A woman I worked with told me her husband never listened
She said it with certainty. So I asked her to describe what it looked like when he didn't listen. She talked for a while. And somewhere in the middle of it I noticed she was describing a man who went quiet when she raised her voice. Who got careful when she got loud. Who eventually stopped responding altogether.
That's not a man who doesn't listen. That's a man who learned that speaking wasn't safe.
But she couldn't see that yet. Because she wasn't actually arguing with him. She was arguing with someone she'd argued with her whole life (her dad). Who had ignored her, dismissed her, made her feel like her words didn't count. That person had nothing to do with the man sitting across from her at the dinner table. Except that he'd inherited all the rage meant for someone else.
This is one of the most common and least talked about things I see in relationships. The person you're with becomes the stand-in for every person who ever let you down. It's not conscious. It's faster than consciousness. Your body makes the call before your mind gets involved. And by the time your mind catches up, you're already mid-argument about dishes, or lateness, or tone, and neither of you can figure out why it got so big so fast.
My daughter has no history yet. When she's upset, she cries and then it passes and she's back. Clean. She doesn't carry the last tantrum into the next moment. Watching her reminds me how much adults are just children with longer memories and better excuses.
It’s important to be aware when the feeling in your chest is bigger than the situation in front of you.
It's a signal that something older just got activated.
He probably doesn't know. He's just standing there wondering why the temperature dropped.
Give him the version of you that's actually talking to him.
