Guideline #8: Avoid Destructive Family Communication

A frustrating thing about intimate relationships is that when we most need to communicate positively, we’re least able to. We get mad, stressed, hurt, or scared, and do and say things we wish we hadn’t, or we don’t feel like talking at all. Unhelpful communication, or no communication, makes everything worse.

In this post, I alert you to common couple (and family) communication pitfalls and suggest constructive guidelines on how to improve this skill. I use the word “communicating” rather than “talking” because a lot of what families (and all human beings) communicate is non-verbal, through body language, actions, making faces, or gestures.

My name is Lane Lasater, a retired clinical psychologist. In gratitude for the life I have been given, I am sharing everything I learned during my career and personal life on my website http://www.LaneLasater.com and on my YouTube Channel Life Roadmaps from a Retired Psychologist  https://www.youtube.com/@lane205

Each post contains my written material, an AI generated graphic, a 15-17 minute audio summary, and a 5-7 minute video summarizing the material.

I’d tried to understand family communication since my unsuccessful childhood attempts to moderate my parents’ arguments. As a psychologist, I quickly discovered that watching couples or families sit in my office and scream at each other was a disaster. People said destructive and sometimes irrecoverable things. They were doing their best, but unintentionally making things much worse. I recognized I had to teach families (and couples) specifically what and how to communicate effectively. The following guidelines will help you and your family members communicate successfully.

From the classic family peeve of whether someone puts the toilet paper roll facing front or back to truly important issues like money management and child-rearing approaches, there will be many adjustments during family life. Decide what’s really important and what you can accept and live with, then just let the latter things go. Focus on your most important values. There will be clashes—hopefully smaller ones because you’ve screened for issues with your co-parent that would present unresolvable conflicts. Below, I describe the types of destructive family communication to avoid.

No Communication “Nukes”

A nuke is an assault on a person’s character, adequacy as a human being, basic security, or sexuality. When you drop one a nuke on someone, you’re treating that person with contempt. A nuke always makes things worse. Here are destructive family and family communication nukes to avoid:

• Name-calling: calling someone stupid, idiot, loser, jerk, or lazy, etc.
• Threats of abandonment: like “I want out” or “I hate you.”
• Lectures: “How many times have I told you this,” or “Didn’t anyone ever teach you how to ______?”
• Cold shoulders: hostile silences, not saying hello or goodbye, or pretending someone isn’t there.
• Interrupting: “I don’t care what you have to say” or “You listen to me!”
• Martyrdom: playing the victim by saying, “You’re ruining my life,” or “What have I ever done to deserve the way you’re treating me?”
• Sarcasm or contempt: veiled hostility, making faces, or humiliating someone.
• Negative reminders: “I told you so.”
• Exaggerations: “You never help,” or “You always leave your clothes on the floor,” or “You never listen to me.”
• Throwing “the kitchen sink”: Dumping a bunch of pent-up issues on someone all at once.

You’ve probably used communication nukes and been nuked by others, so you know how hurtful these are. We never forget some mean things that people say to us—especially when they come from those we’re closest to. We can still feel the hurt years later.

List some communication nukes you’ve experienced (or used) in the past and discuss these with your partner. Agree that using communication nukes will be completely off-limits in your partnership and family. If either parent (or children) feels like using a nuke in an argument or discussion, it’s a warning sign you need to take time out to cool off. As tempting as it is to “get in the last word,” a nuke creates sometimes irreversible hurt. If you use a nuke, apologize sincerely as soon as you can, even though harm has already happened. An insincere apology is just another nuke!