After my pout fest yesterday (which, by the way, thank you for listening and adding your own crabs/panics and helpful solutions to the comments section – that helped IMMENSELY), my husband showed up not only with flowers but with cheesecake. Magical cheesecake that sent my stomach bug packing.

Turns out that a lot of stress can be cured delayed soothed by an hour of cuddling up in front of a DVRed American Horror Story episode with one’s beloved whilst munching on lemony cheesecakey goodness.

This is not, however, a post about how wonderful my husband is. (He IS wonderful though. Not because of the flowers or the cheesecake – just because he is. Why do you think I married the guy?)

Instead, I wanted to talk about something that’s difficult for me – and, perhaps, difficult for you – but that I nonetheless feel very strongly about.

Mind reading.

When I whined about my Lack of Flowers yesterday, the lovely Swistle responded by saying, “The ‘no anniversary flowers’ gives me a sinking feeling. I think this is a nip-it-in-the-bud situation: it will be uncomfortable, but I think it’s one of those times when Speaking Up would take something that Seems Small But Feels Big and make it something that Seems Small But Feels Big in the Opposite Way. I’d say something like, ‘It gives me such a sinking feeling that there were no anniversary flowers this year. I know it doesn’t Mean Anything, but it feels like it Means Something. I think we should just do flowers every single year, okay?'”

I responded to this by tearing up.

Let me first say that no one NEEDS flowers. (I mean, except florists. If they don’t have flowers, they are in for a world of hurt.)

I certainly don’t NEED flowers. I don’t need them for any reason – least of all to prove something about my husband’s feelings for me.

But I do have needs in our relationship. A need for companionship. A need for respect. A need for attention. A need for security. A need for commitment. And so on down the line until we hit A need for something special to commemorate the wonderful occasion of our wedding.

My husband is very good at meeting my needs.

But the thing about my husband (and most husbands, I’d imagine)?

He cannot read my mind.

I think the game of You Must Read My Mind is a time-honored tradition among couples everywhere.

When we’re at the grocery store and I’m in the produce department and he’s in the deli and I send him mental You Must Read My Mind waves about grabbing a jar of pickles on his way back… Or when we are at a party and I am telepathy-ing to him that I have no idea who this person is I’m talking to, and he needs to say something like, “I know my wife told me, but what was your name again?”… Or when we’re in the car with his parents and I’m sending him death rays meant to convey that we need to change the subject NOW or I might explode… well, the stakes are low in those situations. It’s fun if he responds the way I want him to, but if he doesn’t, it’s easy to remind myself that he cannot read my mind.

But when You Must Read My Mind transforms into the more high-stakes version, You Must Read My Mind or You Obviously Don’t Love Me Anymore…

Well, then I think it can be one of the most dangerous games a couple can play. Right up there with “You’re the Woman So You Do That” and “I May or May Not Be Cheating.”

For instance, let’s look at the Case of the Anniversary Flowers that got me thinking about this in the first place.

To me, anniversary flowers are special. They signify that:

a)      my husband remembered our anniversary and

b)      he feels that our anniversary is a special-enough occasion to warrant him going out of his way and doing something unusual and

c)       he recognizes that flowers are special to ME, and he cares enough about me feeling special that he would go out of his way to create that feeling.

LACK of anniversary flowers, on the other hand, signifies that:

a)      my  husband forgot our anniversary or

b)      he feels that our anniversary is NOT special enough to warrant him going out of his way to do something unusual or

c)       his belief that flowers are stupid trumps my belief that flowers are special and lovely, and he doesn’t care enough about making me feel special to go out of his way to create that feeling.

Wowza.

That’s a lot of emotion to pack into a NON-act.

Of course, had my husband actually NOT picked up some flowers, none of those things would be TRUE. In fact, there would have been a whole lot of other points on the list – things like “my husband was so tired that he just couldn’t bear making a stop on the way home” and “he has been so incredibly busy (11 patients at a time!) this rotation that he could not find a minute to call a florist and order some flowers” and “he’s been just as scattered and stressed out as I have been lately, so the idea of flowers just didn’t enter his mind.”

None of those things give any indication that my husband doesn’t love me anymore.

And yet… Even if I TOLD MYSELF that this list is REAL and the list above is FICTION… Well, I’d still wind up feeling hurt and dejected.  As Swistle points out, I would feel like Lack of Flowers MEANS SOMETHING, when in reality it doesn’t.

That’s why, after reading Swistle’s comment, I steeled myself to have A Talk with my husband. (I may have even repeated her little sample script over and over until I’d committed it to memory.)

Because you know what? If I sat there feeling upset about Lack of Anniversary Flowers and let it eat away at me, well, that’s ON ME.

There’s no way my husband can know how much something bothers me unless I tell him because he cannot read my mind.

Now, I’m not saying that telling a person once or even twice will be enough to get him to change his behavior.

And I will admit that some things will never change. (We all know that you can’t REALLY change a person.)

What I AM saying is there is no cause to get bent out of shape about something unless you’ve made your needs known.

For instance, every once in a while, I will get upset. This is an unfortunate aspect of my personality. (I am not without flaws, Internet, SHOCKING as that may be to you.) But when I am upset and just need to vent, all I want is for someone (my husband, not some rando on the street, mind you) to hold me in his arms and understand where I’m coming from and tell me everything will be okay.

My husband, however, has that stereotypical male quirk of wanting to FIX things. So if I am upset about, say, a fight with a friend, he might say things like “She is not a good friend. You should dump her.” or “Why don’t you do such and such?” or “Maybe she thought she was doing X, and you interpreted it as Y.”

This makes me MORE upset, because I feel like he’s dismissing my feelings or he thinks that I’m too dumb to consider taking whatever action he suggested or – worst of all – he’s taking her side.

So then I turn my upsetitude on HIM, and that’s never good. For anyone.

For a long time, I thought it was his fault, for not reading my mind. (HA. I really did think this.) After all, I am pretty good at reading HIS mind. At anticipating HIS needs.

But I realized at some point that this wasn’t fair. Just because I tend to be an intuitive person (and not PERFECT, mind you)… and just because I already KNEW that “fixing the problem” and “forcing someone to see the other side” and “dismissing the person’s feelings” are not appropriate ways to respond to someone who is upset… Well, that doesn’t mean that HE has the same skill set.

So at some point, I stopped getting angry with him and started telling him exactly what I wanted. I needed a hug, even if he didn’t feel like I was very huggable. I needed him to listen and empathize and NOT offer solutions. I needed him to tell me everything was going to be okay.

Guess what? He has started doing those things.

I know it’s hard for him. Especially when I am freaking out about something that doesn’t seem worthy of a freak out. But he has begun hugging, listening quietly, and telling me everything will be okay.

It is… immensely gratifying. Instead of being upset and getting MORE upset, I now get upset and then feel soothed and loved and understood.

(This did not happen overnight. And I may have had to send him an article that proved that I am not the only woman in the universe who responds to stress by having an occasional meltdown.)

The thing is, Telling Him What I Need is not easy.

Sometimes, it’s a Magic Killer. And I, for one, do not LIKE to kill The Magic. Sometimes, it seems like what you REALLY want is for the other person to be thoughtful and considerate and intuitive enough to KNOW without you having to TELL HIM.

You know what I mean, right?

Telling someone that you need flowers on your anniversary is NOT romantic. It may even lessen the delight you might feel at GETTING flowers, because you know that it’s not something the person came up with on his own; no, you expressly TOLD him to get you flowers.

And I hate that. I want romance to be organic – not pre-planned by the recipient.

But even worse than pre-planned romance is NO romance.

Even worse than knowing my husband is following a set If My Wife Freaks Out Do This plan is getting upset and having him try to fix the problem or minimize it or make me see the other side.

Even if I think the Right Course of Action is OBVIOUS, even if I think my husband SHOULD know because for ma’s cake it’s COMMON SENSE, even if I think he should REMEMBER because I got mad LAST TIME and geez! doesn’t he ever listen to me?…

… the fact remains: he cannot read my mind.

If he didn’t know how to ski… nay, if “skiing” had never really been on his radar… it would be unreasonable for me to say “The skis are RIGHT THERE. You should just KNOW to strap them on your feet and point yourself downhill!”

Asking him to read my mind when he doesn’t LIVE in my brain and doesn’t even see the world the way I do… Well, that’s unreasonable too.

Listen, you know this already.

But it took me a long time to figure it out. And it took me an even LONGER time to implement a solution. In fact, I STILL have to Steel Myself to do it. Because it’s not easy. It’s not easy to say, “I need this,” especially – I’ve found – when that need is really important to ME or really inexplicable to my husband.

But Strong Communication seems to me like one of the most critically important parts of a successful relationship. And I need to make an effort. Strong Communication does not happen by accident.

Does all this mean that I am 100% innocent of ever playing You Must Read My Mind? No. I am not innocent.

But I do try to catch myself.

Sometimes I will walk into the kitchen and see that there are dishes NEXT TO the sink rather than IN THE DISHWASHER. Sometimes, that may make me want to yell and cry and dole out hefty doses of The Silent Treatment.

But if I catch myself, and simply take a long-suffering breath and say brightly, “Honey, can you please put your dishes in the dishwasher?” and walk away… well, he does it (eventually) and THERE IS NO FIGHT.

Likewise, if I ask him to do something and he instead sits on the couch and continues to watch football, I have the choice to a) yell at him for never listening to me or b) stomp around and do the thing myself and then stew about it or c) call cheerfully to him that oh, I meant could he do it NOW please?

And he either does it… or he asks if he can do it at a later time… and THERE IS NO FIGHT.

No anger. No resentment. No frustration that he doesn’t UNDERSTAND ME. No melodramatic woe-ing about how he doesn’t LOVE me.

 

If only I could catch myself EVERY TIME.

I am working on it.