Violation of interpersonal communications in the family and communication difficulties: how to overcome them through interaction

It must be recognized as an axiom that any interpersonal communication in the family is based on a dialogue, and not on a monologue. The primary violation of interpersonal communication in the family occurs even at the stage of falling in love and the romantic period, when young people have the opportunity to “smooth out" sharp corners in communication. This is how an illusory idea is formed that the partner can understand without words. In the future, this brings certain difficulties in communication in the family, since the hormonal storm of love subsides and the desire to “smooth out” sharp corners disappears with it. All violations of family communications immediately appear before the spouses in all their glory in full growth. We suggest learning about the features of communication in the family in order to avoid typical stupid mistakes and blunders that will ultimately lead to the breakup of the marital union.

Effective communication and typical mistakes in the process of communication in the family

The two insidious enemies of effective family communication are:

• "reading the thoughts" of a partner;
• desire to be understood without words.

In fact, these two phenomena are "Siamese twins", two manifestations of the same thing – the expectation that it is possible to communicate without words, based on a feeling of love and a magical spiritual connection.

This feature of communication in the family has a rich history. Many works dedicated to love glorify this particular side of it – the ability to feel and understand another without words, the ability to be understood by him without explanation. A huge number of people see such mutual understanding not only as the absolute ideal of love relationships, but also as the only worthy model of relationships in general.

If a person, without waiting for a request, does what another dreams of, it means that he loves. And if he was asked, and he did, then this is not such a value. It would seem absurd not to appreciate what a person has done of his own free will, knowing that you will be pleased with it. After all, this is the true manifestation of love. But no, he didn't guess it himself, didn’t feel it – it means that he was under duress, which means that there is nothing valuable in his act!

Each person has their own story about typical communication errors in the form of expecting to be understood without words, and about the so-called “mind reading”. This is a story from early childhood, from the period when a person still does not know how to speak and with all even a very great and ardent desire cannot express his wishes in words. And the parents, that is, the most important people for the baby at that moment, nevertheless, understand him, “read his thoughts” without words. They look at their child with love and do exactly what he needs – shelter, feed, distract from troubles. Parents even anticipate the desires of the child, they know better than he himself what he needs.

On an emotional level, this experience is remembered: the closest, most loving, looking into our eyes, looking at our behavior, understood everything themselves, they did not need to explain anything. And so, creating our family or just building a love relationship, we subconsciously make mistakes in the process of communication, expecting to be transferred to a happy state of security, constant care, understanding.

In itself, the presence of mutual love does not guarantee such a relationship, but the expectation lives in a person. But when it is not justified (and, as a rule, it happens that way), a person is more likely to declare his love wrong, a partner inappropriate, rather than change his belief that loving people understand each other without words. It's easier to divorce your partner than to admit it: the best way to be understood is to be direct about what you're going through and what you'd like.

The role of interaction and emotional communication in the family

Fear and lack of emotional communication in the family between people about relationships leads to the inability to directly find out from the other what is happening to him, why he, one way or another, reacts to situations. But since a person is a rational being, he necessarily assumes what is happening with a communication partner, that is, he attributes to him a certain set of reactions to the situation.

The role of communication in the family is such that, "reading thoughts", we begin to interpret the partner's behavior in our own way (and not always correctly). For example, if the husband is silent, it means that he is unhappy. Or if a wife wants to go out into the world, to people, to society, it means that she feels bad at home with her husband. The lack of desire to ask something directly leads to all sorts of conjectures and assumptions, and it is not at all a fact that they will be correct.

By the way, if a person is accustomed to “reading the minds” of people close to him, then this manner of relations is transferred to the child, to whom non-existent intentions are attributed or whose actions are often explained in a completely wrong way.

Unfortunately, “mind reading” is actively used in interaction and communication in the family between people, and is inherited by children. “It’s inconvenient to ask, and it’s not necessary, and everything is clear!”

There is another difficulty of interaction and communication in the family, which accompanies the attempts of one person to understand the feelings and thoughts of another. This is a different content of the same concepts. People put different ideas into the concepts of "care", "support", "pity". And when one person says: “I need care and support,” then another, for example, can fuss, ask what happened, or even scold the first person, because that is how he imagines support. And the one who asked for support imagined that you need to sit down and silently hold his hand, just so making it clear that he is nearby. And so it is with many concepts fundamental to human communication.

The problem of interpersonal psychological communication in the family

The second communication problem in the family, associated with impaired communication, is closely related to "mind reading" – this is the belief that nothing needs to be explained. In fact, this is the same “mind reading”, only from the other side.

There are cases when one of the partners categorically refuses to tell the other about his wishes, emotional requests, because, in his opinion, this will destroy all the pleasure of the care received: it will not be of good will, but at the behest. And in this case, it is also impossible to try to establish psychological communication in the family, since until the words are spoken (wishes are not expressed), there is still a small chance that the spouse will still figure out what to do, tune in to the right wave. And if the request has already been made, then it is clear that the spouse did what he was asked to do under duress, and this loses its meaning.

It is very difficult to understand each other's needs without an open dialogue. But many people, confident that this is exactly what needs to be done, solve this puzzle with great enthusiasm.

“If you need to speak, then you don’t need to say anything anymore” – this phrase contains the quintessence of expectation (“I must be understood without words”) and a sentence (“if you don’t understand me without words, then it’s not worth explaining, because magic did not happen, we must put an end to our relationship”).

The birth of a child exacerbates the contradictions in interpersonal communication in the family associated with "mind reading" and the expectation of understanding. Husbands are often ready to help take care of the child, but do not have exact information about what exactly their wives expect from them. And, in the opinion of the wives, they themselves must guess what is required of them.

In addition, one partner or both can use the so-called indirect communication in interpersonal communication in the family and assure themselves that they have already told their spouse everything, but he does not change his behavior.

How to change the nature of communication in the family and eliminate the violation

Usually, the nature of communication in the family is such that sometimes people (it is believed that more often women) tend to make general claims or express their wishes in an indirect way. For example, you never help with a child, I'm tired of it all! It’s impossible to eliminate this violation of communication in the family just like that; it will take hard work on yourself. But using an example below, we will show how this can be transformed into a positive constructive attitude.

Before changing the status quo, we need to understand that we are dealing with a global generalization in interpersonal communication in the family (“Never…”) and the lack of a clear message about wishes (it is not clear what exactly is required). An effective option would be: I would like you to put your daughter to bed four times a week, and walk with her in the park for two hours on weekends.

The second variant of interpersonal communication in the family is constructive because it gives a reason to agree: what to do, how many times and on what days. For example, a husband may offer a different schedule or may declare that he does not know how to put the baby to bed, but is ready to take the elder to kindergarten in the morning. The phrase “You never help me” leaves practically no chance for dialogue. This is an accusation that the spouse will defend against, attack in response, or deny the accusations. None of these options for interpersonal communication in the family leads to a solution to the problem.

Children in the family not only inherit parents' communication mistakes ("mind reading" and expectations that you will be understood without words), but they themselves become victims of the same processes.

In real relationships, expecting to be understood without words, and “reading minds” are completely unproductive and destructive. There is no reason to hope that communication will be fruitful if such a component as speech and explanation is removed from it. Of course, it is possible to communicate on other levels (physical, emotional, spiritual), even without words. Without these subtle levels of communication, relationships will become flat and cold. But they are absolutely not enough to build good relationships in the family.