BENGALURU: Every now and then, somebody you love and care for deeply might just say something deeply judgmental, hurtful, contemptuous or just plain mean. When they come at an unexpected moment when you are just being yourself, doing nothing that you thought was controversial or hurtful, can cut through your defences and touch a raw nerve, triggering an immediate reaction that usually ends up exacerbating the situation.
It is like when you are just walking along merrily and you have suddenly stepped on a possible land mine — the temptation is to immediately take your foot back but if you do that, it is likely to blast and create a lot of damage. You can’t go on either. You have to stay there and address the situation knowing the situation is explosive and you need all the calmness you can muster.
These explosive situations might occur in long term relationships where you know each other deeply and like the old saying goes, all that familiarity has bred some contempt, possibly even without you recognising that contempt has been building up. On some random Friday, that contempt might burst through in a thoughtless statement that hurts the other, when you have been having just a regular old conversation.
Any reaction could lead to a bitter conflict, but let’s consider an alternate scenario — you pause, take a deep breath, take that moment and offer it to this person you care for, telling them, “I am going to pause and give you this moment to think about what you just said”.
Hopefully, it stops them in their tracks, and they can check in on what they were saying and why you’d want them to take it back. If they get it, great — they might reframe their thoughts and you can go on having a good day. If they don’t, but care enough to want to reflect and ask you, “Hey, I’ll take it back but can you tell me what was offensive?” Then, you could share what was offensive — maybe they were judgmental, controlling, or applying
their morals/ values on you without taking the time to understand where you are coming from. It can be a moment where you both learn and the relationship deepens.
Sometimes though, they might come back with, “You keep your moments to think to yourself! I mean exactly what I said!” It would then take monumental patience to still hold yourself and stay calm. Chances are you might just chuck it all, get ticked off big time and you get in guns blazing. When that happens, everybody loses.
These opportunities to pause, reflect and take back hurtful comments or actions aren’t easy to give or take, and certainly not easy to hold it open consistently, but they are essential. If you can offer them, do so. When you get them, take that time. Otherwise, relationships might fall to the contempt that familiarity brings, even when there was no real intent to hurt each other.