Читать книгу The Truth about Relationships - Stefan Blom - Страница 26

Speak only for yourself

Speaking your mind means sharing your ideas, thoughts and feelings, not your partner’s. Be careful of telling your partner what he or she is feeling or thinking, as you are not the carrier of his or her heart or mind.

The best way to try, always, to speak for yourself is to start your sentences with ‘I’ instead of ‘you’. So, instead of saying, ‘You don’t know what you are doing … you always say this to me,’ consider speaking for yourself by saying, ‘I need you to look at how you speak to me. I would really love it if you … ’ When you speak for yourself, you stay in your lane.

Being spoken for is, for most people, deeply upsetting and often the start of a fight that goes nowhere. When you speak for another person, you could be assuming that you know best, or that you are always right. Of course, you are never right for both of you – you are only right for yourself, as your partner is only right for himself or herself. So, to put it simply, you are both always right.

Whereas you have the right to your own observations about each other and your relationship, it is irresponsible and disrespectful to speak for another. Claim what is yours and speak for yourself – you know yourself best. I am often reminded that you, having lived with your body, mind and soul for all the years of your life, have spent more time with this person called ‘you’ than anyone else. You certainly have more of an idea about who you are and what you like and dislike than anybody else in the world.

Nobody should speak for another person without his or her permission. If you want to comment on your partner’s thoughts and feelings, it is good manners to ask their permission before you do so. Since you do not live in his or her body or mind, you simply cannot know what the person next to you is thinking or feeling.

Questions to ask about your relationship

•How can we remind each other to stay in our own lanes and speak only for ourselves?

•When we start speaking for each other, how can we get ourselves back to speaking only for ourselves?