal with that disturbance.

    The same is true for silence when what we desire are words or communication.

    The assumption that we make about the silence from others is that they have reason to believe that their words will have effect, or that it will bring about the understanding that they need or are trying to create.

    We also assume that they are capable of articulating what they feel and must therefore be as capable as we are in communicating what they are feeling.

    Worst of all, we judge them for being inadequate in their silence because they’re ‘supposed to be an adult’.

    Silence only becomes necessary when we have no hope of getting our point across, but do not want to walk away either.

    The silence creates space for understanding. But that space will not be used for understanding if the other person is persisting in demanding that they be communicated to in the manner, and at the time that they need to be communicated to.

    The real question that we must reflect on is, “Why are we so impacted by the silence from others that we feel rage instead of seeking to understand instead?”

    Rage is our defence against being insignificant.

    That’s why silent treatment feels like abuse because it provokes our own feelings of inadequacy or insignificance, and not because the silence itself is abusive.

    The assumptions that we make about the motives behind someone else’s behaviour is most often based on what we would be motivated by if we were in their shoes.

    Think about that the next time you are inclined towards judging someone harshly before having explored opportunities to create understanding.