The Four Types of Unspoken Truths in Your Relationship and Why You Need To Speak Them

This is not a podcast about being broken, although you may have been. This is a podcast about strength for women who find themselves in difficult relationships, including that sometimes difficult one with yourself. We'll look at your relationship through a lens of psychology, faith, and a little dash of my own kind of feminism. We're not fixing them. We're fixing you. And that changes everything. Welcome to Stronger in the Difficult Places. Save yourself, heal your relationships. Listen in. Hey there, welcome. I'm your host, Dr. Zoe, and I'm glad you're here today. I'm still sounding a little sick, but actually I feel great. COVID had a great time running through our family and we are all feeling better, but still just trying to get those last remnants gone. So today's topic is the things we don't say. What do those things do to us? But first, am I winning My win and my fail. So my win, I spoke a painful truth to someone this week that I was scared to say. It needed to be said and I knew it and I spoke it, and although it didn't give me the result I hoped, I'm proud of myself that I spoke the truth. And in a small way, it actually reminded me that I want to do this episode. I've had this episode title kind of hanging out in the back of my mind for quite a while. I know it's important and so I'm excited to talk about it today. But my fail, I think I've talked about this before. My children have a forgetful tooth fairy. Please tell me that my kids are not the only one that has a forgetful tooth fairy. But that darn tooth fairy, man, she's been coming to my house for 20 years now, and sometimes she just forgets. And I'm thankful that my kids know that, and they will alert me in the morning that the tooth fairy forgot again. And so— What's really nice is that the tooth fairy usually doubles up on her payment when she forgets the night before, so they also have a very generous tooth fairy, so I suppose it's a win for them. But yes, so that's my fail. So on to the topic, the things we don't say. I want you to really dig deep and look inside and pay attention to whether there's something that you haven't said. Someone DM'd me in response to a post I put up on Instagram, and the post said, don't punish your spouse with silence for something you aren't willing to tell them they did. And I'm paraphrasing here because I think I said it better on Instagram, but she wrote a long response to me and it touched me. And I hope she's listening today because I've been where she is, and that's why this is so important to me. She said to me that sometimes we choose peace Right, or we have to choose peace even though it causes us distress because we know that stating something to someone will only make things worse, especially if you have a spouse that's not going to respond well. And ultimately, she said that we need to know our relationship and know whether, you know, it's okay to speak up or not. Unfortunately, or fortunately, I couldn't disagree more, and I told her in the most loving way, and she didn't respond to me. Which is okay. I plan on writing a book about this topic, so it's very near and dear to my heart. The weight of the things that we don't say is heavy, and although you may realize it, you probably also falsely believe that the weight of speaking up is heavier. That's why you don't do it. There's this saying, if you have nothing good to say, don't say it, right? Then there's the modern saying, sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will break my heart. So we're taught to not say things. We're taught to keep it to ourselves. And this is killing you. And it's killing your relationship in exchange for a semblance of surface peace in the moment. I have a friend who recently spoke some hard truths to her 11-year-old daughter about her own mother's illness. She worried that she screwed her daughter up in speaking truth. She didn't. She fostered intimacy and growth, even though it included tears. I have had the experience early in my marriage where I was afraid to speak true things because I didn't want to upset the status quo. I worried I would hurt or upset Stan, my husband, and it was only later that I began to understand the burden of unspoken words. And I have clients who have ended friendships, family relationships, and even marriages rather than speak the truth and deal with the consequences. You see, unspoken words create space in relationships that should be filled with intimacy. Unspoken words force us to create meaning that may not exist. We might ask ourselves, why does he do that? Why doesn't she answer me? What he said was hurtful, so that must mean he doesn't care. We make up reasons and meaning when we're not able to actually have the conversation, and then that meaning hurts us And it may not even be real. There are 3 types of unspoken truths— 4, really. The first is hurts that someone else inflicted on us that we don't express. Number 2, truths about ourselves that we hide, big ones and sometimes little ones. Number 3, truths about our experience with others that we hide. And number 4 are truths that just don't need to be said. So I'm gonna go over all of them so that you can get a good idea of what is what. And which one you may be experiencing or which ones. Number 1, the hurts that someone else inflicted on us that we don't express. So you hurt me, but I'm not going to tell you, at least not verbally. I may stonewall you, I may ignore you, I may end our relationship, but I'm going to hold it because I'm afraid. I'm afraid that you won't validate my anger. I'm afraid that I may lose you. I'm afraid I may hurt you more. So what are you doing here? You're attempting to protect yourself from a seemingly bigger hurt, but what really happens is that you seethe, you become passive-aggressive, and either way, you actually create the very thing you fear because you don't speak up. It's a slower process. It's like cancer instead of a heart attack, but it's a death nonetheless. The second type of unspoken truth. Truths about ourselves. Maybe you binge eat at night, or maybe you don't want to continue this marriage, or maybe there's something in your past that you keep hidden and you hold on for yourself. This kind of truth is a I don't want to tell you truth because I'm scared. So do you see a pattern here? We don't speak the truth because of fear. I'm scared you won't like the real me. I'm scared you won't trust me. I'm scared you'll see me differently. I'm scared you'll judge me. And once again, I'm scared. I will lose you. So I won't tell you the truth about me, and the result is that I feel unknown and unloved, and this causes distance in relationships. We think we're protecting ourselves. We think we're, we're keeping something bad from happening, but actually we're doing the opposite. The third type of unspoken truth are truths about our experience of others or with others. So maybe I don't want to tell you that your breath smells bad because I don't want to experience the uncomfortableness of your feelings. Maybe I don't want to tell you that I don't enjoy our weekends at the beach because I don't want to make you feel bad, right? So in some ways, this is like a codependency type one, because codependency is when we take on other people's feelings as our own, or sometimes we overempathize. So you don't want to tell a truth because you don't want to hurt their feelings, and ultimately you don't want them to reject you either. But what you are doing is that you're pretending, and in the pretending, in that space of inauthenticity in your relationship, feelings will get hurt because things are left unsaid. We actually don't hide our true feelings very well. We try as humans, but we don't do it very well. They seep out in other behaviors that are not healthy that we can't figure out. That's why communication between humans can be so frustrating sometimes because people behave for reasons we don't understand. And there's always a reason, but sometimes it's just woven into so many other things, a lot of times things that we don't want said, and we think we're doing better, we think we're doing good, and we aren't. And then of course there's the truths that don't need to be said. So okay, yes, sometimes it's better to keep your mouth shut. So when do you speak and when do you hold your tongue? You speak when it's a relationship issue, and you speak when you haven't made it already clear before. You hold your tongue when it's a personal issue about that person that will not provide a benefit but will only create pain to have said it. So for instance, you don't need to tell someone that you don't like the way they look. You don't need to tell someone they're overweight. You don't even need to tell someone you don't like them. You shouldn't tell people that you don't think they're intelligent. You don't need to tell your spouse that their cooking tastes horrible. Any global or specific demeaning words that are not productive in any way don't need to be said. Those things, you're not hurting yourself to hold them in. You're not creating resentment about them. Now you might not like your spouse's cooking, but there are other ways to talk about maybe, you know, I don't really like meatloaf, or I actually prefer That I cook is a better way to express yourself so that you're not holding something in. But the things that matter, the words that may cause pain but have the power to ultimately heal you or your relationship, the words that can deepen intimacy, those are the conversations to be had, my friend. So a little rule of thumb is to ask yourself this question: when something's going on and you want to speak it, or you have some type of inclination to speak it, ask yourself these questions: What is it I want to say? Why do I want to say it? What can this statement or this conversation accomplish, and is it likely to accomplish that? And then also, is this something I need to say just for me? Because that matters too. So it does need to be something that, number one, you know what you want to say, You understand what it could accomplish. You need to know how likely it is that it will accomplish that, but sometimes we need to say things even if we know it's not going to accomplish the wanted desire, but it will accomplish us speaking our truth. That's important. And sometimes we're planting seeds when we speak truth, knowing that those seeds might grow later. I've been talking about the weight of unsaid things, so if we continue to use this weight metaphor, when you first speak, it can feel crushing. But then the weight disappears and you're no longer reaping the negative effects of carrying it in your journey, and you're starting to feel the freedom of being able to speak. So here are some of the rules. I spoke earlier about whether you've said it or not, right? So speak it once and make it clear and don't hide it, but don't beat it to death either. So saying the same thing over and over is nagging, it's unnecessary, and it can be overkill. If your spouse knows how you feel on a subject, You don't need to say it every time. We're talking about things that are held in and left unsaid. So that doesn't qualify as something left unsaid if you've already said it. Those are the times when you can hold your tongue because he already knows. And as long as you've made it clear, you don't need to say it. You don't need to tell him, hey, you're doing that again. You just act with that unspoken truth between you. And that's very different than having unspoken truth inside of you with your partner having no knowledge of why you're acting a certain way. But if you know he's not clear and you know you're holding it in to avoid conflict, to save face because you're ashamed or you want to make peace, you're paying too high a price for fool's gold, my friend. So how do we do that? We speak the truth in love. And what that means is that we don't use anger as a motivator because anger is a fantastic motivator. It kind of like alcohol will get us to say things that we never would have said before, but that's not the right time because the energy that you come to somebody with the truth matters. And it shouldn't be motivated by anger because you probably aren't going to say it well. You're gonna have to go back and take some things back, and that actually takes some of the power— it takes a lot of the power out of what you're saying to someone when you say it in anger because all they hear is anger and they don't hear your words, not in the way that you want them to. So we speak the truth in love. We go to our friend, our partner, our spouse when we are not angry. But when we know we're holding something. And you tell them the truth. Sometimes a letter is a better vehicle than a conversation. I love the use of letters. I use it so much in my practice. I've used it in my life because especially if you know that your person is defensive, if you know they might not allow you to finish without being interrupted, or if you get too nervous and all the words just leave your brain when you're about to speak, then writing it all down, And you can, you can read it to somebody or you can give it to them to read on their own. And yes, I know that what you fear is the fallout. And I also know that you may want to control the outcome, and that's where you have to let go and you have to let other people have their reactions. We cannot control the outcome of the words that come out of our mouth. We try to say them in love. We try to speak the truth, and then we have to give them to those people. That we're interacting with, and we have to let them sit there with them. So we don't speak just to create a specific outcome. That's controlling and sometimes manipulative. We speak because we want to speak the truth. We speak because we want to not have that distance between us in relationship, and they've got to do what they're going to do with it. And we've got to let them have their process with it. Often my client will say, but I'm scared he's going to Fill in the blank. And my response is, let him. He's got to work it out. We don't usually lose people for speaking truth. We usually lose relationships because too many things are left unsaid for way too long. So you've got to focus your control on yourself, meaning I will not allow their response to deter me from the truth, rather than focusing your control on them, which is you telling yourself that they must respond a certain way. And yeah, you might receive anger, defensiveness, sadness, and they may even resort to a pattern in your relationship of not speaking their own truth, of clamming up or giving you the cold shoulder. Remember, we don't grow at the same rate or time in relationships. We have to give people we are in relationship with space to be themselves and learn and grow at their own rate. We have to be accountable to our own growth nonetheless. And not stoop to their level. Let them have their response and know that you have unburdened yourself in a healthy way and that it's not between you anymore. Once you've said what you need to say, remember, you don't have to keep saying anymore. It's been said. Let it stay between you. I was listening to this episode of 70 Over 70, which is a fantastic podcast. I suggest anybody listen to it. It's 70 Over 70. The episode guest was a palliative care physician, and she spoke of what treating patients for 40 years taught her. And one of the things she said that I already know is that they regret the things left unsaid. On their deathbed, people reveal secrets and words and thoughts unsaid, and it's only after that that she sees a release and a sense of peace come over them. Why tiptoe around truth for decades and only walk in freedom during your last minutes of your life? Don't do that. Let's learn from other people's mistakes. And that really is what— why I love that episode, 70 Over 70, because he interviews 70, actually 70-plus people over 70, and really just talks to them about their life. And you get to— you get so much wisdom when you listen to people who have been before you because they can tell you some things. So yes, this is a huge Plug for 70 over 70. So what are the hardest things to say in relationships? I love you. I don't have that problem, but some people do. I still love you despite. Ooh, sometimes that's hard. I'm sorry. I'm hurting. I need help. I'm done with this relationship. So many people have a hard time saying that. This thing is happening right now and it's hard. Sometimes we're in the middle of something or something's really going on and it's the elephant in the room. We don't wanna talk about it, it's hard to talk about it, and those elephants are so important to go ahead and just address and they shrink. Or this has happened and you didn't know about it. That's a hard one. I miss you and I don't know. Some people have a harder time talking about what they don't know, but so those are just some of the hard things to say in relationships. So if this episode speaks to you, if there's a conversation that you know you really need to have, I encourage you today to take the next steps towards having it. Whether you need to start writing it down or just sit and force those words past your diaphragm, you can do it. That's it. Go speak your truth, my friend. It's good to do hard things. Thank you for listening to Stronger in the Difficult Places. New episodes come out on Tuesdays when I'm really good about getting them out on time. Subscribe to my email list so you can get some words of encouragement from me and have a strong week.