1

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How to Build Relationships That Stick

The Wonderful Benefits of
Satisfying Communication

By Azriel Winnett

Second Edition
Copyright strictly reserved, Azriel Winnett 2001-2008
[email protected] http://hodu.com

Azriel is the creator and publisher of:

Hodu.com - Your Gateway to Better Communication Skills
http://hodu.com

Hodu.com is a highly acclaimed website dedicated to

helping you improve your communication and interpersonal
relationship skills in the home, the workplace, and on the
social front.

The site includes regularly updated, quality information

on a diverse range of topics. The following are those that are
most relevant to the theme of this e-book:

Assertiveness Skills

Body Language

Conversation Skills

Communicating With Your Children

Conflict Resolution

Dealing with Difficult People

Enhancing Your Marriage

Family Life

Interpersonal Relationships

You can also subscribe to the fortnightly Site Updates

newsletter, containing brief descriptions of new content
added to the site.

More information on Hodu.com at the end of this book.

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Table of Contents

About This Book....................................................................... 4

Receiving Loud and Clear....................................... 8

Tone Down Emotional Noise................................. 11

You Have to Probe Deeper.................................... 15

How to Break a Deadlock....................................................... 18

The Power of Simply Listening..............................21

First Barrier to Intimacy........................................ 24

Closing the Feedback Loop................................... 28

When Minimizing is Maximizing............................ 31

Immersing in Another's World..............................34

Empathy is King!................................................... 37

Pleasure – Instant or Lasting?.............................. 41

Fast Track to Hell..................................................51

Say, What's On Your Mind?................................... 55

Taming the Destructive Ego.................................. 60

Time to Be Assertive............................................. 64

Giving Is Not Giving In! ......................................... 67

Dump That Negative Baggage!............................. 70

Taming the Destructive Ego.................................. 74

The Fire Inside You................................................................ 78

What You Can Find on Hodu.com........................................... 80

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About This Book

John, a young man who had been married for six

months, was beginning to feel a little browned off with the
institution -of marriage. He confided to his best friend,
Gary, that married life -well, at least, his married life was
not all that it had been cracked up to be.

“It looks like you need to speak to someone, John,”

said Gary, sympathetically. “I mean, someone with
experience in these matters. Now, I know a good person,
an old man, and a wise one, who’ll give you just the right
advice. He’s brilliant. And it won’t cost you a cent.”

John didn’t need to be told twice. He arrived at the old

man’s door, knocked, and introduced himself.

“We’ve been married for only a few months,” he wailed,

“and already there are tensions.”

“Really? In what way?”

“Well, I roll and she squeezes!”

The wise counselor’s eyebrows knitted together in

puzzlement, but even before he could ask for an
explanation, the whole sad story came blurting out.

“You see, I like to roll the toothpaste gently. That’s

clean, it’s efficient and it’s economical. But she insists on
taking the tube in her hand and giving it a good squeeze”
squeeze...”

“No problem!” proclaimed the old man. “Buy two tubes

of toothpaste.”

One lesson we can learn from this amusing anecdote is

that a little imagination and creativity can go a long way
towards resolving interpersonal conflicts. Another is the
power of “win-win” strategies. We already hear so much
about this among people doing business on the Internet,
and the time is past due that we begin talking more about
“win-win” also in human relationships – not for the sake of
petty personal advantage, but to bring more happiness
into all our lives.

These are among the topics we’ll examine in this book.

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Over and above all this, however, our little story

illustrates a disturbing fact of modern life that far too few
of us are ready to acknowledge. People are entering into
all kinds of personal relationships without sufficient
preparation or even basic knowledge of what to expect.

When, inevitably, disillusionment begins to set in, not

all of these people are as fortunate as John was in having
sympathetic, discreet and worldly-wise friends in which to
confide. Many are so overcome with anxiety or doubt that
they react in inappropriate ways, only to regret it later.
Others are very quick to throw their blame on their
partners, their friends, the environment, rotten luck –
anybody or anything except, of course, themselves.

Ironically, among the primary reasons for this sad state

of affairs are basic misconceptions regarding the very
nature of relationships. Just one example – people often
erroneously think that friendship is something you either
have or don’t have. You either like someone or you don’t.
If you don’t, that’s the end of the story, period.

If you believe this, I don’t know how you’ll explain a

story once recounted by a celebrated psychologist and
radio personality.

A man decided to divorce his wife because he no

longer loved her. Unfortunately, for some technical
reason, he could not file for the divorce for six months.
Being a reasonable fellow, he decided to make the most
of the situation, and just for the heck of it, he would make
a list of all the things he would do, if he truly loved his
wife. He then began doing these things. The result? He
was soon madly in love with the woman he couldn’t
stomach a few months earlier.

The romantic notion that love just happens, that cupid

either hits you with the arrow or he doesn’t, is really just
that – a concept that has its place in romantic novels, but
hasn’t much to do with real life. I’m not denying that
chemistry is often a very important component in
relationships, but, at best, it’s only part of the story.

People who are looking for one-night stands don’t need

a book like this one. But if you’re really interested in a
lasting, satisfying, “sticky” kind of relationship, you have
to be prepared to work hard. On the first day, the next
day and every day thereafter.
 6

But never let this put you off! Not only are the rewards
far greater than you possibly ever imagined, but you may
well find even the effort itself, with the right attitude and
adequate preparation, to be infinitely satisfying.

I must stress that I’m not referring only to marriage or

romantic partnerships, but also to the relationship
between members of a family, ordinary friendships, and
even your relationship with business and workplace
associates. Many of the concepts, principles and ideas
we will discuss in the following pages have relevance, in
some degree, to virtually all kinds of relationships.

Whatever your personal circumstances, I hope you

will find here many ideas that will be useful you in your
own situation, and that they will help in some measure to
enhance the quality of your life, the lives of the people
close to you and those with whom you interact daily.

This modest e-book was a kind of natural outgrowth of the

electronic newsletter Effective Communication,
which I wrote and published for two years. The e-
zine acquired a loyal following beyond
expectations, even though I did little to publicize it.
(All the material that appeared in this e-zine can
now be found online on Hodu.com – Your
Gateway to Better Communication Skills.

The obvious public interest in the topics I covered

there gave me the impetus to write How to Build
Relationships That Stick.

Since communication is the foundation of all personal

interaction, I have devoted our first few chapters to a brief
discussion of some principles of effective communication.
I try to show how basic communication skills, or the lack
of them, can, perhaps more than anything else, make or
break a relationship.

I strongly believe that the communication process

begins – and ends – within ourselves. The success of a
given piece of communication is often determined, in
practice, even before we open our mouths.

From there, we go on to such topics as listening skills,

validation, empathy, personal attitudes, the destructive
power of the Ego, the influence of past experiences, the
role of our self-image and assertiveness skills.
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It goes without saying that these few pages don’t even

scratch the surface of these subjects. I hope, though, that
this tiny treatise will at least set you thinking furiously,
inspire you to investigate further, and perhaps even effect
positive change in your life and that of your dear ones.

Please e-mail me at [email protected] to let me know

what you think.

Respectfully,

Azriel Winnett
Israel, February 2008
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Chapter One

Receiving Loud and Clear

The great Cecil B. De Mille, goes the story, was

making one of the spectacular epic movies that made him
famous.

Six cameras were positioned at various points to pick

up the overall action. Five others were set up to film the
dramatic encounters between the main characters at
close range.

According to one version of the tale, the sun was about

to set. It had been a long day for the huge cast and
everybody else involved. They had arrived at the spot at
the crack of dawn and the actors had begun rehearsing
the scene immediately. They had gone through
everything four times.

De Mille looked around him. Everything looked good.

He estimated that there was just enough light to get the
shot done.

The great director gave the command for action.

One hundred extras in battle dress charged up the hill,

brandishing their swords in the fading sunlight. An equal
number came storming down, screaming for all they were
worth.

Down below, the principal stars were straining every

nerve to turn in the performance of a lifetime, as they
acted out their reactions to the battle on the hill.

Fifteen minutes later, everything was quiet.

“Cut!” yelled De Mille, as his face broke out into the

broadest of smiles. “That was great!” he enthused,
nudging his assistant.

“Sure was, C.B.,” agreed the assistant. “It was

fantastic. Everything went off perfectly.”
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Grinning from ear to ear, De Mille waved to the

supervisor of the camera crew. He wanted to make sure
that the cameras had picked up everything without a
hitch.

From the top of the hill, the chief cameraman waved

back. He then raised his megaphone to his mouth and
blurted out:

“Ready when you are, C.B!”

No prize for working out what the problem was here.

If you expect someone to carry out an instruction or

request, you have to make sure that the right party gets
the message -in every sense. Even when you’re certain
that the message is received, it’s still not enough. You
have to ensure that it is understood.

Misunderstood messages lead to serious breakdowns

in communication. We all know that, at least superficially.
If nothing else helps, many of us learn the hard way through
bitter experience -how crucial this axiom is.

And as we will see later, the problem doesn’t always lie

with the one initiating the communication.

All too often, a message is transmitted clearly enough,

but then all sorts of strange things happen once it begins
to penetrate the consciousness of the receiver.

The mental set, expectations, beliefs and the mood of

the receiver all play a part in the way a communication is
received. Just as critical is the impact of the receiving
party’s various past experiences -both individually and in
sum.

This is why I mentioned in the introduction that the

effectiveness of a given communication is sometimes
predetermined even before the initiating parties open
their mouths.

This is not to deny that the interaction between the

participants is crucial to the outcome. But so are factors
that are already there even before the interaction begins.
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People who are working hard on improving a

relationship need to understand this and keep it in mind
all the time.

Let’s try to clarify this further.

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Chapter Two

Tone Down Emotional Noise

I once held a senior position in a large organization. I

would work hard for long hours that often included
weekends, but I enjoyed my duties and besides, I was
dedicated to the ideals of the institution.

Only one thing bothered me. My family was clearly

suffering on account of such intense involvement, and I
knew I was far from bringing home enough income to
make them feel, at least, that it was all worthwhile.

I also knew that, as a non-profit organization, my

employer was hardly flush with money. Eventually,
though, I managed to pluck up enough courage to
approach the managing director and pour out my heart to
him.

To my surprise, he seemed to show a tremendous

empathy for my situation. He didn’t have the power to
decide such matters on his own, but he promised to plead
my case at a meeting of the financial board the following
week. In his eyes, a favorable outcome in the form of a
healthy salary raise was almost a foregone conclusion.

The morning after the scheduled date of the meeting,

with a few random stomach butterflies competing with a
mood of cautious -or perhaps incautious -optimism, I
knocked on the director’s door.

“Hello, Azriel, how are you today?”

He was wearing his customary warm smile, but after

three seconds, it suddenly froze in mid air. I’m not sure
that I wasn’t imagining it, but his face seemed to change
color several times within the same space of time.

But if my boss did lose his composure momentarily, he

regained it quickly enough.
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“Look, I’m sorry, I didn’t....ahem...get a firm response

from the committee yet, but I’m glad you came in.
Remember that technical problem we were discussing a

few weeks ago? I think I’ve hit upon the way to deal with
it. But first, can you just check out and confirm a couple of
things for me...”

But, sad to say, I was hardly in a frame of mind to pay

too much attention to technical problems right then.

My brain somehow processed the director’s message

in a very half-hearted fashion, and I don’t recall fully what
happened after that. I do faintly remember making a
perfunctory request to a colleague to take care of the
matter for me, but how accurately I relayed the
instructions and to what extent they were carried out, I
don’t know to this day.

And yet I was known as a self-sacrificing employee,

loyal and totally devoted to duty at all times....

Emotional blackouts in varying degrees are obstacles

to good communication as real as they are intangible.
They’re no less of a barrier than the noise of a pneumatic
drill punctuating the conversation of two people in the
street.

We would be wrong to think, though, that emotional

obstacles affect only the way a message is received.
Let’s look for a moment at the other end of the process.
Consider this true drugstore incident:

When the phone rang, the pharmacist was shaken to

hear the booming voice of a very angry doctor on the line.
He demanded to know why the pharmacist had
dispensed medication different than the one he had
prescribed. Where was the pharmacist’s public
responsibility? Didn’t he know how to read properly? How
could he be so careless?

The confused pharmacist quickly apologized, but she

wasn’t about to be let off the hook so easily. The
indignant doctor continued with a lengthy tirade.
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His lecture went on and on: how professional obligations

seemed to have gone by the board in the modern world,
the possibly serious consequences of such mistakes for
the patient’s health, and so on.

Afterwards, the pharmacist sifted through her pile of

prescriptions to find the script in question. To her
surprise, she saw she had dispensed exactly what was
written there! So it was the doctor who had erred! She
rang up and very respectfully told him what she had
found.

“Oh well,” he said casually, “anyone can make a

mistake.”

The doctor here certainly doesn’t come across as a

particularly pleasant character, but human nature being
what it is, this episode is not as unusual as it appears to
be. I bring this story here to highlight two important points.
Firstly, personal bias colors the way we react to events.

In most circumstances, we may respond to a certain

stimulus from another person in one way. Following the
example in our story, we may be blessed with very sharp
critical faculties. When used constructively, that may even
be healthy. At other times, it may be highly destructive.

But when we really care about someone (and we all do

care about ourselves), then suddenly it becomes
surprisingly easy to justify their behavior, or at least to
reserve judgment until we know the facts. We tap
intellectual strengths we didn’t know were there, and find

that we’ve suddenly become very creative and

imaginative.
Secondly, and most importantly, our individual

perception of an event or series of events will then

influence the way we communicate with others. And not
only when we are communicating that specific event, but
even, many times, when we are talking about something
unrelated.
 14

Yes, we might think we know these things already, but

we need to emphasize and reiterate them constantly if we
are to succeed in breaking down the barriers that prevent
effective communication -and in turn, inhibit the forming
of strong relationships.

In our next chapter, we’ll examine some of these

barriers more closely.
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Chapter Three

You Have to Probe Deeper

Do you remember when, as a small child at a birthday

party, you sat wide-eyed and gaping as a magician pulled
out a rabbit with a flourish from a seemingly empty top
hat?

At the time, the wonder of it all left you speechless and

full of awe, but like all healthy children, you grew a little
wiser as you grew a little older.

The next time you were present at such a performance,

the “magician” might have turned into a “conjurer”. You
might have enjoyed the show every bit as much, but you
now knew that sleight of hand, not black magic, was the
name of the game.

It’s a great pity that when we finally emerge into

adulthood, we tend to forget what we learned about those
crafty conjurers who entertained us in our youth.

Yes, our intellects may have matured greatly over the

years. But for all that, we don’t draw enough on our
youthful understanding of the “sleight of hand” concept to
make further logical distinctions along the same lines.

More specifically, and simply put, we often don’t

appreciate enough that things are not always what they’re
cracked up to be!

The end result is that we fall prone to a kind of mental

laziness that allows us to accept everything that
bombards our senses at face value, without probing
deeper. At times, we may even regress so much that we
are still viewing life’s events as the small child views his
first magician show.

It’s not only little toddlers at birthday parties whose

mind’s are deceived. If you’re at all human (and who
isn’t), it may happen to you almost very day.
 16

A woman was once riding on a subway train when six

exceptionally boisterous children burst into the carriage
and plunked themselves down on a seat near her.
Almost automatically, the woman cringed. She wondered
how she would survive the rest of the journey.

Then a few seconds later a gentleman stepped into the

coach, trudged in a rather lethargic manner over to the
children, and sighing deeply, sat down next to them. The
woman relaxed a little. He must be their father, and
undoubtedly he would keep the young brats in order.

But to her consternation, the five kids didn’t let up in

their wild exuberance for a second. They continued to
jump up and down and race around the coach, yelling
their little lungs out all the while, while the father just sat
there in almost a trance-like state, as if deep in a
meditation exercise.

Finally, our lady passenger could tolerate this no

longer. She went over to the father and berated him in the
strongest language she could command for not exerting
himself to control his insufferable children.

“Yes, you’re right,” he acknowledged very softly, his

voice almost choking. “They really should behave with
more consideration. We’re just now returning from the
hospital, where their mother died two hours ago...”

This widespread human failing -of neglecting to look

below the surface -is the root cause of much of the
misery that people inflict both on themselves and upon
others. It leads to hasty judgments and overly superficial
evaluations that wreak havoc with all kinds of social
relationships.

Sometimes, your failure to see further than your nose

can be corrected before too much damage is done.
Occasionally, however, all the damage control in the
world won’t earn you forgiveness for an action based on
an erroneous assumption.

Jumping to (wrong) conclusions happens on all kinds of

levels. Perhaps the lowest level is the case of a receiver
of a message understanding a word or phrase in a way
different from that which the initiator intended. Often this
occurs because the person receiving misinterprets
 17

nuances or inflections in the initiating person’s voice.

Nonverbal gestures may also be misunderstood..

A person who was finding it difficult to readjust to

normal life after a particularly tragic bereavement in the
family once sought the help of a professional counselor.
After a number of productive sessions, he woke up one
morning to find himself in a healthier and more relaxed
state of mind.

There and then, he triumphantly promised himself that

henceforth he would try to manage without the
counselor’s support, and phoned her up to cancel his next
appointment.

“Done,” said the counselor. “Probably it’s better that

way.”

As her client heard these words, he began to tremble

with shock, and before very long, began to slip back into
a state of depression. He had interpreted this statement
to mean that his counselor was losing interest in him.
Consequently, he thought, she was relieved to hear that
he would soon be off her back forever.

Of course, messages spoken over the telephone,

where the support of body language and other benefits of
face to face communication are lacking, are often easily
misinterpreted. Perhaps the counselor should have been
more careful in her choice of words, given the likely
consequences of a misunderstanding.

But all she had wanted to convey was her delight that
her client had progressed to that point. Her words had
been intended to encourage him, not to mask a secret
desire to wash her hands of him. “It’s better that way” was
meant to be a praise for wanting to manage on his own.

As we interact with other people in our daily lives, all

the more so with those who are close to us, we need to
remain fully alert at all times to the danger of possible
misunderstandings.

Sometimes, unfortunately, personal interaction leads to

false trails and mistaken perceptions that go far beyond
the simple misunderstanding of words and phrases. The
consequences can be devastating, as we’ll see in the
next chapter.
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Chapter Four

How to Break a Deadlock

Apart from sleight of hand, one of the most powerful

tools in a conjurer’s bag of tricks is his ability to distract
the attention of his audience.

He might, for instance, spin an interesting yarn while

standing at one corner of the stage to force everybody to
look in his direction. At the same time, some action
crucial to the success of the act is taking place,
unnoticed, at the other corner.

Distractions that unwittingly but inevitably crop up in

interpersonal relationships aren’t usually deliberately
staged as they are in magic shows, but unfortunately,
they often have a similar effect.

Sometimes this effect can really be devastating, even

when we are dealing with two people who are very
important in each other’s lives. Red herrings and false
trails lead to the misreading of facts and faulty
perceptions, which deflect our minds from the truth. What
we get in the end are points of friction and serious conflict
that aren’t easily removed.

But this is no excuse to lose hope. Sources of conflict

can be removed, if only the will is there. The sole required
ingredients for a successful operation are a generous
dose of humility and a readiness to put aside
preconceived ideas, in order to analyze the situation with
a cool head.

A mother was having a rough time with her 15-year-old

daughter, who persisted in being insolent and rude
despite numerous threats, warnings and punishments. To
make matters worse, the woman was expecting a new
baby soon, placing obvious further demands on her
physical and emotional resources.
 19

A few weeks before the baby was due, the daughter

announced that she badly needed a new dress. Her
mother wasn’t about to go out of her way to give the girl
everything she demanded with a click of the fingers. But
she appreciated her daughter’s urgent need, and offered
cheerfully to go into town with her.

“What? Go into town with you?” the girl snapped back.

“No thanks. You’re fat and ugly. And another thing: I’m
not interested in this baby of yours, and I won’t help you
after it’s born.

The mother raised her hand to do what many, if not

most, mothers would have done in that situation: reward
her daughter for her impudence with a hearty slap in the
face.

But something -she didn’t understand what it was at

first -held her back. Instead, she looked the girl up and
down and then straight in the eye, thought deeply for a
few seconds, and said softly:

“I see that you’re in pain. I love you. Tell me what’s

bothering you.”

The girl looked back at her mother almost in disbelief

before bursting into tears: “ I didn’t really mean to be
nasty. It’s just that...well, we have so little time together,
and we’ll have even less after the baby comes.”

Now it was the mother’s turn to cry, but not for long. As
emotions and fears that had been pent up for too long
came tumbling out into the open at rapid pace, the two of
them were soon laughing together and feeling ever so
much better -together.

It became clear, as they talked, that major fears

relating to the whole subject of pregnancy and childbirth
were preying on the girl’s mind. Besides, even though she
was looking forward to taking over responsibility for
household chores while her mother recuperated, she was
beginning to panic that she might not cope. Then again,
she was upset that they were already having less time
together.

Two family members were here locked in emotional

deadlock. Prospects for breaking the vicious circle
already seemed remote, even before the current incident.
 20

It might have seemed understandable enough had the

elder of the two followed through with an instinctive
reaction after the other’s latest rude outburst. But the
extra fuel that would have been added to the fire would
undoubtedly have precluded any kind of reconciliation for
a long time to come.

Fortunately, as it happens, the mother used something

I would be tempted to call a “secret weapon” -if not that
we are talking about restoring love and respect, not
making war!

That secret tool is the first step, and the last, in good
communication. It’s the central ingredient in any effective
recipe for building, cementing or mending relationships.

We call it empathy. Let’s now begin to explore it in all

its aspects.
 21

Chapter Five

The Power of Simply Listening

A small group of heads of departments of a company

were travelling together with the CEO in a large motor
car. I was one of the departmental heads. We were on
our way to a corporate training seminar at a country
resort, a couple of hundred miles out of town.

During the journey, the CEO brought us up to date

about an in ongoing problem that had been plaguing the
company for some time. He said that now that we were
all together with a long drive ahead of us, he would like to
know how we all viewed the situation and what ideas we
had for a solution.

As far as I remember, an initial two or three minutes of

silence followed as we all turned the topic over in our
minds. What happened next was very much like an
orchestra tuning up.

One executive broke the ice and began to make a

point. But she was scarcely two sentences into her
presentation when a colleague butted in -ostensibly to
correct a factual error, but almost immediately he went off
at a tangent to talk about a completely different aspect of
the problem.

He, in turn, was interrupted by a third member of the

group, and then a fourth, who raised her voice a few
decibels to make sure she came through loud and clear.
But the first two carried on regardless with their
monologues -and I use that term deliberately, since it’s
doubtful whether any of us was still listening to them at
this stage.

Yes, their words did reach our ears, but that’s hardly
the same thing as listening. At the end of the journey, I
 22

doubt whether any of us could have repeated back or

summarized the suggestions or points of view of our
colleagues. A lot of noise, no communication.

A few weeks later, we met in the company boardroom

to deal with the same subject. This time, the discussion
was far more orderly. We had gathered together under
the framework of a formal meeting with the traditional
rules, and participants who cut into the speech of their
colleagues would have been put in their place in no time.

Yet for all that, I had a very real feeling of deja vu.

Everybody spoke with such unmistakable enthusiasm

when putting across their own view. But alas, their later
comments made it quite clear that while their bodies
might have remained in the boardroom while their
colleagues were taking the floor, their minds could have
been -well, who knows where! Human nature perhaps,
but not corporate teamwork at its best.

I think this episode underscores a human failing and

social malady that’s far more common than many of us
would dare to admit. Efficiency in the workplace is one of
its victims. Family and friendship bonds suffer from it in
even greater measure.

I used to think -as many other writers do -that listening

was the most important of all communication skills.
Nowadays, I realize that the ability to listen is only part of
the story. It is but the first step in the all-important process
of creating and sustaining empathy.

Yet, without that critical preparatory step, the rest

simply cannot follow.

In fact, there are times when the simple act of listening

-active, sincere and wholehearted listening – can, in and
of itself, work wonders you would not have dreamed of.

Dr Mort Orman, a stress counselor, once led a

weekend communication seminar for a group of
experienced physicians. It was held on the premises of
the hospital where they worked

One doctor was a rather reluctant attendee. He showed

up only because his department head had pressured him
to do so.
 23

At one session, participants were paired up with

partners. One member of each pair was asked to play the
role of a patient with a problem. The partner played the
role of physician or counselor.

The catch was the “doctors” weren’t allowed to do or

say anything. Their job was just to sit and listen, while
their “patients” described their complaints and thought
aloud while trying to work out their own solution.

Now, to tell a doctor to just sit there and listen -without

as much as thinking what to do – is usually asking an
awful lot. But the response of our reluctant participant
took everyone by surprise.

At the end of the experiment, when everyone was

sharing their insights and experiences, he raised his hand
and announced enthusiastically: “What I learned from this
exercise is that I almost never listen to my patients! I’m
mostly paying attention to the thoughts in my own head,
and I never really appreciated this until today.”

Apparently, this man was so excited by his new

awareness of self, that whenever there was a short break
in the remaining seminar proceedings, he would rush
upstairs to practice listening to his patients.

He would sit on the bed, ask a few questions, and then

listen intently. So impressed was he with his newly-found
power -which he had possessed, without knowing it, all
along -that he would arrive late for the start of the
following session.

For the first time, he felt he really understood what

made his patients tick -or why they weren’t ticking,
depending on which way you look at it.

Yes, if doctors would listen to their patients better, they

would be better doctors. If schoolteachers would pay
more attention to their pupils, they’d be better
schoolteachers. (The reverse, surely, hardly needs
mentioning!) Better listening in the workplace would mean
greater productivity.

But nowhere does the inability or unwillingness to listen

have more far-reaching consequences than within the
confines of the family unit, as we’ll see in the next
chapter.
 24

Chapter Six

First Barrier to Intimacy

Imagine this scenario: late one afternoon, Jill, a young

newlywed, walks out of her third floor apartment with a
bag of garbage in her hand, to deposit it at the dump
outside. Her lively mind being preoccupied with a
thousand and one things, a little tear in the bag escapes
her notice.

As luck would have it, a very public-spirited neighbor

on the floor below walks out of her apartment just at the
worst time. Her eyes are sharp, but her tongue is even
sharper. The verbal onslaught that follows leaves an
unsuspecting Jill aghast and speechless.

“Did I really commit such a terrible crime?” Jill asks

herself, as she reels under the attack of the self-
appointed guardian of cleanliness in public areas. But she
takes comfort in the knowledge that her loving and
coolheaded husband is due home within the hour.

“For sure, he’ll give me all the reassurances I need and

I’ll soon get my self-esteem back,” she thinks, almost
subconsciously, as the color returns to her cheeks.

But little did Jill know then that on that very afternoon
her new life partner, Jack, had been involved in a nasty
altercation of his own. An unexpected showdown with the
boss had almost persuaded him to walk out of the job.

He steps into what he believes will be a haven of

serenity that will be the perfect balm for his shattered
nerves. The words and sobs that tumble out from his
distraught wife’s mouth in rapid succession are hardly the
remedy that he had in mind.

Jack wants nothing more than to be seen as a good

husband, and he tries to feign as much interest as he
can. But he’s only human, and it’s only a matter of
minutes before he can no longer disguise the fact that his
mind is in a different place altogether.
 25

Understandable, maybe even justified? You may well

think so, but let’s assume that Jack had not been caught
up in a bitter scrap, but his day had been mildly stressful,
as many working days turn out to be. Can we be sure
that his reaction to Jill’s immediate emotional need would
really have been much different?

And let’s imagine that he had actually enjoyed a

particularly good day: perhaps his boss had praised him
very highly for his exceptional contribution to a company
project. He arrives home and Jill begins her recital.

Being the astute young man that he is, and moreover,

being in a decidedly upbeat frame of mind, he is fully
confident he has pieced the whole thing together by the
time Jill is only two or three sentences into her story. He
cuts her short:

“OK, relax. What’s the big deal, really? I’ll take care of
that busybody!”

“Great, but ...maybe what she said about me was right?

On the other hand, don’t other people make the same
mistakes? Do you really understand how I feel...”

“For Pete’s sake, enough already! By the way, do I just

have something to tell you!”

In recent years, many experts have written at length

about the kind of tension in communication we see here.

One authority calls men’s talk “report talk”, while

woman’s talk is mainly “rapport talk.” In other words, men
talk for a purpose: to exchange information, to impress
others, or to maintain their status. Women’s talk on the
other hand, is almost an end in itself: if there’s a purpose,
it is to create intimacy.

Of course, this merely describes the common situation,

and it doesn’t mean that we don’t have report-rapport
conflicts between two men or two women. In any case,
it’s not the often-quoted distinction between men and
women’s communication styles that I want to emphasize
here.

Rather, I devised this imaginary scene to illustrate

some other very important facts.
 26

Subtle strains can develop in the best of relationships

when the parties, however committed they may be, aren’t
sensitive enough to each others needs.

Needless to add, this often happens because the one

who is suffering simply fails to communicate his or her
need to the other party. This can happen for a variety of
reasons, and we’ll explore some of them later in the book.

But what can be worse is when one partner does in fact

communicate, but the other fails to listen. This is not
always because the guilty party is unaware or unwilling,
or is impatient by nature, or is just plain stubborn. It could
also be because he or she just hasn’t yet mastered the
necessary skill.

For a skill it definitely is, even though we may think of it

as something as natural as breathing. Like any other skill,
competency in listening is acquired through ten percent
learning and 90 percent practice.

And the first and most important thing to learn, and

later to practice, is to carefully remove all barriers that
interfere with or inhibit the listening process. These may
be external -background noise and distractions in the
immediate environment -and internal, such as bias,
prejudice and preconceived notions, or they could be
unrelated thoughts and preoccupations that are
competing for your attention.

“Conversation in the US is a competitive exercise in

which the first person to draw a breath is declared the
winner,” a wag once wrote.

Presumably, he was an American, but this observation

probably holds good in many parts of the modern world.
Any society, community or family unit working towards a
change in the status quo is particularly blessed.

But as we stressed above, a good listening technique

should be only the first step in a more complex chain of
events. It’s great when you go out of your way to
understand how others are feeling, how they perceive a
given situation, what is really troubling them so much.
 27

However, without belittling what you’ve already

accomplished -and we see from Dr Orman’s story how
much can indeed be accomplished that way -listening is
normally a part of the means to be a more important end.

Let’s proceed with our examination.

 28

Chapter Seven

Closing the Feedback Loop

In the last chapter, we met a young lady with a

problem. Not everybody would have perceived it as such.
Nevertheless, Jill’s unfulfilled need to relieve the feeling of
outrage, the hurt and bewilderment and hurt welling up
inside her, was, in her eyes, as real a problem as any.

By implication, we chided Jill’s husband for letting his

own frustrations and impatience stand in the way of his
giving her the sympathetic ear she craved for.

If only he had just listened carefully, without allowing

distractions, to what she had to say! This would have
been the first step towards helping her bounce back to
her normal vivacious self after the unexpected attack on
her self-esteem.

But probably, as I pointed out, only a first step.

Normally, once you go out of your way to

understanding how others are feeling, how they perceive
a given situation, the fears and doubts that lead them to
react in the way they do, the process doesn’t stop there.
Well at least, it shouldn’t.

Most likely, you will respond You’ll communicate back

to the other parties your awareness of their feelings and
perceptions, your appreciation of their hopes, doubts and
fears.

You may not always agree that their position is

justified. But you’ll acknowledge the reality of how they
perceive things. You’ll express your understanding of
their position.

If you do, you will have created or closed what some

writers like to call a “feedback loop.”
 29

To close a feedback loop requires validation of the

message your opposite number wants to convey to you.
You might disagree with its assumptions or conclusions,
but at least you will recognize the reality of the other
person’s point of view, as well as of the circumstances
that gave rise to it.

Here is a true incident to illustrate what might happen

when a feedback loop is not closed.

It is a very extreme example , and it is very far from a

pretty story. But it does give us something to think about.

During Word War Two, one cattle car after another,

transporting human cargo -under conditions far worse
than those under which the cattle, for whom the trucks
were originally made, are normally conveyed -arrived at
the Auschwitz death camp. Terrified, naked people were
driven with whips into the gas chambers.

But two young men managed to escape under a pile of

clothing that was being carted away in a truck. Even more
than the desire to save their own lives,. they were
motivated by the wish to warn their fellow Jews of the
incredible scenes they had witnessed with their own eyes.

Unfortunately, hardly any one believed them. The few

who did were silenced as being crazy or lacking in faith.
Eventually, both young men committed suicide.

Indeed, an extreme, most tragic case. Of course, we

cannot condemn. Who knows how we would have
reacted had we been the listeners?

But shouldn’t we at least understand the added pain of

a spouse, child, friend or fellow worker who shares with
us something weighing very heavily on his or her mind,
and then finds that even though we might put up a show
of listening, our minds are light years away?

And to rub salt into the wounds, when we are finally

drawn back to earth and do decide to visibly respond,
more often than not it’s with a glib, perfunctory: “Don’t
worry, everything will be OK!”

What we usually don’t realize is that such a response

can be like pulling out a chair from under someone’s feet!
 30

This is no exaggeration. It’s what’s likely to happen

when you express a feeling or idea and the person you
are speaking to contradicts or rejects it. When the
emotion happens to be anxiety, sorrow, fear or the like,
the rejection can be extremely painful.

And surprisingly, the pain of rejection can be even

more profound when you know that the other party has
good intentions and certainly bears no ill will towards you.

Let’s see how.

 31

Chapter Eight

When Minimizing is Maximizing

Sometimes you share something weighing heavily on

your heart with a friend or relative. Of course, she has no
malicious intent, and she tries to offer you some
encouragement, often firmly believing that she has
succeeded!

Yet, in spite of herself, she fails miserably. You are left

feeling even worse. A young mother once visited an
older woman and confided how she felt trapped in her
house all day long.

“I’m so depressed,” she wailed. “I resent my children

and snap at them when they make demands. I think
about death all the time.”

“Nonsense,” retorted the older woman, “these are the

best years of your life! What’s wrong with you? Don’t you
appreciate how wonderful it is to have healthy children?
You’re ungrateful, selfish and spoiled.”

Did the younger woman feel comforted or inspired? Of

course not. She fled the home of her hostess in tears.

A prolific writer on this subject, Miriam Adahan, relates

in her book It's All a Gift how a friend’s eight-month-old
baby was undergoing treatment for cancer. Mrs. Adahan
sat with the anxiety-stricken mother for hours, hearing
one visitor after another say: “Don’t worry. He’s going to
be just fine.”

When they were finally alone, her friend looked at her

through tearful eyes and said:

“Don’t they know how much their optimism hurts me?

Don’t they realize that they aren’t letting me talk about
what’s most on my mind -that he may not get better? It’s
like someone putting a hand over my mouth and
suffocating me. I have to lie and smile and say over and
 32

over, ’Of course everything’s going to be fine’, which only

makes me feel worse. Why can’t these people stop with
their optimistic drivel and just listen a little?”

While you’ll always find a few folk who take pleasure in

being deliberately abusive, most people certainly don’t
mean to be cruel when they give pat answers. Why do
they do it, then?

Sometimes, the reason is quite simple. Their hearts are

in the right place, but they lack the sensitivity to realize
that by minimizing people’s pain, they maximize it.

When they respond to a friend’s outburst of anxiety or

sorrow with: “You’ll feel better tomorrow,” or: “Don’t worry,
time heals!” they don’t know that they may be giving the
message: “There’s something very wrong with you for
complaining when there’s nothing to complain about!”

The well-meaning advice: “Just take a hot bath and

you’ll perk up!” could be interpreted to mean: “Why are
you talking to me? You should have been able to figure
out the solution for yourself,” or: “Well, other people seem
to manage in these situations.”

Another common reason for negative, invalidating

responses -and sometimes for just no response at all -is
to cover up for our feelings of inadequacy or despair.
Sometimes, we genuinely do want to show the other party
that we care, but we just don’t know how! Many of us,
when somebody close to us is undergoing a crisis, are
overwhelmed by such feelings of helplessness that if we
do respond at all, we do so in a way that turns out to be
inappropriate.

For example, a woman is waiting the results of a biopsy

after her doctor suspects a malignancy. She is scared
stiff, but her husband insists that there’s absolutely
nothing to worry about. His assurances don’t make her
feel any better; on the contrary, a growing feeling that
she’s now on her own increases her sense of panic.

Eventually -if she is wise -she turns to him and says:

“I appreciate your trying to cheer me up. But you know, it
just makes me feel more alone. If you would validate me,
just give me some sign that you understand my fears, I
would feel better.”
 33

It might then come as a big surprise if her husband

confesses:

“You know something, I also feel alone. I guess I’m

also terrified over the tests. So it’s much easier to fool
myself that there’s nothing to be concerned about
anyway, and I make you believe it too. You’re right, it
doesn’t help either of us. The reality is I do know what
you’re going through. Probably everything will indeed be
OK, but even if not, I’m standing right behind you...”

If someone important in your life insists on invalidating

you whenever you open your mouth (or even if less
often!), try using the same technique as the lady with the
suspected malignancy tried with her husband. Tell your
friend or partner what you would have liked him or her to
have said in a specific situation.

Chances are you’ll be pleasantly surprised how quickly

the messages gets through. (If, despite your best efforts,
nothing seems to help, don’t despair. We’ll have
something to say about such cases later.)

Closing feedback loops is essential for the survival of

even a casual friendship, let alone a relationship you are
trying to deepen and make more meaningful. Wherever
people feel free to share their deepest feelings, secure in
the knowledge that they will be understood and accepted,
the ground is most fertile for the growth of trust, respect
and love.

A word of caution, though. If you are making a

validating statement almost as an automatic reflex, you
might be asking for trouble. Effective listening, as we
described it in the last chapter, has to precede any
attempt to create a feedback loop.

Two people can have the same experience and yet

react incompletely opposite ways. Positive but knee-jerk
responses can hurt just as much as negative ones.
Strangely, sometimes even sympathy can be perceived
as invalidation. Without a serious and unhurried attempt
to see an event from the point of view of the person
you’re interacting with and to understand exactly why it
moves her as it does, your best efforts can backfire.

Now we must look more closely at how we can arrive at

such an understanding in practice.
 34

Chapter Nine

Immersing in Another's World

In Chapter Four, we met a “difficult” teenager

embroiled in an emotional tug-of-war with her expectant
mother, who managed, when all seemed lost, to break
the deadlock with a “secret weapon”. We called it
empathy.

We have just been talking about validation. Empathy is,

in effect, validation in its most intense form. It’s about
closing a feedback loop in high gear.

Empathy is born when you listen, not just with your

ears, but with the depths of your heart. Empathy
flourishes when you push aside your own interests without
necessarily surrendering them -to immerse
yourself in the world of another.

Empathy is the very essence of authentic love. It is the

primary medium through which loves works such wonders
in this world.

Many people confuse empathy with sympathy. My

dictionary defines “sympathy” as “a sharing of another
person’s sorrow or trouble.” Another common definition
is: “a feeling or an expression of pity or sorrow for the
distress of another.”

Now, empathy surely includes the concepts of sharing

and pity, but even if you knew almost nothing about
empathy before opening this book, you will probably
sensed by now that it goes much, much further.

According to my dictionary, empathy is “the quality or

process of entering fully, through imagination, into
another’s feelings or motives.” (Other dictionaries will give
their own definitions, but they should all come down to
the same thing.)
 35

In the fullest sense, empathy implies putting yourself

into other people’s shoes, or even getting under their
skin, so that you can really understand their pain, fear -or
more positively -their fears.

In brief, empathy is sympathy plus (that is, plus a lot

more).

Mary is a housewife -or home manager as some would

prefer to call it -with a brood of healthy little children.
Maybe they’re a little too healthy, for keeping them in
check is far more than a full time job on its own. She’s
also trying to set up a home business, and, as if that’s not
enough, has involved herself in various community
projects.

Her husband comes home at the end of a long. Long

day. Of course, she would have loved to give him the
warm welcome he deserves, but all she manages to utter,
and then with difficulty, is a plaintive “Phew, am I
exhausted!”

Her spouse looks at her for a moment with a certain

measure of compassion, then responds gently but firmly:
“I’ve told you before you’re taking on too much. Half of the
work you do is totally unnecessary.”

Now, in some ways, Mary may be a little better off than

the poor woman who was repeatedly told that her medical
fears were unfounded. Mary’s husband, at least, has not
swept her problem under the carpet.

But for all that, just like her counterpart in the other
story, she doesn’t feel any better On the contrary, she
feels worse..

This does not mean that, some other time, she would
not have appreciated her husband’s well meaning advice.
But certainly not now. At this moment, what she was
longing to hear was something like: “Yep, you look so
tired. It must have been a really rough day. Why don’t you
relax a little while I attend to the kids?”

Mary, fortunately, is a mature and emotionally stable

adult. She understands her hubby’s good intentions. Most
likely, she won’t take the whole thing too much to heart.
 36

But a young child, for instance, might have been far

more vulnerable. Actually, it’s quite surprising how the
Mary’s of this world often don’t give their own children the
understanding they expect from others.

Let’s say you want little Johnny to drink up his milk, his
juice, or whatever else you want him to imbibe. You
believe it’s good for him.

“Yikes! This stuff tastes awful!” he protests.

How do you react? Do you tell him, “Aw..come

on...everybody thinks its delicious!” or perhaps, “Don’t
exaggerate, it’s not so bad!”?

If you do, what’s the inevitable outcome? If you’ve been

a parent for long, you know yourself. Parents with
experience know that to stand any chance of success,
they have to face facts. They have to respond in a
different way:

“The milk tastes bad to you?”

Excellent! But what’s happening here?

The parent hasn’t stated that she agrees with the child.
But in five or six words, she has acknowledged how she
feels. She has validated his concern. Having come this
far, she can continue:

“I know it’s not nice to drink something you don’t like.

To be honest, I wouldn’t like to either, so I understand
that it’s unpleasant. But the point is, we want you to grow
up healthy and strong. Let’s put some flavoring in it so it
will taste better.”

Here we see a negotiating strategy simple in essence,

but with countless applications in interpersonal relations.
We also see that it’s a strategy anchored firmly in
empathy. That is the secret of its successes.

In the next chapter, we’ll try to understand a little better

how this works.
 37

Chapter Ten

Empathy is King!

It’s a sad commentary on our society that it has taken

tragic upheavals in our public schools for educators to
give priority to the teaching of empathy skills.

Horrible incidents, in which students hurt others

through violence, have precipitated a worrisome
conclusion: children who have been teased, made fun of,
harassed and put down, finally reach such levels of
frustration that they explode in acts of violence.

Better late than never, of course, and thankfully, many

teachers are now turning to the disease rather than the
symptoms. They are trying to reverse the conditions that
lead to someone feeling such emotional pain and
hopelessness in the first place. They are doing this by
training their charges to vicariously feel what their
classmates are feeling.

In the work environment, too, we often see that an

absence of empathy has a crippling effect. Few other
things have the potential to impact so negatively on
productivity and performance.

I was brought up in South Africa, where paternalism or

patronization towards the underprivileged class used to
be, unfortunately, a common behavioral pattern.

Communication with subordinates -if they happened to

belong to this unfortunate stratum of society -was often
limited to abrupt commands that were either loud and
offensive, or pretentious and patronizing. Housewives
would sometimes insist on being addressed by their
domestic servants as “Madam.” They would issue such
inane instructions as “Madam would like some tea
now...please bring it to Madam.”

The hapless servant, long accustomed to being treated

as a child, would often show his or her insecurity by being
excessively polite or flattering. He would then be accused
 38

of hypocrisy or calculating behavior. If on the other hand,

he would speak confidently and correctly, he would be
branded as an upstart, showing impudence and
arrogance.

The amazing thing was that the employer, as far

removed from the servant’s fears, aspirations and
uncertainties as the moon is to the earth, would scratch
his head and wonder why the poor laborer never took any
pride in his work.

We have seen that people trying to cope with

particularly harrowing experiences in their lives, often get
very upset when friends or loved ones are not empathetic
enough to validate their anxieties.

“If only folk would acknowledge the truth, rather than

showering me with glib reassurances that everything will
be OK, I’d feel much better,” a businessman who had lost
hundreds of thousands in a stock market crash
confessed.

I’d like now to tell you a true story that’s especially

fascinating because it seems, at first glance, to directly
contradict the principle of validating people’s concerns.

However, if you read it carefully and think about it for

long enough, you’ll surely realize that it’s a classic
illustration of real empathy. If you don’t agree, perhaps
you haven’t truly grasped what the concept means.

A high-ranking judge once suffered a sudden heart

attack in the middle of a litigation in court. When he
arrived at the emergency ward, a doctor, who knew and
respected the very eminent new patient, examined him.

The judge, completely overwhelmed, anxiously asked

the doctor about his condition.

“Nothing to worry about at all”, replied the doctor,

soothingly. “You are just overworked. You have to rest
up.”

At the end of a very protracted examination, the staff

brought in a stretcher along with some very ominous
looking medical apparatus. The judge was then hooked
up to equipment to which all sorts of tubes and gadgets
were attached.
 39

The attendants pushed him briskly down a long corridor

and straight through a doorway above which hung a bold
sign: “Strictly No Entry -Intensive Care Ward.”

The judge, of course, was nobody’s fool. After all, his

very vocation involved critically analyzing situations every
day and ferreting out the truth.

When the doctor came over to him again, his learned

patient asked him pointblank: “Why did you deceive me?”

“You really aren’t very sick,” answered the doctor,

surprisingly. “But I’m confronted with dozens of ethical
and legal questions every day, and I have no one to ask. I
thought it would be nice to have you near me for a while,
so you can answer my questions!”

“And why are all these fancy machines attached to

me?” asked the judge very skeptically.

“Do you need to have a nurse run over to you every

minute? This way, she can see everything from her desk.
And anyway, what difference does it make to you?”

The judge was in hospital for three weeks, but he

responded well to treatment. After his discharge, he
recounted his experiences to his friends and colleagues:

“The doctor continuously and consistently lied to me,”

he told them. “But his lies cured me more than all the
medicine they gave me.”

Empathy at it’s finest!

The course of any human being’s life is inevitably

punctuated with suddenly-occurring or chronic problems,
tensions, major or minor crises of different kinds. If a
person is part of a relationship of any kind, his or her
peculiar tensions, or personal handicaps and difficulties,
cannot but impinge on that relationship.

How the partners relate to those tensions and stresses

will have a critical influence on how productive or
satisfying the relationship will turn out to be.
 40

This applies whether we’re talking of a relatively casual

relationship of work associates, the relationship between
friends, or a relationship on a more intimate level.
Whichever it is, empathy is the oil that turns the wheels.

In a very real sense, empathy is king!

Now we are ready to investigate how we can apply all

this in practice. We’ll begin with a close look -hopefully,
not too close for comfort -at the institution of marriage.
 41

Chapter Eleven

Pleasure – Instant or Lasting?

Joe and Sue were successful professionals who had

been married a short time. They were busy settling into
the dream house that they had bought in the
neighborhood where Joe had been living for most of his
life.

Whereas Joe’s daily routine had remained pretty much

unchanged, Sue’s changed dramatically. A dedicated
career woman of many years standing, she had taken
leave of absence from her executive post to set up home.
The neighborhood was entirely new to her.

Yes, Sue was enjoying her new role very much, and
yes, she cared for her new husband more than words can
describe. But the change overwhelmed her. Against her
better inclinations, she found herself longing for the old
routine. Willy-nilly, the feeling grew so strong that one day
she announced to Joe that she wanted to leave -and not
just for a few hours.

Without hesitation, Joe asked her very firmly to sit

down, looked her straight in the eye, and said: “I’m not
letting you go anywhere! We’ll work this out together.”

Now, in other circumstances, Joe’s quick and decisive

action could have been interpreted as a maneuver to
assert authority.

But this was not a control issue. It was a case of one

party telling the other: “Look, I’m fully committed to you
and to our partnership. Nothing in the world can change
that. Let’s put our heads together and we’ll find a solution
that works.”

As it turned out, both of them found this moment of

truth very liberating. Secure in Joe’s commitment to her
and their marriage, Sue was able to lift up her eyes above
the barrier of her impulsive panic. She went back to work
 42

part time. Fred found ways to incorporate more time for

his wife into his schedule. From that point on, things only
got better.

May I digress slightly for a moment?

The next couple of chapters will focus on the marriage

relationship. I know that marriage may not necessarily be
the “in” thing in some sectors of society nowadays.

For your part, you may possibly view the marital bond
as a fast vanishing relic of a bygone era, rapidly being
replaced by the more fashionable -and allegedly more
“practical” -custom of “shacking up”. Isn’t it just great to
have all the pleasures and privileges without the
corresponding commitment?

You should be aware, therefore, that I’m a big fan of

the classic institution of marriage. I really believe in it. I go
as far as to assert that it’s the cornerstone of a stable
society, or the pillar on which it rests. That is to say,
eliminate marriage, and society itself will eventually
crumble. If you really open your eyes, you will notice that
it’s beginning to happen already.

However, I’m not here to preach to you or convert you.

If you agree with me, fine. You’ll know as well as

anybody that beauty is really great, pleasure is terrific.
But you’ll know something else in addition: if you want an
intimate relationship to last, to be meaningful, to grow
stronger rather than weaker, you also need commitment.

There’s just no other way.

Sure, you will also know -let us not deny it -that even
with all the commitment in the world, a marital relationship
is not the fairy tale that you dreamed about in a previous,
more naïve, life. Who works hard in fairy tales? And
marriage is hard work. Very much so.

Nonetheless, if you’ve been active in the trenches long

enough and have survived a challenge or two, you don’t
need any convincing on the eventual supreme delights of
a sound marriage partnership. Ultimately, it gets better
than the most romantic fairy tale. A hundred times better.
 43

But if you don’t quite see eye to eye with me on this

score, that’s also fine. I believe you’ll still find here food
for thought to apply to your own situation. The marriage
bond may be – in my view -the relationship par
excellence, but you should find the ideas and insights
we’re about to discuss here largely relevant to other types
of relationship as well.

Take commitment. During your schooldays, you

probably benefited from all kinds of friendships. You had
pals whose company you enjoyed on the occasional night
out in town or who played in your sports team. Your
contact with them may have been sporadic and your
relationship with them relatively superficial. But with other
friends, it was different. In good times and bad, they were
there with not only with you, but for you!

Twenty years or half a century down the line, which of

these former classmates would you love to meet up with
again, if you were given the opportunity?

We’re all well aware, too, of commitment’s crucial role

in business and the workplace. We don’t give a dog’s
chance to a company that’s not fully committed to its
customers. Not any less important is the strong mutual
feeling of loyalty and commitment that should exist
between the company and its employees. The benefits to
both are obvious and can hardly ever be overestimated.

Coming back to our story, Sue’s perceived dilemma,

her panicky feeling that she was trapped in a situation
she hadn’t bargained for, is not at all untypical. The doubt
or panic comes in different forms. Some of us experience
it early in marriage, and others much later. Probably it all
sounds familiar to you.

And if truth be told -it’s all perfectly natural!

Perhaps the whole world admires your wife for her

talents and her charm, but frankly, you no longer
understand what the fuss is about. Perhaps your husband
is loyal, dependable and ready to fulfill your every whim,
but oh, he’s so unexciting. In other case, not quite what
you feel you signed up for on the day of the wedding...
 44

I once knew a fine, very idealistic young lady (I’ll call

her Martha) who lived more for other people than for
herself. In fact, one of the reasons why she was attracted
to Sid, the man who was to become her husband, was
that for many years he had been very involved in
community activism and welfare work in his spare time.

In the first weeks and months of marriage, she was

apparently quite surprised to see some major changes in
Sid’s after-work routine. Very understandably -at least,
many people would have thought so -he cut back sharply
on his community volunteering in order to spend time with
his new wife.

Martha, for her part, was flattered enough by his

attention and grateful for his devoted help around the
house. Unfortunately, her pleasure was marred by an
inner conflict: what she had wanted in a husband was a
sort of public hero -a man whose life revolved around his
community, not around his hearth and home!

Did Martha manage to resolve the conflict? Yes, she

did, and very successfully, but we’ll return to that later.
For the moment, it’s enough to note the extreme
complexity and sensitivity of the marriage dynamic, and
the wide range of internal conflicts, doubts, frustrations
and difficulties that threaten its stability.

It’s not easy. But when our children are frustrating and
difficult, we don’t abandon them. Should our spouses barring
extreme situations that require drastic measures be
treated differently?

In today’s world, almost everything we use -from

diapers and paper plates to computers built for “planned
obsolescence” -is disposable. It takes a dramatic shift in
gears to understand and internalize the meaning of
commitment.

But we’re mature people, and we know -or should

know -there are never worthwhile dividends without a
significant investment. Commitment is not only a basic
ingredient of happy and lasting relationships, but also a
key to success and productivity in almost any of life’s
undertakings.
 45

Given the undoubted benefits, its surprising that many

of us are still struggling with the concept of commitment in
relationships. Why is this so? When problems arise, why,

instead of working responsibly towards a solution, do we

plum for simply opting out -for taking the path of least
resistance?

One reason is our negative and unproductive attitudes.

Another is the misconceptions that abound regarding the
very nature of relationships.

Let’s investigate this further.

 46

Chapter Twelve

Give...and Give Again!

A woman once visited a counselor to ask a question

about her marriage. The question itself is interesting and
the answer her advisor gave her even more so. I suspect
that many people would disagree with it, and some even
take strong exception to it.

Personally, I think the counselor was spot on.

Sarah, the questioner’s, husband, John, had been

married before. John had to pay a certain sum every
month as alimony. He had just started a new business
and was passing through a very sticky patch, financially
speaking.

The obligation to his ex-wife, coming on top of a

thousand other things, was putting John under enormous
pressure. Sarah was a working person and gladly helped
to pay the family debts. She never thought twice about it

But should she be expected to contribute in this special

case? Somehow, it just didn’t seem right.

Surely, reasoned Sarah, her husband’s financial

commitment to a previous spouse had nothing to do with
her? Yes, she and John were life partners and she was
more than happy to share all his burdens. But even for
what happened in a previous life, so to speak? Wasn’t
that going to far?

“I must confess I don’t really understand your

question,” the counselor gently told Sarah after listening
intently to her dilemma.

“You and John are husband and wife. John has a debt.
He’s struggling to pay it. What difference does it make
what the debt is for? It’s a debt, period! His problems are
your problems. You’re in this together. Why on earth
shouldn’t you help to pay the debt?”
 47

The counselor paused and appeared to be deep in

thought for a few seconds. Then, ignoring Sarah’s
puzzled looks, she added in a tone of uncompromising
finality:

“If, after all, it’s difficult for you to accept this, it must be
that there’s some deeper problem in your marriage...”

I would say there’s a very powerful message here

indeed. All the same, I don’t want you to misunderstand
the counselor -or me. So let’s take a closer look at her
comments and make sure that we have placed everything
in the proper perspective.

My first point should be obvious, but I have to stress it

just in case. She wasn’t implying, by any means, that
John was now given a license to sit back, put his legs up,
and engage in relaxing contemplation about the higher
meaning of life -all while his dear and ever obliging
spouse works like a donkey to pay the price of his past.
After all, it was his past, and his debt.

A second and related point is that, when we talk about

husband and wife being full partners in the business of
living, about sharing each other’s burdens, financial or
otherwise, no less than each other’s joys, we are not
saying for one moment that either party must contribute
more than is reasonable.

In the case of our story, Sarah was a high-earning

professional. In other instances, a wife, or even a
husband, may bring in little or no income, for any of a
number of reasons. In fact, it may not be desirable that
she be working at all. One or other marriage partner may
be limited in other ways.

But that hardly changes what I’m trying to put across

here. We’re talking of quality, rather than quantity. One
can only do what one can, but it’s the real desire to help
that counts. That’s what really makes the difference. And
who said contributing means only money?

Shall I let you in on a little secret? I don’t really like the

use of the word “partner” in connection with marriage.
 48

True, I do use it often, for want of a better term. Up to a

point, it serves a good purpose, because a “partnership’’
does, in a certain sense, describe a marriage relationship,
even a good one.

After all, we refer to parties who share a common

interest in or responsibility for an enterprise as “partners”,
and here we are dealing with two partners -normally, life
partners -who have contracted in to the enterprise of
their own marriage.

Yet, therein lies my problem. I hardly think that an ideal

marriage relationship is a “partnership” in the same way
that we talk about a business partnership or anything
similar. Very far from it.

Why? When we think of a partnership, we usually think

about a formal, or even informal, contract between two
parties. Something like a 50-5 sharing of duties and
responsibilities. Any benefits arising are then strictly
proportional to the burden shouldered. If the emphasis is
on sharing, it’s on sharing equally. As you put in, so you
shall take out.

Is this marriage? Emphatically, no!

I know this may sound confusing, but let me put it this

way. Do you have children? If so, do you love them?

“Absolutely!” I can hear you exclaim. You might well go

on to say:

“Do you know how I love them? Just look at all the
sacrifices we made for them. From the very moment they
came into this world, my spouse and I gave them our all!
Just as much as whimper from them in the middle of the
night, and we were there to attend to their every need!
Even now, they may disappoint us, anger us or hurt us,
but we continue to cater to their slightest whim!

“Now, do you need any greater proof that we love

them?”

Good. But why, precisely have you done so much for

them? Is it because you love them so much?
 49

Could be. But even more, I would say it’s the other way
round. You love them so intensely BECAUSE you’ve
done so much for them!

This is nothing more or less than human nature. This is

so much we can learn from this, if only we would think
about it very carefully.

Sometimes, when two people begin to think about

marrying each other, they think in terms of some business
arrangement. Whether they verbally express it that way or
not, their minds work something along these lines:

“You have needs and I have needs. Maybe, if I satisfy

yours, you will satisfy mine. Let’s see what deal we can
work out..

“You wash the dishes, and I’ll pay the rent. Sundays to
Tuesdays I’ll take out the garbage, and for the remainder
of the week you will. Other duties will be divided by
mutual consent. For very suit I buy, you can buy two pairs
of shoes...”

Is this the marriage you want...really? If so, OK, good

luck to you. You’re probably in very good company!

But a big question still remains: how happy will you

really be?

I read recently about a woman who, having been

wedded a short while and having reluctantly concluded
that married life was not all that it was cracked up to be,
complained to an older and more experienced friend:

“Shouldn’t my husband be going all out to please me? I

mean, what’s the point of getting married if he doesn’t
give me all the love I need? I might as well have
remained single.”

She must have been taken aback quite a bit with her
friend’s brief but firm reply:

“ Love is not a scorecard on which each side tallies

what he or she is doing for the other. If you’re so
obsessed with love, your only concern would be what you
can do for him...”
 50

The 50-50 Principle may look good in marriage

manuals, but it has nothing to do with fruitful, satisfying
relationships in real life.

Many people will tell you that for a happy marriage, you
need what they describe as “give-and-take.” Give-andtake?
More likely, that’s a recipe for disaster, not
happiness.

What you need is “give and give”. And give again. And
again!

I don’t deny that the best “recipe’’ can be abused by a

manipulative partner, but exceptional situations do not
disprove good rules.

In a normal relationship “give and give” is, without the

slightest doubt, the royal road to happiness.

Many couples know this instinctively, whether they

admit it -to themselves and others -or not. Why then,
are they so slow in applying the golden rule in practice?

We’ll discuss this in the next chapter.

 51

Chapter Thirteen

Fast Track to Hell

The following tale is entirely imaginary. As always, I’m

only relating it because it conveys, I believe, a very
important message. So often, one story can drive a point
home more effectively than thousands of words of
moralizing.

Peter and Kate had been married for ten years or

more, and they were always squabbling. It was a daily
routine: either Peter was insulting Kate, or she was
insulting him. In private or public, it appeared to make
little difference; each trying to find a juicier epithet still to
hurl at the other.

Their friends were more than mildly irritated by this

unseemly behavior, but they had long given up any
attempts at reforming them. If that’s how Peter and Kate
wanted to live their lives, they reasoned, the choice was
theirs. It was only to be wondered at that they were still
together after all these years, and their friends were at
least thankful for that.

Then came the bombshell that would have shattered

the peace -had there been such a thing!

Something of a medical nature had been bothering

Kate for a while, until she realized she couldn’t put off a
visit to the doctor any longer. Even then, she was hardly
expecting anything dramatic. So you can imagine how
she felt when her doctor told her:

“Kate, I don’t want to frighten you, but this is serious,

possibly even life threatening. Fortunately, time is still on
our side. Follow the treatment program to the letter, and
hopefully, the danger will be averted. We’ll assess
everything again in two months. Meanwhile, get plenty of
rest...and keep praying.”
 52

Do you think there was any bickering in that household

over the next two months? No way! Peter’s single-minded
concern for his wife’s health and comfort, if predictable,
was complete. If Kate, her body racked with pain, did
allow an occasional hurtful remark to pass her lips, Peter
found it fairly easy to ignore it.

And ironically, this was, in some ways, the happiest

period of the marriage!

A blissful feeling of intimacy, such as neither partner

had dreamed possible, enveloped the unsuspecting
couple. Peter’s obsession with Kate’s wellbeing left him
no time for extraneous thoughts, and Kate’s appreciation
and admiration grew stronger day by day.

At the appointed time, they were back at the doctor’s.

Imagine the overwhelming relief when he pronounced:

“The danger’s over!”

And when the next day dawned -it was back to

business as usual! Petty bickering, name-calling, all kinds
of verbal barbs and arrows. Well, each to their own kind!

But what is really going on here? Can a man and

woman who spend their days in abusive mode, fighting
each other tooth and nail, claim to be content in a
perverse sort of way? How could a couple who had
reached such heights slip back to square one literally
overnight?

Well, it all boils down to one critical word of three

letters. We call it the Ego. It’s an intangible, somewhat
elusive, component of the human psyche that’s directly
or indirectly responsible for more of the misery in this
world than you might have ever imagined.

Moreover, I’m not only referring to misery inflicted on

other people. Your Ego, when it’s not channeled the way
it should be, can so easily become an endless source of
pain and unhappiness for you yourself!

Intrinsically, the Ego is not necessarily a bad thing.

Quite the contrary. If by “Ego” we mean something like
“self-esteem”, it’s indispensable. Many educated people
 53

opine that we can’t start to love others until we love

ourselves first. That’s perfectly true -if we’re talking
about the right kind of self-love.

But if “my Ego” means my needs, my honor, my

sensitivities and my dignity always comes first (and
probably also middle and last), we’re taking the fast track
to despair and destruction.

Imagine that the Internal Revenue Service in your

country claimed that you owe $1000 in tax arrears. You
dispute this, and you challenge the tax people in court,
but the court rules that they are right. Especially if you’re
a person of substantial means, you’d pay up with a shrug
of the shoulders, tell yourself you can’t win all the time,
and forget all about it pretty quickly.

Now let’s assume that instead of the government, an

acquaintance, even a good friend, alleges that you are in
his debt, for whatever reason, for the same sum of
money.

Again, you go to court. Your alleged creditor pleads his

case, you plead yours. The judge decides in his favor,
and explains to you very patiently why the money
rightfully belongs to your opponent. How do you react to
your loss now ? Probably, even if you’re very wealthy,
you’re not about to shrug it off so quickly this time!

Why not? Because you’re not just losing money, but

someone else is gaining at your expense. If there’s
anything worse than a property loss, it’s an Ego loss! For
most of us that’s something extremely difficult to stomach!

I have a sneaking suspicion that, deep down, Peter

loves Kate and Kate loves Peter. If one would disappear
from the other’s life, the abandoned one would suffer no
end. Then why don’t they live in peace together? That
three-letter word does all the damage.

The Ego that insists that I’m right, that will not yield on
the most trivial issue. The Ego that demands the honor
that’s due to me. The Ego that pursues justice at all costs,
irrespective of everything that it knocks down in that way.

And to think that for the sake of that pompous ass of an

Ego, we’re prepared to sacrifice what is nearest and
dearest to us!
 54

In the next two chapters, we’ll explore this topic a little

more, and offer suggestions on how to banish the Ego
(the obnoxious, not the positive side of it), from our lives
for ever!

.
 55

Chapter Fourteen

Say, What's On Your Mind?

I wrote that we’ll begin to discuss ways of taming the

destructive side of the Ego in this chapter. First, though, I
want to return to one of the basic ideas we touched on
earlier: how poor communication (or worse still, not
communicating at all) can cause unnecessary suffering.

Stan is an incurable romantic. Ever since he started

courting Marge seriously, he has been sending or
bringing her flowers. During the couple of weeks leading
up to their wedding, he sent her a different arrangement
every day. He continued this practice every Friday for a
long time thereafter.

Marge had never been very much inclined towards

sentimentalism and thought of herself as a strictly
practical type. But it took several years for her to find the
courage to speak up:

“You know, Stan, I really love you and I think it’s terrific
that you want to bring me flowers and you never miss a
week, come hell or high water. But you know, I’m not
really mad about flowers that much. Besides, they die so
soon afterward that I feel guilty that we’re wasting our
money. If you insist on buying me something, I’d rather
you saved up for a more lasting gift...”

This is a trivial case (fortunately), but if you’re unable to

tell your relationship partner what’s on your mind in small
matters, it’s unlikely that you’ll feel comfortable doing so
in major areas of concern.

Hurt and angry couples often tell counselors “he should

have known...” or “she should have realized....” when
things are already at breaking point. But they don’t
explain how he should known, or how she should have
realized. Is he or she a clairvoyant? Did anybody actually
tell him or her?
 56

This approach is comparable to that of someone who

never makes grocery lists before she goes to the
supermarket, but relies on her intuition. After eight
shopping expeditions, she might have six bottles of
etchup in her refrigerator. At other times, her family may
have to go weeks on end without butter.

In intimate relationships, such an approach to life can

be disastrous. Never rely on your intuition, and even less
so, the intuition of your partner. Ask your soul mate
what’s on his or her mind, and don’t be shy to tell him or
her what’s on yours!

Of course, there are also cases where, rather than

simple neglect, deeper reasons lie behind the failure to
communicate.

Simon comes from a family that was not only affluent,

but also very stiff and formal, almost aristocratic, in its
orientation. The house was spotlessly clean right around
the clock. The dinner table was set every night with the
finest quality silverware. Family members rarely raised
their voices. Excessive emotion was strictly discouraged.

When Simon married Veronica, he took it for granted

that the same kind of regimen would carry over into his
own home.

Veronica, however, was a scion of a far more

easygoing household. Her parent’s home was almost
always packed to the brim with relatives and guests. With
all the bustle and commotion, order and cleanliness had
to take second place. At mealtime, paper plates were the
norm. Emotional outbursts were common. The children
often screamed just to get themselves heard.

The opposing temperaments of these two may well

have been one of the reasons they were attracted to each
other in the first place. But Veronica, like Simon, came to
the marriage with an underlying emotional expectation
that her home would be run as her parent’s home had
been. Possibly, she feels it only subconsciously.

Does this mean that Simon and Veronica are now

doomed to live out their days in, at best, an uneasy
relationship punctuated with periodic flare-ups?
 57

No, not necessarily, but the danger is there.

Sometimes, in a situation like this, the partners are just
not aware enough, or don’t want to be, of where their
opposite number is coming from.

Surprisingly, just as often they fail to recognize their

own backgrounds. They know how they grew up, of
course, but they don’t appreciate how their early years
influence their attitudes as adults. They just can’t see how
their own childhood experiences contribute to their
irritability and impatience at the “strange” behavior of their
spouses.

Then again, even if they do become aware of these

things, Public Enemy Number One -the destructive Ego is
often waiting in the wings, ready to pounce and take
control of the situation.

“You’ve had your way all your life,” it whispers in your

ear, “so there’s no earthly reason to change now. Stick to
your guns; why must you always be the one to yield?
Your partner knew very well who you are when he (or
she) agreed to marry you!”

Fortunately, it doesn’t have to end up that way. Many a

successful marriage union has been built on the
seemingly shaky foundation of two partners who enter the
relationship with divergent expectations or contrasting
perspectives on how the world should be run.

What are the success secrets of these fortunate

couples? What are the requirements for happiness in a
relationship where the potential for conflict, right from the
very start, is inevitably high?

Self-awareness is one such requirement. You have to

be sure in your own mind who you are, what you stand
for, where you have come from and where you are going.

Even more, you have to distinguish between lifestyle

practices of various types. On the one hand, you have
principles that are central to your philosophy of life and
cannot be compromised. On the other, you may have
merely become habituated to doing some things in
certain ways, with your Ego being the only force standing
in the way of change.
 58

Clearly, a healthy sense of humor would be another

“success secret”. No doubt, Simon and Martha’s vastly
different home backgrounds led to a lot of friction after the
wedding, without either of them realizing what was at the
root of it. But if the truth would finally dawn on them and
they would be able to laugh about it together, working
together towards solutions would probably be an easy
next step.

A third, and arguably the most crucial, requirement

brings us back to the story and warning with which we
opened this chapter. Speak your mind (in a mature,
respectful way, of course) and don’t put it off! If you
allow feelings of resentment to fester inside you, without
bringing them out into the open, you are probably inviting
disaster!

It took Marge a few years to decide to speak up that

she wasn’t crazy about flowers. However, the nature of
the relatively insignificant misunderstanding was such
that happily, things never reached a stage when she was
boiling over with frustration over the affair.

Other spouses who opt to keep their mouths shut don’t

get away with it so easily. Jake’s wife, Pat, was habitually
late whenever, for whatever reason, they agreed to meet
at some place. Jake would often arrange to meet Pat at
the appointed destination a half hour earlier than the time
he really intended, but all the tricks in the book didn’t
help.

Jake normally worked to a tight schedule, and Pat’s

consistent disregard for punctuality and apparent lack of
consideration needled him no end. For all that, out of
concern for Pat’s feelings, he never said a word about it.
However angry he felt, he would bite his lip and remain
silent.

Until one day when they were due to arrive separately

at an family gathering where Pat’s presence was
important. She eventually showed her face over an hour
late. The bubble containing Jake’s years of simmering
frustration finally burst. He screamed and yelled,
embarrassing not only Pat but all their relatives.
 59

If there’s one thing that we all have to learn, it’s that we

cannot drive our relationships on automatic pilot. On the
contrary, we have to watch where we are headed, and
make immediate course adjustments as necessary.

The sad case of Jake and his unpunctual wife is also

instructive for another reason. From the start, Joe had
recognized his potentially destructive Ego, and resolved
not to let it have its own way. Just unfortunately, he went
about the task in an inappropriate fashion.

How, and under what conditions, do we keep the Ego

strictly in its place?
 60

Chapter Fifteen

Taming the Destructive Ego

Polly had a four year old child who nearly every day
would scream at her: “I want to kill you!” Polly tried her
best to keep her cool but predictably, the point was soon
reached when she would feel herself almost bursting with
rage every time she heard the offensive words.

One day when he said them, she locked the child in his
room for an hour. He yelled his lungs out all the while, but
it didn’t stop him from later saying the same thing again.
Another day, Polly poured black pepper on the kid’s
tongue, and another time she tried washing his mouth out
with soap. All these “remedies” may have helped her little
son understand who the “boss” was, but for all that, he
went on informing her regularly, in a nasty tone, that he
wanted to kill her.

In desperation, Polly phoned up a friend who was

already an experienced mother and asked her what she
would do in such circumstances.

“As the oldest of three children, he probably feels left

out of things,” advised the friend. “I would say he’s not
hateful, he’s just in pain. Don’t respond to the words. Only
respond to the pain.”

The next day, true to form, the little chap shouted out
the four dreaded words. Acting on her friends advice,
Polly hugged him, smiled and said: “Even if you want to
kill me, I love you more than anything in the world.”

Once the boy had recovered from the unexpected

“shock” and the atmosphere was calmer, Polly tried to
find out what was bothering him. That was the last time
he ever uttered those words, or anything similar.

If you’re like most people, you react almost every day

to situations you perceive to be threatening in much the
same way that Polly would respond to her little one’s
painful verbal jabs -only to get nowhere for your trouble!
 61

Let’s say that a man gets really hot under the collar
while checking the family credit card statement, after
noticing that his wife had bought some big ticket items

without his knowledge.

If she decides to give in to her first impulse, the lady

might well yell back at him: “You old skinflint!” (or an even
less flattering “compliment”) and continue: “What’s the
matter with you? Aren’t I entitled to a few decent clothes
like any other woman?”

Alternatively, she resist the temptation of an impulsive

response, calm down a little and say: “You’re right.
Neither of us should make a purchase without first
consulting the other. You know, I’m really sorry. I didn’t
intend to hurt you.”

And hopefully, that’s the end of the incident.

(Note that I’m not talking about abusive personalities emotionally

disturbed souls who will continue to insult and
manipulate you no matter how gently you respond to
them. With such people, you’re probably better off
keeping your distance. Here, though, we’re presumably
dealing with a rational, well disposed gentleman, just
feeling the stress of having to be continually vigilant in the
ongoing struggle to balance the family budget.)

Remember Martha, whom I introduced to you in an

earlier chapter -the public-spirited bride who was deeply
disappointed when her young husband didn’t continue
with the heavy community involvement for which he had
acquired a reputation as a bachelor?

Martha tried to persuade him to return to his communal

endeavors. This only served to alienate him, since took it
as a sign that Martha didn’t really appreciate all the
attention he was showering upon her. Eventually, Martha
also turned to an older and more experienced friend for
advice.

“Lay off! Leave the poor man alone,” counseled her

friend. “Concentrate on improving yourself, not him. Work
every day on refining and perfecting your character traits.
 62

And in particular, always try to think of new things you

could be doing for your husband -things that will make
him a little happier, his life that much easier...”

Her friend was clearly an exponent of the “give, give

and give” philosophy of marriage. At any rate, Martha
was to reap great dividends from taking that advice to
heart. From that day on, her marriage went from strength
to strength.

Now, what do Martha, Polly and the lady whose

husband didn’t like her spending habits all have in
common?

If you think about it, it boils down to this: each of them

controlled their Ego. They subdued it, they harnessed it,
they molded it to their advantage. Each of them had their
own inner struggle, certainly. But ultimately, they did not
allow the Ego to control them! Absolutely not.

It’s a well known fact that when a person senses

danger, the body pumps out stress hormones such as
adrenaline. Adrenaline then cause the system to release
fat into the bloodstream, which provides the extra energy
the person needs to fight off the danger.

It’s also well known that when a person gets angry,

the body receives a false signal and starts producing
adrenaline even in the absence of real danger. If this
happens often enough, it can cause irreversible harm to
the body.

The fascinating thing is that this pattern of events

operates not only on the physical level. When you smell
danger around the corner but none, in fact, exists, and
you start to panic for no good reason, you unwittingly
inflict on yourself real damage on the emotional plane as
well.

And, as if the personal damage isn’t bad enough,

sometimes your relationship with someone close to you
somehow gets caught up in the firing line.

Let’s say you’re standing in line at the supermarket

checkout when somebody behind pushes you aside and
strides up to the cashier. His very act of queue jumping is
a red light for you and you get hopping mad. But before
 63

your blood pressure has even had time to rise, the

offender has already finished his transaction and you’re
free to proceed.

You stop to think. “Hey, my body and my emotions

have just taken a terrible pounding, but why? Was I in
any type of danger? No, it appears not. Then why the
heck did I get so hot under the collar?

“On second thoughts, though, there was a part of me

that came under threat. But which part? Only my Ego,
actually.....And for the sake of a bruised Ego I’m willing to
get so excited over an inconsequential delay of precisely
eighteen seconds?”

It’s only your Ego that’s hurt when you pass an

acquaintance in the street and she returns your greeting
with a blank stare. It’s only your Ego that’s hurt when a
clerk at a government office yells at you for not bringing
the right forms.

It’s only your Ego that’s hurt when you do something

beyond the normal line of duty at the office, but nobody
seems to appreciate it. And it’s only your Ego that’s hurt
when you go out of your way to prepare something
special for dinner, but as far as you know, your family
don’t even notice it.

Once you have learned to distinguish between real

danger and mere ego-danger, you will have the key in
your hands for vanquishing the troublesome Ego and
confining it to its proper place for ever.

Let us now turn to circumstances under which it may

be legitimate and desirable to allow our Egos a certain
amount of freedom.
 64

Chapter Sixteen

Time to Be Assertive

A couple of years ago, a reader of one of my e-zines

emailed me with a seemingly desperate plea for help.

She wrote that she had been attending a course in

communication skills, which included a lot of tips for
becoming more assertive in everyday life. She was a
conscientious student and practiced the techniques she
learned every day. To her delight, she was finding that
with strangers, at least, they were working pretty well.

“But I still have a problem,” she lamented, “and the

problem is my husband. Unfortunately...well, he’s not so
easy to sort out!”

The writer of the message (let’s call her Sally),

complained that when she and her husband arrive home
after a day’s work, she’s always careful to inquire how he
had found his day. “Yet, I’m very lucky if I get some sort
of a grunt by way of reply.”

“And then the fun really begins. That grunt is really the
signal for a vicious verbal attack that might begin with:
’What on earth made you do such-and-such today? And
since you insisted on carrying out such a lunatic act, why
didn’t you at least do it in a sensible way?’ “

According to Sally, the conversation invariably ends

with further biting criticism from her husband. He will
berate her mercilessly for not doing what he instructed
her to do, for not doing it properly, for spending too much
time or money on it, for leaving the house in a mess, or
for being too fussy about the house’s cleanliness.

“Now, I know that it’s really my fault. I should just be

doing what they tell me to do in the course. I should be
saying to him: ’I feel hurt when you talk to me in this way,’
or, ’That’s your opinion, but I’m afraid I don’t agree with
you.’
 65

“Unfortunately, I find it very difficult to do that. I just

can’t bring myself to it. So instead, I just stand there, full
of shock, and say nothing. Then before long, my silence
turns to frustration and anger.”

Sally added that she had also been experimenting with

another technique that she had read about on the
Internet.

“They said you should pretend that your lips are glued
tightly together, so that you’re not tempted to say
something you’ll regret, and before you know it,
everything gets completely out of hand. Then you need
to imagine you are covered in wax, and that all the
destructive criticism is bouncing off the wax.

“And you know something, it’s working, at least to a

degree. But what worries me is that this is being passive,
and it’s much better to be assertive, isn’t it? Please, can
you help me with some suggestions on how to apply
assertiveness skills in a marital relationship?”

I do believe that the glued-lips technique is excellent but

in the right circumstances.

We have just been discussing, in the last few chapters,

the dangers, both for ourselves and for the people we
interact with, of allowing our Egos to prevail over our
better judgment. Several cases we encountered illustrate
quite convincingly the great benefits for all concerned,
when, in spite of all types of provocation, the Ego is kept
under strict control.

Further, if, through force of circumstances, you’re tied

into a relationship in which you are continually hurt, and
there’s just no way to get through to the other party, such
a strategy can be a lifesaver.

Not only can it save you from a lot of misery, but I’ll go
even further. Under some conditions, there may be no
greater way of showing love and concern than remaining
silent!

But when you practice it, you’re walking on a tightrope.

 66

With the most honorable of motives, keeping silent can

backfire, as we saw in the unfortunate case of Jake,
whose wife, Pat, was habitually late for appointments.

Even worse, you might well be mistaking heroism for

cowardice. Many of us have heard reports like this one:

“A neighbor of mine used to drop in whenever I was

busy with all sorts of tasks. Without fail, she would find
something to criticize in what I was doing. At first it drove
me mad, even though I knew she really meant well. But I
decided to bear it in silence, and was determined not to
let her behavior undermine my sense of self-worth.
Inside, though, I still resented her.

“Then one day, she made an innocent remark, and I

exploded with all my suppressed rage. Yes, I thought I
was humble, but in reality I was cowardly. There’s so
much pain on both sides now, that I wonder if we can
ever have a normal relationship again!”

How should this lady have dealt with her nosy

neighbor? How, indeed, can Sally become more
assertive in communicating with her husband?

Let’s try to find the answers.

 67

Chapter Seventeen

Giving Is Not Giving In!

If Sally, whose letter we quoted in the last chapter, has

learned so much about assertiveness techniques, as she
claims, and has even successfully applied them in
practice -what are the roadblocks that prevent her from
using them with her own husband?

I have never met Sally personally, and know nothing

about her background, her personality, her inhibitions and
her fears, all of which, of course, may have a strong
bearing on the issue. (In her message, though, she does
come across as a warm and intelligent person.)

I do know, however, that her problem is far from

unique. I can only suggest a few factors which, if they
don’t apply in her situation, do apply in many similar ones.

The last thing I want is that what happened to Jake and

Pat or to the lady with the meddlesome neighbor should
happen to Sally, or to her husband. When all’s said and
done, they’re the most important people in each other’s
lives. (Well, if they aren’t, they should be!)

Assertiveness, unfortunately, is often confused with

impudence or aggression. In reality, they’re very different.
Aggressive people actively seek conflict because they
need to feel dominant or superior. Control of others gives
them a sense of importance. The goal of assertive
people, on the other hand is not to feed their vanity or
pump up the Ego.

Ideally, assertive folk are dominated not by hate, but by

love. In optimum circumstances, their desire is not to
dominate or control, but to preserve and enhance their
capacity to give of themselves.
 68

When they fight, it’s only to protect ideals and values

they strongly believe in. When they try to protect their
dignity as human beings, not to mention their physical
and mental health, they are simultaneously protecting
their ability to give to those whom they love.

Aggressive people are destructive. Assertive people,

on the other hand, are constructive!

What stops you from being assertive, even when you

very badly want to be?

A major reason is fear. It seems to me that this fear

often intensifies when the other party is someone very
close to you.

You might be afraid of being condemned -as

incompetent, stupid, lazy, inconsiderate, or whatever.
When someone makes an unreasonable demand on you,
you don’t want to be thought of as selfish. If somebody
calls you inefficient, you might be afraid of being called
something worse if you answer back.

In all these cases -or so you think to yourself -you

would end up feeling rejected or unloved. If the other
person is a particularly significant one in your life, this a
situation you would especially want to avoid.

What will happen -you might reason subconsciously if

my husband or wife (or whoever) shuts me out of his or
her life completely? Or does something even worse?

You might fear hurting the other persons’ feelings,

regardless of how he or she has hurt yours. Strangely
enough, people who are especially vulnerable and afraid
of rejection, often assume that others have the same
fears. “If I speak honestly with him, I’ll destroy him,” you
might think.

Occasionally, these fears are justified. Let us say you

have a boss who abuses you. If you speak up, a real
danger exists that he might fire you. In such a case, you
have to decide: either suffer in silence, or find another
job.
 69

But far more frequently, these fears have little

substantial basis. Usually, they wiggle their way into your
thought system through a process of conditioning, having
its origins possibly even in early or later childhood. Once
they are there, they can be extremely hard to dislodge.

What’s the solution? I can only say this. One needs to

practice. And keep on practicing.

Sally, you know you can do it, and you will! You, too,
are created in the Divine image. Your sense of self-worth
and your emotional stability are important to you. They
cannot be negotiated away.

Why? Precisely because you’re not selfish! Like all

people, you have so much to give -and you badly want to
give.

But don’t make a mistake! Giving is not giving in. By not

giving in, you are only ensuring that you will continue to
give in the fullest sense.
 70

Chapter Eighteen

Dump That Negative Baggage!

In these concluding chapters of this e-book, I’d like to

devote some space to a couple of topics that might not
seem at first, to have too much to do with communication
and relationship building.

Their relevance to our theme is very real, though, as

will become clearer as we proceed. In fact, we have
already caught more than a passing glimpse at how what
I can call our “internal makeup” -our upbringing and
previous life experiences, our attitudes, prejudices and
inhibitions -influences the way we communicate and
interact with others.

I read about someone who had struggled with math in

elementary school, so much so that she had even lost
sleep over her difficulties in keeping pace with the
lessons. Having sensed the child’s frustration, her mother
had taken her aside and offered some well-meaning
encouragement:

“Look, no one in our family is good in math. I was poor

at math and your sister isn’t good in math. No wonder
you’re having a hard time. You shouldn’t worry. I’m sure
you’ll be good at something else.”

Well, that certainly sounds comforting. Nevertheless,

the former struggling schoolgirl bewailed the fact that
more than 30 years later, she still had, in her estimation,
the mathematical ability of a 10 year old. Are you really
surprised?

Unhelpful or unproductive messages that young people

receive from their elders take many different forms. A
friend told me that his 11 year old had been
uncharacteristically moody and subdued for a few weeks.
It had taken him a while to figure out that something was
worrying the lad at school.
 71

At first, the boy insisted that everything was OK, but

eventually he blurted it all out. He explained sadly that his
teacher kept upsetting him with an ongoing stream of
comments like:

“Another poor grade in the test this week. You could do

much better, if you really wanted to.”

“You say you find it difficult to concentrate in class. If

you really wanted to, I’m certain you could...”

“Oh Dad,” moaned the hapless pupil. “I just don’t

understand this ’if you wanted to’ business. Can it be
possible? Does my teacher really believe I don’t care?
Surely, he must know how much I’d like to be a better
student, if only I could?”

Fortunately, this story had a happy ending. The father

had a friendly, heart to heart chat with the teacher, who
understood where he might have been making a mistake.
Before long, the teacher’s feedback had changed to:

“Your grade in this week’s test was two percent better.

Now that you’re going up, perhaps you can manage
another two percent hike next week?”

“You concentrated well for a solid twenty minutes this

morning. You see yourself you can do it. Now, just try to
manage for another ten minutes.”

And so we have one happy, eager pupil and one very

proud teacher!

I think the lessons of these incidents are clear enough.

Interestingly, I have another friend who recently retired
after a lifetime of teaching in schools where -so unlike
those that dominate the media nowadays -the young
students are mostly refined and serious, and hail from the
best homes. I was surprised to hear my friend confess:

“Usually, a small child arrives for his first day of school

with an excellent self-image. And so often, that’s the end
of the story!”
 72

We cannot turn the clock back or change the facts of

history. But that doesn’t mean we can’t change ourselves.
People whose self-image took quite a battering in their
youth so often believe they have to live with the
consequences forever, but it doesn’t have to be that way.

Some adults become so bitter and resentful inside

about everything and anything, are so oversensitive and
easily offended by everybody but nobody in particular,
that they feel they can no longer function normally. The
more fortunate among them eventually consult
psychologists or similar professionals, who get to work by
helping their patients to explore their past and pinpoint
the source of their anger.

As people go through life, they accumulate all sorts of

negative baggage.

One angry patient would often go to therapy sessions

accompanied by her father. During one of the sessions,
she mentioned that her father appeared to be quite
friendly and caring, but for the past fifteen years he had
hardly visited her home and had refused all invitations to
eat with her family. This upset her very much.

The therapist later discovered that fifteen years

previously, her patient had said something to hurt her
fathers feelings, and he had vowed not to eat in her
house until he received an apology.

What the father didn’t realize was that his daughter was
not even aware of this decision. When she was told about
this, she apologized immediately -and the father broke
down in tears.

Getting rid of excess psychological baggage and the

intense but chronic pain it causes is never easy. It usually
requires persistent effort over an extended period.
However, no amount of effort should be too much for us
once we really appreciate the incalculable benefits of
such an exercise for ourselves, our loved ones and all
those around us.

But even if we’re not yet ready to undertake this

arduous task of self-cleansing and healing, at least we
should train ourselves to be sensitive to the pain, existing
and potential, of the other folk in our lives.
 73

We can all take a lesson, each of us in our own way,

from the teacher who finally learned how to inspire his
difficult pupil to ever greater heights. If only we really
knew how much is in our hands!

When your spouse, child or other family member

decides to give you a special surprise and you say
something like: “That was nice of you to make dinner,”
resist the temptation of immediately adding: “but why
didn’t you clean up the kitchen?” Never qualify your
statement: “I appreciate that you did the grocery
shopping, especially when you have so much on your
mind right now,” with an inevitable: “but why did you
select potatoes that are half rotten?”

By now, we well understand how positive expressions

of praise, pleasure and appreciation, well targeted and
delivered at the right times, accomplish so much more
than the mildest rebukes and the gentlest nagging. Don’t
spoil those valuable compliments, however, by inserting a
“but” or two. Qualified praise is no praise.

And never tire of saying those two simple words:”

Thank you.”
 74

Chapter Nineteen

Taming the Destructive Ego

Yes, the right words, together with the empathy and

sensitivity that influence how you choose them, make all
the difference in the world. Simply put, words make or
break. It might help us to internalize this truism if we take
a look at why so many people just don’t take it seriously.

What do you do when you wake up in the morning with

acute toothache? You rush to the dentist and the first
thing he does is jab a needle into your gums. Hopefully,
the ache is gone even before he lays a finger on that
troublesome tooth.

Aren’t anesthetics wonderful? Now, imagine you were

created with a kind of natural version, that washed your
mouth continuously so that you never got toothache in
the first place. Wouldn’t that be great?

No, probably not, because you’d never know when a

tooth needed attention, until it would be far too late.

Unfortunately, this isn’t as far fetched as you might

think. Just as there are anesthetics of the body, you get
anesthetics for the mind as well. And usually, mental
anesthetics work much like the imaginary natural variety
we just described.

Not too long ago, an English teacher at a private

American school decided to use the old television series,
“Alfred Hitchcock Presents” to help teach his class about
plot development in creative writing.

Once a week, he would a play a movie in the series,

then stop the show before the end. He would then ask his
students to write their own endings. They liked the idea
so much that they suggested they read their work aloud
in class.
 75

What the teacher heard -to use his own words “

horrified and sickened” him. After hearing the first few
students, he put a stop to the reading aloud.

Later, he led a frank class discussion about the very

explicit imagery of violence he had found in the papers.
The students quickly insisted out that media violence
didn’t affect them at all because the graphic scenes they
saw on TV and films were “fake”.

Their teacher then asked them how they would feel if

they saw a dog on TV being riddled with bullets.

“How horrible!” they cried out in unison.

The teacher concluded that unlike the human carnage

they regularly witnessed on TV, his students had found
animal deaths appalling because they had seldom seen
it.

Over the years, these children had become almost

completely desensitized to violence. Today, for the first
time, they realized it. Thankfully, the anesthetic was
starting to wear off.

Now, the truth is that most human beings, over the

course of time, allow themselves to be desensitized
against all sorts of other things as well.

Sometimes, it’s good. For example, we eventually “get

over” a loss, or a traumatic episode gradually recedes
from our memories. More often, it’s anything but good.

A prime example of harmful mental anesthesia stems

from the remarkable talent that humans have for hurting
each other with their speech.

Sure, it’s the victims who feel the pain, but it’s the
attackers who somehow manage to “anesthetize”
themselves, so that they no longer have to think about
the consequences of their actions. Sometimes the
desensitization is so complete that they even go on to
shift the blame for their verbal abuse onto the victims:
“Aw come on, why on earth are you so touchy? Anyone
would think I hit you with a sledgehammer, or something!”
 76

At times, our verbal barbs are deliberate. It may be

that feelings of inadequacy or inferiority induce us to
assert our power over others. Frustration over real or
imagined deficiencies, or anxiety over events we cannot
control, may spur us on to develop and use a full arsenal
of purposeful innuendoes, backhanded compliments,
slurs and insults. Shouting at our fellows is a lot more
comfortable than shouting at ourselves.

This impulse to put others down in order to bestow

upon ourselves a sense of superiority or power, or as a
diversion from our own shortcomings and problems, is
something many of us just can’t resist. On the other hand,
offending others is sometimes the last thing we want, yet
somehow, we manage to do us nonetheless.

In previous chapters, we saw this happening with

people who come to advise or comfort their friends or
loved ones with well intentioned but poorly timed
comments. For a example, a family member of a friend
may be seriously ill. Almost instinctively, we offer the
reassurance: “Don’t worry, everything will be just fine!”

Our friend is not comforted. Just the opposite. She’s

wondering whether anything will be the same again. It
takes experience, and more than a little practice, in
accordance with the guidelines we suggested then, to
choose words that will have the right effect.

But why must we wait for our friends to experience

stress or severe trauma before we decide to carefully
weigh our words? What do you do when your friend buys
an expensive new outfit, and asks you a week later how
you like it?

If you believe the outfit doesn’t suit her very well, but it’s
already too late to do anything about it, do you tell her
what you think? Or, do you find some way to evade the
question, or to put a positive spin on the event, thereby
sparing your friend unnecessary distress?

If you really want to spread love in the world, taking

great care with what comes out of your mouth is one way
to do it.

Perhaps you remember that haunting and defiant chant

with which you and your friends probably taunted each
other during your schooldays:
 77

“Sticks and stones may break your bones, but words

will never hurt me!”

Do you believe it? By this point, I certainly hope not!

Granted, words may rarely be able to break bones. But

they do worse. They can break our hearts, our spirits,
even our reputations.

And yes, our ability to develop and maintain meaningful

relationships.

Yet, there’s no need to end on a negative note. If the

faculty of speech is indeed so very powerful when it’s
abused, it must be ten times more potent when it’s
employed the way it’s meant to be.

If you can destroy so much with words, just imagine

what you can create with them.

The choice is yours. Go to it! It’s time to build the

beautiful edifice of your dreams.
 78

Concluding Comments

The Fire Inside You

Of all the forms of human misery, probably the most

widespread is discord in the home.

And of all the forms of human happiness, probably the

most intense is domestic bliss.

Which would you choose? Well, that’s a question that

should hardly require an answer.

Yet, being the lethargic and change-resisting creatures

that we are, we often settle for a state of affairs that’s less
than perfect. Because it’s easier to take the path of least
resistance, we may shrug our shoulders and opt for a
situation that just passes as tolerable.

But as I said in the last chapter, the choice is yours!

Yes, I could write on and on -more information, more

insights, more stories. Perhaps, G-d willing, I will do so in
future e-books. I will certainly continue to discuss
relationship and communication subjects in my e-zine
Effective Communication.

Now, however, is the time for tough decisions. The time

to decide that you and your loved ones deserve more
than second best.

And after the decisions, is the time for action.

 79

This is the time to fan, once and for all, the fire that’s
already burning, whether you know it or not, somewhere
inside you. The time to feed it and stoke it until it rises
higher and higher and spreads in all directions. It’s not a
fire of death and destruction, Heaven forbid, but a fire of
life, enthusiasm, desire and determination.

It’s the fire that will ignite that passion for perfection
that might bring lasting happiness and self-fulfillment to
you, your husband or wife, your children or parents, your
friends and associates.

Please write and tell me how you enjoyed this e-book,

and share with me your suggestions for topics I should
write about in future.

And make a regular habit of visiting Hodu.com at

http://hodu.com for current insights and commentary,
and well-researched and authoritative strategies, relating to
everything we talked about in this little book. (See further
details below).

Remember: I’m rooting for your success in your personal life

and in all your endeavors!

Azriel

[email protected]
http://hodu.com

Please forward this book to friends who may be interested

- and suggest they do the same!
 80

What You Can Find on Hodu.com

Hodu.com - Your Gateway to Better Communication Skills

http://hodu.com

As I mentioned at the beginning of this book, Hodu.com

is a comprehensive, one-stop Web destination with one
overriding objective – to help you sharpen your
communication, relationship and social skills on all levels
and in all kinds of settings - your family unit, your workplace,
and in the community at large.

The site has many topical sections, and for your convenience,
I'm repeating here (with direct links) those that are most
relevant to the subject matter of this e-book:

Assertiveness Skills

Body Language

Conversation Skills

Communicating With Your Children

Conflict Resolution

Dealing with Difficult People

Emotional Maturity

Enhancing Your Marriage

Family Life

Interpersonal Relationships

For other topics relating to communication skills

in everyday life, please visit the Main Article Menu.

In particular, note our popular and detailed sections

on Speaking Skills and Writing Skills, featuring tutorials
written by a top experts.
 81

A substantial portion of our site is devoted to the vast and

important subject of BUSINESS COMMUNICATION.

Some of the topics we cover in this department are:

Business Ethics

Business Etiquette

Business Writing

Career and Job-hunting Skills

Communication in the Workplace

Creative Thinking

Customer Relations

Management Strategies

Marketing Communication

Presentation Skills

Telephone Skills

Team Building

...and various other topics. For details, go to

the Business Communication Main Menu.

I also run a Blog on the site, featuring my personal

insights and commentary on current developments
relating to our site's theme – effective communication,
sound human relationships, and all-round personal
development. If you like, you can keep up to date on
the latest Blog posts by RSS with your favorite Reader.

Finally, you can also subscribe to the fortnightly

Site Updates newsletter, containing brief descriptions
of new content.

Suggestions and feedback are more than welcome!

Azriel Winnett