Do You Only Speak Up If You Have Deep Connection With That Someone?
Reid: Snap!
Cathy: Are you going to share the question?
Reid: Yes. This is Cathy Vartuli from http://www.TheIntimacyDojo.com I’m Reid Mihalko from http://www.ReidAboutSex.com and the question is based on something Cathy and I were just talking about, Cathy do you believe that people should only speak up or worth speaking up when you feel deep connection with someone?
Cathy: I think it’s more important to speak up then because deep connections are often sometimes we don’t have resentment building up are relationships that matter a lot to us if it’s someone that I don’t really necessarily feel comfortable with I’m not saying people should silence themselves I’m saying I sometimes do because when I’m shy and I feel like someone doesn’t either like me or have a lot of room for me in their life.
Reid: What’s the point of speaking up?
Cathy: I just feel like it’s not worth dealing with it or their reaction won’t necessarily be worth me having my voice. So we kind of like decide okay they’re going to be here for this many hours I’ll be silent I’m kind of go along and that just really pushing my boundaries which is not I’m not saying it’s the best way to handle it but there are certain people that because of the way they reacted to me I don’t feel safe sharing my truth with them.
Reid: Got it and so you’re recommendation is to endure.
Cathy: I think everybody got to decide for themselves, what is right for themselves.
Reid: That just a good answer.
Cathy: I definitely recommend speaking up if something is crossing boundaries or causing a lot of discomfort but if it’s smaller things sometimes it’s just I found it if certain people I feel very comfortable sharing my truth with and sometimes I feel like when they won’t care and it’s not going to change anything and it might even make things worse just by them feeling like I’m noisy and difficult so unfortunately I don’t speak up with them and maybe that hurts because I don’t reach out to spend time with them for sure because I don’t feel comfortable and that is not opening up the relationship in any way but if I feel like there is no interest the other side about opening the relationship or improving it sometimes I don’t think it’s worth the effort.
Reid: So silence endure. I’m sure I’m going to stop you there for a minute I’m sure that I’ll be criticize for what I’m about to say and called the hypocrite because yes we are all human and even I don’t speak up all the time but generally speaking I think my advice is going to be when you can find your voice use it and if that makes things worse in ways that irreparable I personally would rather destroy and sever our relationship than become passive progressive on it. And that’s going to be my advice and that is as an extrovert.
Cathy: So can I give you a contact for what I have an objection to that? If it’s….
Reid: And *inaudible* if you’re not in physical danger.
Cathy: Yes and physically danger is totally fine. If you have a really close friend whose partner occurs to you as either judgmental or indifferent to you and you’ve tried to talk a little bit but there not seem to be an opening, is it worth that you spend time with that person to bring up things when it might hurt your relationship with the person you’re really close to?
Reid: I’m going to say yes because I’m curios if part of the indifference is that you’re not speaking up.
Cathy: It doesn’t occur to me that way but…I could be wrong..
Reid: I’m saying like how do you know that silence is the right choice and I’m just saying that growing up in the family that didn’t talk about things and I know what happens over years then and again this is not I’m not a shy person so me being like oh so when I speak up that doesn’t work for you, should we have a conversation about this? I would rather drive them further away from me so that they may never be around me.
Cathy: But if that affects the relationship you have with the person that you really care about that’s’ not good.
Reid: Well, then that person you need to have a conversation with and hopefully you don’t silence yourself around that because then they’re in a relationship where their partner and I know that there are married couples and friends like this where the partner is now having such a problem with the other person that now your friend whose their partner is the middle man the middle person stuck in this fight, in this tug of war in which being somebody who tries to practice not silencing themselves I would tell my partner like this is my friend I’m hanging out with them whether you like it or not and…
Cathy: But if you’re in a neutral space, how do you handle that?
Reid: I tell everybody to be grownups because I don’t have time to really like in grownups means I’m from New York, grownups can mean those two people stand separate sides of the room and don’t talk to each other, New Yorkers, we loved that. We’re like yeah okay I don’t like you I’m going to stand over here and you don’t come talk to me ever and you’re like awesome good friendship but that’s New Yorker way of doing things when you have 7 million people living in a small island.
Cathy: Not everybody deals that way.
Reid: And that can trigger anxiety and emotions for folks and things are so uneasy and I grew up in that family were things were uneasy and I’m just like I’ll break up with everybody. I’ll unfriend everybody if people can’t be adults so that’s my advice and that’s kind of…
Cathy: So you consider it not adult to just endure something for just a few hours because you think it’s not that important.
Reid: It it’s a few hours? I’ve certainly endured things and become passive aggressive and that didn’t help anybody but if this is somebody’s whose important to you and who’s going to be in your life then that situation probably going to end up more than few hours over…
Cathy: Well you mean because their partner…
Reid: Their partners are not going away and you can create situations where you don’t have to deal with people that you don’t like.
Cathy: And it’s not about disliking or you need separate sides of the room it’s like feeling dismissed or unimportant or you like it’s irritating to that person to even talk to them.
Reid: For me I have to go up to those people and be like hey you I feel dismissed by you, can we talk about it? Coz now I’m like now let see what’s going on but I’m being driven by a family that didn’t do that and how it’s excruciating that was for me in high school and I will when I get clear about that kind of anxiety and just suckiness and again as expert I will then again go to people and be like I’m not goin to go through this again I’m going to confront this generally speaking I’m also like awhite six foot tall, 230 pound male so I’m not afraid of people becoming violent in a certain way but I’m just like I can’t handle this, I’m going to confront it and I have. And there are people they’re just like will not talk to me but you know what’s great? I never have to deal with them, they leave me alone.
Cathy: Different experiences I’ve had friends when I was in down side of a really close friends who got angry and then everyone else she knew wasn’t allowed to speak to me again. So there’s a feeling of like I don’t want to lose my friends.
Reid: For me and again I’m going to ask sometimes I’m like great I don’t need you in my life then and it’s not about like you have to fight for me to prove that I’m worthy it’s like if you need to pick a side, pick a side. I’m not going to try to hang out with a bunch of people who need side picking. It’s just weird and I have lots of people in my life who don’t like other people in my life and I still invite everybody in my birthday party for the most part.
Cathy: Love to know what you think. Where do you draw the line between enduring something and speaking up and when it is more work just to talk about things and not worth it on to you?
Reid: And also on blood relatives I don’t know the answer or solve this doesn’t work at all around that unless you just going to disappear and fake your own death. Leave comments.