YOU JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND ME
“I just don’t understand you, and you don’t get me!” piped in a frustrated spouse. Are you in a crazy-talking relationship where you’re told all is well, but for some reason you feel ill in the pit of your stomach? A bright, professional, female communications client of mine lamented, “I just don’t understand. When I get close, he moves away!” This same sentiment of “Why, when we’re having such fun, does he have to go and ruin everything by making a big communication mess!” happens over and over again in Talk World. And the impact is devastating to both Empathizer and Instigator communicators. The Talk2Me© system clears away the confusion from your mind, so you aren’t struck down by a lightning bolt of grief time and again.
ARE YOU IN A CRAZY-TALKING RELATIONSHIP?
Your experience doesn’t lie when you listen to and respect yourself. For example, if you feel unimportant in a relationship, chances are that you’re treated poorly. You can be fed lines and lies, but your experience tells you the truth most times. How to “listen to yourself” to personally know if a calculating communicator (who is an Impressionator and Negatalker) is bluffing while playing you like a fiddle:
1. I just don’t understand, when we’re close, you move away.
2. I feel unimportant.
3. Nothing seems to work for long.
4. When I say “No,” you get mad.
5. You treat strangers and the dog better than you treat me.
6. You don’t act like you respect me.
7. You try so hard to impress everybody with how wonderful you are.
8. You neglect me and our relationship.
9. Everyone else you know and interact with is treated with respect.
10. I don’t want to pretend everything is O.K.
11. You’re mean to me behind closed doors.
12. I feel an urge to drink/drug/eat/have sex, to get away from this pain of losing you
Crazy-talking causes you to wonder if your perception is off. It isn’t!
CRAZY-TALKING REDIRECTS CONFRONTATIONS
What comebacks might you expect, from crafty communicators who are playing their cards close to the vest? For example, “Why can’t you trust me?!” is crazy-making when the talker has arrogantly broken promise after promise. Here are a few other excuses to exonerate behaviors that create disastrous losses:
1. I’m not a great communicator.
2. I get upset easily.
3. I can be pretty moody.
4. I don’t have much patience.
5. I don’t see it that way at all.
6. I’m doing the right thing.
7. Why should I have to live my life by your rules?
8. I have mixed feelings and alternate between feeling good and feeling bad about us.
9. I believe that we can work anything out.
10. Why can’t you get past the past and trust me?
Learn from your experiences when results and actions don’t match promises. If you’re not sure whether to believe your eyes and ears, track what’s been promised to determine how often there has been follow through. If too few promises have been fulfilled, holler to high Heaven about it…or take action, learn the strategies in the Talk2Me© system, and protect yourself from the negatalker whose goal is to bring you down once again.
WHO IS COMMUNICATIONS PSYCHOLOGIST DENNIS O’GRADY, PSY.D.?
Dr. Dennis O’Grady is a communications psychologist from Dayton, Ohio, who specializes in teaching positive and effective communication skills. Dr. O’Grady’s third book, which includes his “Talk to Me” effective leadership communication system, is at www.drogrady.com and Amazon. Life is a highway? Are you traveling to where you need and want to go in a spirit of hopeful anticipation, or are you cursing under your breath at the other driver’s stupidity? The choice is yours. Know this: Whenever you travel with an open heart and flowing mind on the two-way communication highway, change happens fast and lasts.