Published Articles
By Dr. William R. Morrow

“Poor Communication”

My professional pet peeve is hearing married couples speaking to each other with the useless phrase "You need to…….". I wish these loving people would stop using this particular form of poor communication. The "You need to…." zinger sends the wrong message. Often seen in such innocent scenarios as, "You need to pick up my dry-cleaning", or "You need to call your mother", it garbles the avenues of intimate human contact. It hurts my sensitive ears. Quicker than an eighth grade teacher parsing a sentence for good grammar, I detect the pain inflicted by this choice of words. I wince for the hapless spouse who is on the receiving end, whether this communication occurs in front of me professionally or socially. Sometimes at night I think I feel the screwy dialogue piercing the atmosphere, like a bolt of summer lightning spiderwebbing across town from some otherwise peaceful little houses. In that moment, I am tempted to put on my Super Therapist cape and rush to the rescue. But then, who summoned me to this fire? Better to just send out a general warning of a communication virus that could worm its way into the sacred spaces of loving couples.

Such bad talk presumes amazing mind-reading powers of the speaker, who appears to have back-channel knowledge of what the listener's needs are before he/she does. Picture the poor man or woman, who thought they were keeping track of things internal, now thrown into confusion by this intrusion into their priority system. Being told he is not tracking his own needs well, the husband will likely become defensive. It cuts both ways: An intelligent woman may feel "chauvanized", i.e. directed or corrected as if she didn't know what's good for her. Potential eruption!

Maybe, in stress-free times, mates can welcome well-intentioned reminders (if they really are such), but, if the relationship is a bit fragile, presumptive "suggestions" don't go over well. Normally, the "You need to….." phrase is a communication from parent to child, and is bound to define the relationship as unequal. The actual real-life child knows it, but I would make a professional guess that the unwary spouse would not accept this crass rearrangement of the marriage relationship. Bad signal! It means one spouse has taken up a managerial role, not trusting that the other will realize what needs to be done. It is like a coup d'etat in some small country where the military has seized control of the government. Or it may seem that way. It means that the "managed" spouse will instinctively resist not only the poor style of the transaction, but the good idea it contained as well. People know when they are being deposed.

OK, so relationships don't always go perfectly. How can you promote better communication? If your husband or wife is not performing his/her responsibilities according to an agreed upon time line (reminders), or one of you wants help from the other (requests), there is a clearer and more direct way to convey this which does not upset the democratic balance of shared responsibility. For example, my ears would glow if I were to overhear the speaker with a request say, " I'd like you to pick up my dry-cleaning" or "Would you please pick up my dry cleaning." This will work. It is clearer, and openly displays the speaker's need. Or, let's say it's reminder time: "For my sake, would you do what you said you would do?" In other words, if the task in question is about YOUR need, say so. Otherwise I declare the communication out of bounds.

________________________________________________