RUFFLED FEATHERS
What ruffles your feathers?
Even in the best of relationships, spats can pop up. Disagreements occur. Feelings are wounded. With very rare exceptions, these things happen to individuals who are connected to one another with bonds of affection. Even if the relationship is generally a harmonious one, there’s the occasional blip to mar the harmony. The interesting thing is that it manifests itself differently for different people. No two couples fight exactly alike.
When I say “couple,” I am referring not only to married pairs, but also to any two people whose lives are closely enmeshed. The dynamics between such closely linked individuals can be intense. Sisters or brothers, parents and children, and even good friends, can find themselves at odds now and then. Misunderstandings happen and feelings can become lacerated. That’s the common denominator in just about all relationships. But the way the quarrels play themselves out can be, as we’ve said, breathtakingly varied.
Some spats become heated. The players raise their voices as they try to make their points. The loud tones are a plea to be heard. We may want our partner to truly understand how much his words have hurt us. Alternatively, we simply want to show how much more logical our position is than theirs. Somewhere inside the argument is a feeling of desperation to have our point of view understood and accepted. I think that every argument, however practical and businesslike it may appear on the surface, contains at least some measure of emotion. Our egos insist on being seen. We want to stand up and be counted. On some level, our very selfhood is called into question by a disagreement with someone important to us.
Sometimes, we’re not even fighting about the same thing. Picture this: an argument has erupted between husband and wife. But while he is discussing the issue at hand, she is reacting to his tone of voice. He’s focused on the salient points of the disagreement, which interest her far less than how he’s arguing. Her feelings are lacerated because he snapped at her or spoke unnecessarily sharply.
For example, suppose she asks him to do something, and he doesn’t wish to comply for reasons of his own. As they battle it out, he thinks she’s upset because he won’t do the chore she needs done. But she’s really stewing because of the way he flatly refused, which made her feel disrespected and unseen. They are fighting different battles without even knowing it.
Interestingly, the reason he flatly refused was because of an emotional response to her request. “Nothing I ever do is enough for her!” Perhaps she hasn’t expressed her appreciation adequately in the past. Or maybe she’s asked him to do something he’s not good at, tapping into an insecurity which makes him shy away from attempting something at which he may fail and thus lose her respect. Whatever the reason, her request triggers an emotional response in him, prompting him to reply curtly, which in turn triggers an emotional response in her.
Icebergs
Disagreements between people who care about each other are usually multi-layered. The quarrel taking place on the surface is just the proverbial tip of the iceberg. Underneath are currents and crosscurrents and jagged chunks of ice waiting to pierce an unwary heart…
One reason for this is because a fight of any significance is rarely fought in the moment. We are all warriors on the battlefield of life. We bear scars from our past. When a confrontation with a loved one reminds of a past hurt, old wounds can unexpectedly flare up again.
Sometimes we’re waging the same battle over and over and over, either with our current sparring partner or with someone long gone who had a prominent place in our history. The way we react to a spouse can, for example, be a direct outgrowth of the way we responded to our parents when we were young. Our desire to defend our honor, proclaim our self-worth, and protect ourselves from being hurt can transcend logic, time, and space.
Ironically, even as we unconsciously recruit a loved one to serve as a proxy or stand-in for refighting past battles, they are often the very one whom we dearly hope will heal our old scars. When they don’t, or worse, when they exacerbate them, the sense of hurt, disappointment or betrayal can be overwhelming.
Mind Reader?
“If you really loved me, you would know how I feel.” Even if we haven’t actually ever spoken those words out loud, we may have mentally hurled that accusation at someone close to us. This is a huge mistake. Possibly the biggest pitfall when it comes to sharing a share life with another person is the “read my mind” fallacy.
The problem is simple: it can’t be done. No one can pass through the portals of another person’s brain and read what’s written there. Inside, my feelings may sound as loud as shrieking claxons… but you are not equipped to hear them. No one is.
No human being, however close to us, can truly know how things impact us. They may hazard a guess, and often they may even hit the target. But the messages we tell ourselves in the recesses of our hearts, the painful memories that certain events or interactions dredge up, the secret feathers that can be ruffled by a heedless comment—these are concealed from an outsider’s eyes. Even an outsider who cares deeply. Apart from playing guessing games, the only way they can know for sure what you’re thinking and feeling is if you tell them.
In our desire to protect ourselves, we may be reluctant to share such personal feelings even with someone we’re close to. If they hurt us, we may be too proud to let them know about it. If their action triggers old emotions that we’d hoped to bury, we’d rather keep it to ourselves. If we can’t control the way others speak to us or how they view us, we can at least try to control the parameters of the quarrel. We can allow the tip of the iceberg to bob in view, but nothing more.
And yet, arguing without knowing what the real issues are is futile. It’s also extremely unrewarding. You get all the unpleasantness of being at cross purposes with someone you care about, without the reward of becoming better known and understood. It’s just not worth it!
The responsibility for becoming better known and understood lies with us. For instance, if I know that being tired or hungry makes me feel out of sorts, and thus more susceptible to picking an unnecessary fight, the responsibility of acknowledging and dealing with that is mine. I can’t expect anyone else, however close to me, to react to my ill-tempered remark by saying, “Oh, poor thing you must be tired or hungry.” That’s the reaction of a parent to a child, not of one adult to another.
Adults are meant to take responsibility for themselves. If we snap at someone because we’re not feeling physically up to par, that’s our problem, not theirs. We’re supposed to get in touch with how we’re feeling, and why. Our job is to avoid bad behavior altogether or, if we’ve already slipped and things have escalated, to do damage control through an apology, plus sharing our self-knowledge with the other person so that they’ll know why it happened.
We fight old battles. We fight different battles. We fight unnecessary battles. It bodes better for the future of the relationship to take the time to figure these things out, rather than merely smoothing the argument over unexamined.
After all, we’re going to get all heated up and ruffled to the point of picking a fight with someone we love, let’s at least understand what it’s all about!
