Tomorrow I am going to present an article in which I am going to look at this issue in greater depth and there may just be another article to follow after that, but for now I am going to tell a true story from the early 90s that still resonates today, as indeed it has done in the past. I have changed the names of the couple involved, but almost everything else is true (as far as I remember) the story as I was told it by “Alan”.

Alan, an Englishman, had just married Donna in Northern Ireland where she came from and for their honeymoon, they were driving south to enjoy some well-deserved time alone and away from their hectic working lives.

As they were driving along for no apparent reason the atmosphere clearly turned frosty as Donna suddenly become minimal in her responses and not offering anything back in the conversation.

What’s happened? thought Alan,

‘Donna, are you okay?’

‘I’m fine,’ said Donna expressionlessly.

Now Alan is not stupid and we all know when a woman says everything is fine, the opposite is true.

‘Donna, what happened?’

‘If you don’t know I am not going to tell you!’

Frustrated and clueless, Alan knew that he just had to persist. Nobody else was there, there hadn’t been opportunity for anything else to have happened. It must have been something he had done, but he had no idea what.

‘Donna, what did I do?’

No response. Alan later told me that he guessed that she had already answered that question with her previous answer – if you don’t know, I’m not going to tell you.

And so they drove in silence for the next several hours until they reached the hotel and they checked in and went up into their room. Feeling exasperated tried to reach her again.

‘Shall we go for a walk before dinner, he suggested.

‘Do what you want?’ she snapped back.

Now Alan felt trapped. Does he go for a walk on his own or try to cajole her into going. Just like fine, do what you want means exactly the opposite. Only this time he didn’t know exactly what the opposite was. He was in a lose-lose situation.

It was another couple of hours later that the truth came out largely thanks Alan’s persistence finally paying off.

It turned out that as they were driving along they had been listening to the radio when Alan suddenly pushed a music cassette (pictured for younger readers) in and turned on the music.

‘You never even asked me if I was listening to the radio. You just started playing your music,’ she accused.

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t think,’ Allan said meekly – after all it was the truth.

‘Well next time, think before you do,’ she retorted ungraciously.

Stung by her words, he never forgot.

I am pleased to say more than 30 years later they are still happily married, but I want to draw some conclusions from this encounter, that I am sure many of you recognise even if it is not about the same thing. Alan was clearly, but inadvertently, in the wrong by not considering or even asking about Donna’s wishes.

• Alan, as a man, was looking for an immediate solution, to fix the problem as he became aware of it. She on the other hand was not ready to do that.
• Her resistance manifested itself very clearly, but in the most unhelpful of ways. “I’m fine” – no you are not. Please just say how you feel. “If you don’t know I am not going to tell you” – I am asking because I don’t know. The silent treatment – pure punishment and mental torture for a guy. You have to speak about it some time, so just bite the bullet and get on with it. ‘Do what you want” – which means do what I (she) want(s), but he had no idea what she wanted.
• In the end she could have given him a bit more credit for trying to fix the problem without giving him the final verbal slap in the face.

In the grand scheme of things it was a small thing. Donna could have just rebuked him there and then, with a “Hey I was listening to that!” and ejected the tape herself. This would have automatically turned the radio back on. Rather what happened just made things worse - and especially for him. It created an atmosphere on the first day of their honeymoon which was bound to have some hangover.

What was really needed was for her to simply be more direct and then they could have addressed the issue quickly. What happened in the end was that they both lost several hours of joy due to a small, inadvertently selfish, gesture on his part that was exacerbated by her extreme reaction. The initial fault was his, but the prolongation of the conflict was down to her.

The joy that was lost, was hers too.

With that in mind I will explore this theme further tomorrow.

As always stay safe and well my friends.