Timing, Understanding and Communication

Here’s another one: You just arrived home, tired, exhausted and short of money. You have a ton load of unpaid bills hanging/posted on the ref door. You just got reprimanded in the office and everything is going wrong that day. Then out of the blue, your mate starts telling stories about how this friend/relative of her/him just bought a new house or is planning to buy a new car (the exact one thing you’ve always wanted). Of course, you blew up telling them to stop talking about it. Then there’s this look of surprise in their face. Later on, she’s mad as well. “Why are you yelling at me?” she’ll shout back. Minutes later you’re not talking to each other anymore. These type of things happened a lot more times than we care to notice. But how many times did we just brush this off as trivial? Again both have the right to be angry, but it’s really the next step that’s far more important.

What’s the point of all these?? Timing is just as important in relationships as in communication and just as “these things will happen”, it should be opened up while the pot is just beginning to boil. But the real deal here is both parties should discuss the issues after the anger and bad-feeling had subsided. Set aside the pride and be more considerate instead of the other party’s behavior. The other is irritated while the other is hurt. Sit down and talk it over. Remember the issue might not be solved immediately and at times the anger and the hurt remains, but the “pus” (or the poison) is out in the open already. It’s only a matter of time before the issue will be resolved. The nice thing about it all is we didn’t wait for a scar to develop, we went out and the cure the cut as soon as possible.

Ok, I know lots of you will comment “How can I have the time to discuss such petty matters anymore with my mate! What with all the bills to be paid, the pressure of the work, it’s such a trivial matter.” My friend, nothing is too little, especially if someone is hurt. You let the issue pass, then it mount and accumulate, one day it will just detonate. How many full-blown quarrels were actually “on-hand issues”? It’s usually accumulation of past bad-feelings and it’s more on “digging up past offenses” than anything else. How many couples separated and just simply stopped loving each other? You asked them why and they will tell you they simply drift apart and they don’t know why and how it happened. Believe me, chances are, it started from these minor incidents that weren’t resolved.