Silence never truly solves a dispute....

I read and write a lot about communication. We could not co-exist on this planet today, as humans, if we did not communicate with one another in some way, for better or worse. Effective communication can bring about incredible results – growth, learning, love, compassion, community and cooperation, to name just a few. I also truly believe that much of the strife we currently face as communities, faith groups and even races is rooted in problems with communication.

Silence itself is a form of communication. It sends a message. But it is a signal rather than an invitation to a further consideration of what preceded the silence. By way of analogy, if you tried to communicate with your best friend for several days, have sent several emails and texts and have not had a response, the silence coming from the other end signals something. It may be a signal of an intentional decision on your friend’s part not to respond. On the other hand, the silence may be the unintentional result of your friend’s inability to respond, perhaps a by-product of it. If you simply elect not to probe further, you will not know the reason why there was no response. In other words, the issue will end there and you will be left to draw your own conclusions, right or wrong, about the reason for the silence. If it is your intention to get to the bottom of the issue, to truly understand why your friend is not responding, you need to take further steps. Whether you are becoming angry or concerned by your friend’s silence, this next step is essential to pursuing the answer to your question as to why your friend is silent. If your friend is not responding to your efforts at communication because she perceives that two weeks ago you said something which was unfair and which upset her, if she values your friendship and wants to work on fixing the problem, she too needs to engage. If you give up and she does not respond, the issue which apparently caused this rift will never be understood or addressed.

 Let's shift this analogy to a separation. Not a perfect analogy but there are similarities. Quite often, when a spouse is on the receiving end of news about the end of the relationship, he or she might face such an overwhelming set of emotions that they might simply go silent, in an effort to perhaps “protect themselves” or “stay sane”. There are also cases were a couple attempts to address some important outstanding issues, including perhaps their children, but are not successful and might even have a huge fight while trying to do so. Then they both go silent.

When people go silent, they have communicated to one another that they no longer wish to engage. Let's ask - what happens to the underlying issues? They do not simply go away. They remain outstanding and the need to address them, their urgency, may grow with each passing day. Silence doesn't actually solve the dispute. It simply shuts down dialogue about it. I absolutely accept that the required dialogue may be painful, difficult and sometimes even downright overwhelming but often, only that difficult discussion can I get you to the next stage, and then the next, and hopefully, over time, to a point where you have resolved the dispute you were facing.

So how do you tackle those difficult discussions? What if you and the other spouse have tried talking but those efforts were a sad failure and caused an even bigger rift between you. One solution may be to find a safe, comfortable and structured context in which to have those uncomfortable discussions and you might consider family mediation. A skilled, experienced family mediator will assist in organizing, moderating and overseeing the dialogue between you, with the goal of truly understanding not only the positions but the interest behind them and, ultimately, the settlement of the dispute.

©AJJakubowska