Posts tagged ‘communication’

What is a grudge?   The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as “a persistent feeling of ill will or resentment resulting from a past insult or injury.”   To me it is either not knowing how to or an unwillingness to communicate.

“But,” someone will respond “what they did was unforgivable. It is up to them to apologize first and then we can discuss it.” Of course the other person believes this one should apologize. And there it continues.

It is bad enough if neighbors or friends have a disagreement that splits them up but it can be worse for families.

My mother has 3 brothers. In 1956 the younger 2 went on a trip together. They were far away from civilization when something happened. I have no idea what it was. I don’t know who did what to whom. What I know is that they came back from the trip separately and didn’t speak for 20 years! This was probably difficult since their mother lived with the younger brother so at all the holidays the other brother would go to the house to spend time with her. It was decidedly chilly in there at those times.

In 1976 they patched up their difficulties and became friends but things weren’t all right with the world; 5 years later something else separated them again and this time the older brother got into the act and cut off the younger one as well. In both situations the rest of the family just shook our heads and continued on with each other. I still played with all my cousins from both sides of the rift. I just thought the whole problem was silly.

However, things like this can escalate so that the whole family is affected. As my grandmother got older my mother would help her younger brother take care of her; these were the only 2 out of 5 siblings that did. This didn’t cause a problem with anyone but the result would.

In 1959 my grandmother bought a piece of land for her younger son. He built a house on it and moved her into it. Later he added more buildings and started a company. By 1990 it was worth millions of dollars because of the sweat and hard work he put into it. The problem was that the land was still in his mother’s name and as a result the 2 older brothers were salivating, imagining all the money they would inherit when she died.

But sometime in the early 1990s my mother asked her what she was going to do with the property. My grandmother was surprised at the question; as far as she was concerned it belonged to her younger son. He was the one who built the house; he was the one that started the company; he was the one that did all the work. My mother suggested that she transfer the deed to him otherwise it would all get sold and the proceeds would be split among all 5 kids.

That was not what she wanted; as far as she was concerned she had already given her boys their inheritances back in 1959 when her husband died. The older boy got a house; the middle boy got money, and the land was her youngest boy’s.

When the older sons found out that she had signed over the property they were livid. Not only did they disown their brother but they also did it to my mother. They believed that in return for a big chunk of money that she had gotten their mother to “steal” their inheritance. Mom didn’t get a dime; she wasn’t looking for money; she wanted to do what was right. For that she lost 2 of her brothers.

Not only that the men poisoned the kids against us too. It took awhile but we are friends again with the eldest brother’s kids but we haven’t seen the middle brother’s in years. It’s sad.

And there are a lot of other examples too. Like when I was growing up my neighbors disowned their oldest son for marrying a girl they didn’t like. He went off, made millions, and has a great family. Their youngest boy didn’t do so well, is divorced, screams at his mother constantly, and loafs around their home…and he is in his late fifties.

It seems like most grudges are over stupid things. This post was prompted by a television program where two of the characters hadn’t spoken for years. And neither one of them remembered why they were angry with each other.

Is there such a thing as a “legitimate” grudge? I can’t think of one. It seems to me if people sit down immediately to discuss the issue that even though there might be some short term pain it is cleared up. On the other hand, a grudge causes long term pain and misery with no benefits.

What do you think?

I went to see my therapist this morning.  First thing he said was, “what do you mean you have a problem with communication?”  Not communication in general; conversation with my wife.  I do much better with my son who is 8.

For example, Tuesday this week was horrendous.  I went swimming with Max and his buddy; after that we went to dinner.  I’ve mentioned in previous posts how both of these boys are opposites.  In this case, Max and I were finished dinner in a half an hour. His buddy, on the other hand, took over an hour to eat the same amount; but was then ready for dessert.  Max doesn’t do well in situations that take so much time like this.  He started to escalate.

When the other boy went to get his dessert I leaned over to him and said, “I find it much nicer when it is just the two of us coming to dinner.”

“Me too!!” he responded.

It still took another 20 minutes to get out of there and get his friend home.  Unfortunately Max had escalated too far by then.  When we got home his mom was out at a class.  It should have been a relaxing evening before bed, watching a little television but he was bouncing off the walls, ignoring direction, and getting into things.  He had also shut off his listening skills.

I was built up too and I finally exploded.  I yelled at him, sending him into the living room onto the couch.  I followed him and spoke to him about the situation.  He said he understood but he continued.  I screamed again.  This time he ran to his bedroom and jumped into bed.  He was going to sleep; he didn’t want to be read to tonight. He just wanted to be alone.

I went downstairs to cool off.  As I thought about what happened I realized that everything that had gone on that day had escalated me, not just Max.  I went upstairs to apologize.  I told him I wasn’t angry with him; just frustrated about everything that day.  He said it was okay but he still wanted to go to sleep.  I then left him alone and went downstairs again.

My therapist smiled.  He told me I had resolved the situation very well with Max.  But that isn’t the problem.  There were a lot of other issues that came up for me about this but right now I wanted to talk about communication.  As I said to him, if Max and I have an issue we are able to sit down almost immediately afterwards and sort it out.

The problem comes in if I have an argument with my wife.  I am not able to break away, calm down, and think about the situation.  As a result I cannot go back to her later, like I do with Max, and make amends.  If we try to discuss what happened we both escalate again.  Our standard practice is to ignore the situation and let it go away.  I would love to do it the way Max and I do: get it resolved as quickly as possible.

Why can’t I do the same thing with my wife?  If you had asked me this question several years ago my answer would be, “I don’t know how, it’s her fault!”  But really, I do know that I am at least 50 percent at fault here.  I just don’t want to deal with all the stuff she is going to throw at me before it is over.

I have finally realized that because it hasn’t gotten resolved my wife has been storing it in the back of her mind.  And considering how quick to anger I am I must do the same thing.

The simplistic answer is just to sit down, talk about it, and get over it.  This has never worked for us.  One doctor told us to “just stop it”.  How?

I have no answers to this question.  I am going to continue working on this until I do.  If you have some answers I would love to hear them.