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Explore Others’ Paths
How to Listen When Others Blow Up or Clam Up
Over the past few months, your daughter Wendy has started to date a guy who looks like he’s about ten minutes away from a felony arrest. After only a few weeks of dating this rather “interesting” fellow, Wendy’s clothing preference is now far too suggestive for your taste, and she routinely punctuates her language with expletives. When you carefully try to talk to her about these recent changes, she shouts accusations and insults and then withdraws to her room where she sulks for hours on end.
Now what? Should you do something given that you’re not the one going to silence or violence? When others do damage to the pool of meaning by clamming up (refusing to speak their minds) or blowing up (communicating in a way that is abusive and insulting), is there something you can do to get them back to dialogue?
The answer is a resounding “It depends.” If you want to let a sleeping dog lie (or, in this case, a potential train wreck go unattended), then say nothing. It’s the other person who seems to have something to say but refuses to open up. It’s the other person who’s blown a cork. Run for cover. You can’t take responsibility for someone else’s thoughts and feelings. Right?
Then again, you’ll never work through your differences until all parties freely add to the pool of meaning. That requires the people who are blowing up or clamming up to participate as well. And while it’s true that you can’t force others to dialogue, you can take steps to make it safer for them to do so. After all, that’s why they’ve sought the security of silence or violence in the first place. They’re afraid that dialogue will make them vulnerable. Somehow they believe that if they engage in real conversation with you, bad things will happen to them. Your daughter, for instance, believes that if she talks with you, she’ll be lectured, grounded, and cut off from the only guy who seems to care about her. Restoring safety is your greatest hope to get your relationship back on track.