Achieving Silence

"One of the nice things about marriage, at least to my way of thinking, is that my wife and I no longer have to argue everything through. We each know what the other will say, and so saying becomes an unnecessary formality. No doubt some marriage counselor would explain to us that our problem is a failure to communicate, but to my way of thinking we’ve worked long and hard to achieve this silence...so fraught with mutual understanding." – Richard Russo, "The Straight Man"

Is it always better to talk things over? That might seem like a surprising question coming from a former Communications major and a licensed social worker, but it’s a valid thought nonetheless. My wife and I might very well be case and point. As you can probably tell from the posts that describe our arguments, we excel at talking through differences. We don’t yell or throw things; we talk...and talk...and talk. There’s always one more thing to say about the thing we said earlier which was really about something else we said before that. It works for us. Most of the time.

What I have come to see lately is that sometimes conversations perpetuate disagreement rather than resolving disagreement. Just the other night Amber and I both found ourselves in a funk. We both had our reasons, and both our reasons were valid. Regardless, it was Wednesday evening and we were not so subtly sulking about the house. And we did precisely what you might guess: we talked about it. In fact for good measure, we talked around it and over it as well. In the end, we were still in bad moods; as a bonus, we’d also managed to offend each other no less than three times while attempting to talk through our feelings. You know what helped? We stopped trying to figure out our moods. We stopped trying to put our wordless frustrations into sentences. We stopped attempting to move beyond our feelings to productivity. Instead, we scooped ourselves ice cream, flipped on the TV and cuddled on the couch. About 30 minutes later, we miraculously found ourselves having a fun conversation about something other than our own internal monologues and moods.

Now I’m not suggesting that a television and a gallon of ice cream are better for marriage than good conversation. I’m just suggesting that sometimes you get to a good conversation by using your remote control and ice cream scoop. Talking is a good thing, but it’s not the only thing. Much like the couple in Richard Russo’s novel, we’ve earned some silent moments where we understand each other. I get that her day sucked, and she gets that I feel restless. We could talk it over for an hour, or we could just be together. There’s probably no “right” choice, but there is definitely a choice. Even for two former Communications majors.

- Cliff (aka The Husband)