This YouTube podcast segment (Pure Desire Podcast, Dec 2023) discusses how practicing assertiveness benefits not only the individual but also their spouses, children, and wider family by creating healthier relationships. Speakers frame assertiveness as part of personal healing that ‘trickles down’ to others, a way to counteract dysfunctional family-of-origin scripts, and a pathway to intimacy (defined as knowing and being known). A personal anecdote describes a spouse learning to speak up after growing up in a home where opinions were discouraged, which the speakers credit with strengthening their marriage and mutual decision-making.
So like many areas of life, we are more likely to do an activity if we know not only is it for us, but also that it helps others, that it goes beyond just, you know, me to what, what could this do for my family, my relationship? So let's talk about that a little bit. How does our choice to be assertive potentially help our marriage, our family and friends around us?
I think that it's the same way that we talk about with people who are in recovery and healing, that you work on your healing first. And that really is a little bit of this trickle down or this overflow that happens when we start to get healthy. Then it seems to affect all these different areas in our life and especially our relationships. And I think that when we practice assertiveness, even though we've talked about how it could be a little bit divisive at first, especially if you've always been the passive one in the relationship and now you're making changes in that. But I think in the long run, it's. It really is one of those things that the more that we practice it and the more that we even see how effective it can be in promoting healthy relationships, that it does tend to be something that people notice about us.
Totally.
Yeah.
And it's something we can do in our families. I mean, I think of something my therapist told me that we like basically the script that we've been given with our family of origin. It gives us the perfect ability to recreate that exact same situation in our current family. And I remember a time where I thought that was like, I thought that what I went through perfectly equipped me to create the exact opposite. And he's like, no, no, no. It equips you to make the exact same thing happen in your house. And this is a way to counteract that. If you grew up in that oppressive environment, the lack of safety in your house, to be assertive, if you start being assertive in your own home, that creates a place where everyone's voice is accepted at the table. Everyone's needs and wants are important and are valued. So I think it's also something that we can do to change the trajectory of our family and the health of our family. If we can begin to be assertive. And like you said, it's going to trickle down to the people around us.
And if we think about it, we've defined intimacy not as just physical closeness, but intimacy is that knowing and being known. It's that being able to bring my whole self and finding that that is good enough, that that's Accepted that people love me for who I am. And when we're not assertive, we are tending to keep parts of ourself back, parts of our truth back, part of what we're experiencing we're not sharing with others. And it will hinder our ability to be close to others. And so I think if we can see a assertiveness in that way of like, for my spouse, with my kids, if I'm willing to speak confidently about what I'm feeling or needing or seeing and do it in a kind and respectful way, I'm actually letting them see me and letting them know me. And that creates connection, that creates relationship. And I think even in. I think about our marriage ways that my wife very much grew up in a home where opinions were not welcomed. She was the middle child, so her voice got lost in between an older brother and younger sister that were much more needy in terms of parental attention. Growing up, my wife was kind of the perfect child. Always got her homework done, you know, those kind of things. So she really didn't learn to let her voice be heard. And then she gets married to a guy that has plans and does his own thing and, you know, struggles with addiction. And I think she just fell into some of those patterns early in our marriage. And so much of our recovery for her was just about letting her voice be heard, being able to speak up about what she liked, didn't like, wanted, dreamed of. And, you know, so not only did that help her, I think grow as a person, I feel like it's maybe the. The main way that our marriage has grown because I feel like we know each other so much better, we do things so much more often that I know is really something she wants to do, not just she's doing it because it was my plan and idea. So if you feel any of that in your own marriage, I think just realize that it's not only for your growth, it's going to create momentum in your marriage because you're not just going with the flow and doing what they want. You're really participating co equally in building that life and building that family. And really that's what relationship is about, is being co equals in something together. And so if you can be assertive, you could really see that begin to happen.
