Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. 1 Peter 2:1
The better I understand my mate the more likely it is I will be able to help my mate understand me. It is important to remember, however, that ultimately I cannot make another person change. I am responsible for my attitudes and behavior. I may influence others, but I cannot control them.
Over and over people come for counseling, and it becomes very apparent in the opening moments of the first session that what they really want is for me to tell them what they can do in order to fix the other person. It’s always the other person who’s the problem; it’s the other person who needs to change. What they want to know is, “What can I do to make them change?”
I have to disabuse them of this notion up front: “I can’t give you tools that will fix the other person. Hopefully, what I can do is to challenge, encourage, and support you in becoming a better person yourself. The more you grow in who you are, the better the potential for having an improved relationship with your mate, regardless of whether they’re even willing to address the problems in the relationship.
“If I talk with the other person, I will be telling them what they need to do. Please remember this. The only context in which it is appropriate to be talking about the other person is in order to try to learn to understand them so you can do a better job in relating to them, not so you can fix them.”
When it comes to being understood, the first thing I want to clarify is:
The fact that someone understands what I’m saying does not mean they have to agree with me.
And, the fact that someone understands what I’m saying does not mean I will be allowed what I want. If I am not understood, it does not mean I’m wrong, nor does it mean the other person is wrong. Being understood is not about who’s right and who’s wrong. Being understood is about being understood.
On a number of occasions, I have been in the very awkward situation of trying to help someone realize that I understand what they’re saying. What I’ve heard from them in these situations is, “No, but you don’t understand.” What they mean is, “You’re not letting me have what I want. If you understood, you’d see it my way. If you understood, you would agree with me.”
Sometimes we will understand and disagree. If you’re coming from an entirely different set of presuppositions, you may understand the other person’s presuppositions, you may even be able to articulate their presuppositions, but you have still reached a different conclusion, because you don’t agree with their presuppositions.
Let me give you an example from my own personal life. I am a Baptist preacher. This means, among other things, I believe certain things about baptism. My brother is a Presbyterian preacher. This means he believes some different things about baptism. I can articulate and defend his position on baptism. I can do this so well, it makes some Baptists wonder why we don’t all become Presbyterians. Then, I have to explain again to them why I am a Baptist and why I don’t agree with that position, even though I understand it, can articulate it, and can do so persuasively.
My brother understands my view. He can articulate it so eloquently and persuasively, you would wonder why he isn’t a Baptist, but he can explain to you why he’s a Presbyterian. He has understood both positions, and he has decided he believes the Presbyterian position. I understand both, and I agree with the Baptist position. The two of us don’t argue about this. We understand each other, but we don’t agree with each other. We don’t have to agree. We have a much better relationship, because we understand each other, and we don’t spend a lot of time and wasted energy trying to make each other understand.
Being understood is much more likely to occur, if you accept up front that being understood is not the same thing as being agreed with. You don’t have to make the other person agree with you in order to be understood and in order to feel you’ve been understood. This makes the task a lot less threatening for both parties because “I know upfront I may not get what I want.”
“But wasn’t that the whole point of being understood? What I really want is not simply for people to understand me. I just want to get my own way. The only reason I try to get people to understand me is so I can get what I want.”
You need to get over that. If your goal is to have your own way, then this is not a communication problem; it’s a selfishness problem. If your goal is intimacy and oneness, then you don’t have to always agree. You can understand each other. You can view things differently. You can even celebrate your different perspectives. You can respect one another and disagree with one another. The goal is not supposed to be getting my own way, whether you’re the husband or the wife. The goal is to achieve oneness, to have intimacy. In this context, making yourself understood is not about making the other person do what you want.
The fact that someone understands what I’m saying does not mean they have to agree with me, and it does not mean I’ll be allowed what I want. If someone doesn’t understand me, it doesn’t mean that one of us is wrong. It doesn’t mean that one of us is stupid. Even very intelligent people sometimes have trouble with communication.
There are times when you are being understood, but the other person has not yet had time to assimilate the information. They simply don’t know yet whether or not they agree with you. They understand, but they must be given time for processing. Communication is not about continually debating until a winner is declared. Communication should be about developing intimacy and caring in relationships. This occurs over time. Some people need more time than others. But, there will still be some things we will absolutely disagree on indefinitely. We must allow for this in our relationships or we will be relationally crippled.
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