April 14
Nothing Was Said
Some relationships seem easy because the other person rarely complains. We assume our habits do not bother them. They adapt when we are late, go quiet when we become sharp, and avoid subjects that usually start an argument. Their silence looks like agreement from where we sit. From another chair, it might look like someone deciding that speaking honestly costs more than they can face today.
We cannot know another person's private experience simply by imagining it. Still, the absence of complaint is thin evidence that no harm occurred. Step Eight encourages a thoughtful look at our own behavior: whether we listened, whether we punished disagreement, whether we made ordinary requests difficult. We may discover reasons people stopped trying to tell us something. That recognition can begin changing how we receive them now, without requiring them to produce an account of every occasion we failed to hear them.
What has my response to disagreement taught other people about speaking to me?
Silence does not tell the whole story.
For the A.A. nerds: Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, Step Eight, pp. 80–82.