Zing! Here's one reason why you are struggling to communicate with your partner (or family or friends)

First of all, how are you? You’ve been in my thoughts.

I’ve been okay — I feel lucky that I and most people I know are healthy. But it feels like anxiety about our global situation which is in the air right now, and I didn’t want to just plunge straight into the newsletter, like usual. I’m pregnant — my husband and I are expecting twins, this June — and it feels strange to think about expecting new life and such a life transition, in the midst of such an uncertain moment.

I wanted to send you something that might be useful in this time; and above all, please know that I’m rooting for you — and for all of us — right now. Take care, everyone.

Here’s something that slapped me in the face recently, and that might be particularly relevant in our era spending-a-particularly-large-amount-of-time-at-home-with-people-we-love (aka COVID-19):

“If you don’t have a question, don’t ask a question. Never dress up an assertion as a question. Doing so creates confusion and resentment, because such questions are inevitably heard as sarcastic and sometimes mean-spirited.” (172, emphasis mine)

That’s from Difficult Conversations, by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen. Here’s a couple of examples they give, of questions that are actually just “dressed up” assertions:

• “Are you going to leave the refrigerator door open like that?”

• “Is it impossible for you focus on me just once?”

• “Do you have to drive so fast?”
  

Stone, Patton, and Heen point out that all of these questions are actually disguised versions of feelings or requests. Here is how the same questions might be said, as assertions:

• Instead of Is it impossible for you focus on me just once?: “I feel ignored” or “I’d like for you to pay more attention to me”

• Instead of Are you going to leave the refrigerator door open like that?: “Please close the refrigerator door” or “I feel frustrated when you leave the refrigerator door open”

• Instead of Do you have to drive so fast?: “I’m feeling nervous” or “It’s hard for me to relax when I’m not in control”
  

And (this is really the zinger) the authors point out that there is, in fact, a reason, why we didn’t just start with the more direct request or expression of feelings — because it makes us feel vulnerable. “Turning what we have to say into an attack — a sarcastic question — can feel safer,” they point out.

But there’s a serious downside of hiding our vulnerable requests or emotions as questions: the other person is likely to miss the underlying feeling or request.

Instead, all of their energy will be focused on the sarcasm and attack that they likely heard (or felt that they heard) within that question. “Instead of hearing that you feel lonely, they hear that you think they are thoughtless,” Stone, Patton, and Heen point out. The other person is so focused on defending themselves, that they often don’t attend to your needs.

Think about it. What are you more likely to respond with compassion and care to:

Do you think you’ll ever get around to fixing that broken lamp?

Or

I’m feeling kind of anxious and having our light fixed would really help me feel calmer.

So here’s Stone, Patton, and Heen’s advice, again, now that you know why they recommend it:

“If you don’t have a question, don’t ask a question. Never dress up an assertion as a question. Doing so creates confusion and resentment, because such questions are inevitably heard as sarcastic and sometimes mean-spirited.” (172)

To be honest, within hours of reading this advice, I noticed myself saying a question that was actually an assertion. Zing, indeed.

So that’s my question for you this weekend: Can you listen to your questions in the hours or days ahead? What questions could actually be phrased — more authentically, more vulnerably, more usefully — as assertions? 

As always, you’ve got this. I’m rooting for you.

Katie