After the Door Slams
On conflict, rupture, and repair in relationships
What you might have missed:
The Thing That Cannot Be Said - on how keeping secrets affects us and those around.
Living in History - on the strange experience of living in the world today.
I grew up watching and listening to my parents fight. I never knew when an argument might erupt and over what. Frequently, they started with “you said that…” followed by “I never said that…” - the telltale sign of poorly communicated, unmet expectations. I remember sneaking up to their bedroom door after it would slam shut in the midst of a verbal explosion, ready to pounce in with a made-up need for help to break up the fight if it sounded like words might turn into blows.
I don’t think my parents had a clue about how to be partners. They communicated through issuing orders, guilt-tripping, and stonewalling. My mother was the more passive-aggressive of the two, and my father was the drinking man-child.
Along the way, I realized that none of their fights truly ended. They would literally exhaust themselves yelling at each other, then get up the next morning and go about their business as if nothing had happened the night before. The problem with that, from my 10-year-old person’s perspective, was that the next blow-up inevitably revisited the previous blow-up. And the one before that one. And everyone as far as they could remember. I could literally predict what they would say, sitting there by the closed door.
Thankfully, I also had other relationship models. But that childhood experience really soured me on relationship conflicts. I became very picky in my early relationships, avoiding people who seemed potentially explosive. I ran away at the first sign of disagreement. I kept things to myself to avoid confrontation. And when a difficult, confrontational conversation had to be had, I spent days thinking about what I needed to say and how to say it.
When occasionally blindsided by a conflict I didn’t see coming, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I felt unprepared. I didn’t like it. But I knew that no matter what, the conflict had to end. It needed to be resolved, settled, done with, if I didn’t want to keep having it like my parents.
But I still didn’t know what to do after. And after is just as important as before, and during, and sometimes even more important.
Most people sweep the incident under the rug and pretend it never happened after they exhaustively defend themselves, blame, and attack the other person, as each wants to come out on top, proving themselves right and justified. Or, eventually, someone apologizes (usually the person with less power or greater aversion to the situation), and life resumes as if the explosion never happened. But rest assured. Mental scores are kept and delivered at the next opportune moment.
