Photo by People Images - Getty Images
Couple in therapy
Rudeness and relationships. The two go together with disturbing frequency, including among family and between spouses and partners.
Take Jack and Ellen as a for-instance. After a warm and romantic beginning, their three-year marriage assumed the tone of a barroom brawl.
“Sometimes you’re a bitch!” Jack snapped at Ellen during our first counseling session.
I winced, but she didn't.
“Jack, I can't even say what you are, at least not in public!” Ellen fired back.
Verbal Body Blows
While these two traded verbal body blows, I recalled how my parents fought, if one could call it that. They didn’t yell, call each other names, grimace menacingly or blast away with insults. On occasion, they exchanged terse words but not scornful ones, and when it was over, it was over.
As a young adult, I was critical of their muted style of conflict, interpreting it as "avoidant" and "repressed." But now I realize their restraint was a demonstration of mutual respect.
As I watched Jack and Ellen riddle each other with emotional bullets, I entered the fray, not to referee but to challenge.
“When your relationship was new, how did you treat each other?” I began.
“Good,” they said. They were courteous, attentive, forgiving; all the stuff that helps love grow.
“When did you become rude and critical?” I pressed.
Snubs and Slurs
They first noticed it about two years into their marriage. It crept up slowly, one snub or slur at a time.
“Do you treat anybody else in your life like this?” I continued.
Stay on top of the news of the day
Subscribe to our free, daily e-newsletter to get Milwaukee's latest local news, restaurants, music, arts and entertainment and events delivered right to your inbox every weekday, plus a bonus Week in Review email on Saturdays.
“No,” they replied in unison.
“Just the one you love, right?” I added rhetorically.
They looked at each other sheepishly, nodding “yes.”
“Why?” I asked, more to me than to them. Why is it that so many couples and family members show less civility with each other than with casual acquaintances or even complete strangers? For these two, why were “please” and “thank you” and "you're welcome" and the respectful attitude behind them more prevalent in a grocery checkout line than across their kitchen table? As the cynics contend, was it merely that familiarity breeds contempt?
Well, during the early stages of any relationship, boundaries and limits on behavior are being mapped out, though most of us are oblivious to this interpersonal cartography. It happens, as we say, organically. At first, people tend to hold back, as if probing cautiously to determine how far is too far.
But after the relationship has solidified, some people test the limits more aggressively. Unwelcome behaviors like pouting, yelling, mocking, the silent treatment and intimidation, which have been held in check by the need to cement the bond, sometimes get a trial run on the interpersonal test track.
If the unlucky recipient of this rudeness forgives and forgets (which many love-struck folks tend to do), then a new and ominously permissive boundary gets established, one that says, “It's okay to treat me badly.” Once expanded, such behavioral guardrails are not easily pushed back. Sometimes, they balloon dangerously, giving rise to emotional abuse or even physical violence.
Beneath rude behaviors, there are ugly implied messages, such as “I own you” and “I am better than you” and “I don't have to earn your love.”
“What approach would you recommend for us?” Ellen asked as we wrapped up their blow-by-blow session.
“Oh, I have just the thing,” I replied. “It's an old but powerful remedy for what ails your marriage, and it won't cost a thing.”
“Sounds great. What is it?” Jack took the bait.
“Common courtesy,” I suggested.
Getting along isn't always as complicated or difficult as some make it out to be. Some claim the temporary insanity that accompanies emotional hijacking robs them of self-control. Others blame their victims by gaslighting them. Psychological explanations can easily morph into excuses.
After one cuts through all the relationship hype and psychobabble, it usually comes down to what good moms tell their children when they treat each other poorly.
Just be nice.
