To be fucked off at the fact that people won't talk about things?

[cailindana]

I'm a talker. I talk things through, sort things out, move on.

It seems that no one else in my life, bar perhaps my sister, is like that.

My parents won't talk about anything. Everything is passive-aggressive hints, sniffy one-liners. Anything that puts them in a bad light or makes them in any way uncomfortable is absolutely off limits and Must Not Ever Be Mentioned. My sister suffered a birth injury that caused her to be disabled. Did they ever once talk to her about it, tell her what had happened and what was wrong with her? Never, not once. They never ever spoke to their own daughter about her disability. When I tried to talk about being abused, it was all "you're making me feel guilty, get over it." It's never been mentioned since.

Two years ago, a long term friend and I fell out. I fucked up, I apologised, offered to talk it through, she ignored me. The friendship went very quiet. As usual, I made the first move towards reconciliation the other day, and offered to talk about what had happened. Oh no, lets not talk about it, let's just "move on." I will move on, but I am fully aware that her angry reaction was down to a heap of things she's angry about that she won't talk about. Those things are not resolved and I fully expect the friendship to go wrong again. If I don't understand what's bothering her, how can I help? How can the friendship ever improve if we don't communicate?

A different friend fucked up, I was pissed off, brought it up with him in order to get it all out in the open and sort it out. He responded briefly, then went silent. Is still silent, nearly a year later. Just won't talk to me. So, that's the end of that, years of friendship closed down.

My DH has kept silent about things for years, bottled things up. I got so fed up with it (and other things) I was on the edge of leaving. He finally opened up. Says he feels like someone has lifted the world from his shoulders. Side effect is, he cries a lot now - he can't get through even the opening credits of Call the Midwife without being in floods. But he says he feels like he's actually engaging with the world now, looking it in the eye. He talks about everything and I find his thoughts fascinating, it's like meeting a whole new wonderful person.

I see it again and again her on MN too - partners who simply won't talk to each other. It causes such misery.

I don't advocated endlessly wittering on about problems. But I do think that if something's bothering you, there is absolutely no point in storing it up and getting wound up about it - say something for god's sake!

AIBU?

Yes, but you seem to be missing the point that I communicate fine while I'm in a relationship, friendship but I pick my friendships or fall into friendships with people I like, that I get on with, that I talk to. I can't for the life of me imagine being in a friendship that you fuck up that badly that you need this level of reconciliation. I don't say things that hurt my friends and if I did, I'd take responsibility for my own actions.

My friend and I had a good, close relationship before this happened. She put just as much effort as I did into keeping the relationship going over long distance - there were plenty of points at which the relationship could have naturally died (due to moving etc) but she always did her part in keeping it going. She often said how much she liked being my friend, how she missed me etc, and she never brought up any problems. If she had, I would have listened. Then one thing went wrong and that was it, silence.

If a short term acquaintance just stopped talking I'd hardly give it a second thought - their choice, I'm obviously not their cup of tea. But a friend of 15 years with whom I've shared a lot of my life - I would never advise anyone to just walk away from that. At least say "I've had enough I want to end the friendship," but don't just go silent as if the other person is suddenly dead to you. It is incredibly cruel.

Because you're not listening to the fact that someone not wanting to engage with you on your terms is valid - that that's how some people chose to deal with things. You mightn't like it, but that's their choice.

Cailin, I've always liked what I 'saw' of you on here, and thought you sounded sane, level-headed and humorous, often injecting a note of calm into very fraught threads. But - and I say this as someone who is also a talking things through type, so who essentially agrees with your pov - on this issue, you are coming across as didactic and high-handed, as if talking it through is the morally superior mode, and people who can't or won't are moral cowards.

Is this because of your own upbringing?

I have sympathy with that - my parents are, I think, typical of their generation of rural working-class Irish people in that 'whatever you say, say nothing' appears to be their main mode on important issues. Anything I've ever challenged them on (from having far more children than they could afford to the fact that they had a known paedophile priest as a regular visitor with a houseful of children because it would have caused a fuss if they stopped him coming) is greeted with hurt and 'Oh, that's the way things were back then.'

projecting here, but usually the 'talkers' have pent up emotions they want to offload onto someone else - off their shoulders and onto someone elses. great for them, not so good for the person dumped on

I did take responsibility wiggles - I apologised and she ignored it.

Sorry, hit 'send' too soon. But I still need to accept that, even in longterm friendships, I can't force my modus operandi on other people. A longterm friend is currently badgering me for more contact, and the more she pushes, the less I feel like actually explaining that things are personally difficult at the moment, and when that happens, I withdraw from all friendships because the effort is too exhausting.

I have never said anything about being morally superior Rat or mentioned the word "coward." Others have said not talking lacks backbone - I don't agree. I don't know what's going on with people who won't talk, that's why I want to understand it. The answer here seems to be "that's just what they've decided to do," which I find unsatisfying but I suppose I have to accept that. I still don't like the fact that I can be friends with someone for half my life, share such a lot with them and they can just drop me when they feel like it. It is something I would never do.

cailin, about your friend, as a non talker it does sound an unlikely friendship, i would tend to avoid people who feel a need to, as i see it, overshare. but you two have been good friends a long time. it sounds like maybe there is more going on with your friend perhaps? could this silence be a sign of depression for example?

Just reading your OP, i understand that's how you are, but TBH, I want to choose who & how I talk with people. You sound as though you could feel to others to be quite intrusive.

Sometimes I want to talk things out, sometimes I don't.

The thing I get from your OP is that you seem to make almost a moral judgement or a value judgement that your way is better, or more healthy or something.

My mother could be a bit like this -- she had very little sense of boundaries or my right to the privacy of my feelings. My response to her was to clam up & protect myself in a way I wouldn't necessarily do in response to others. Because she thought it was OK to tell me how I felt, and to tell others that she always knew what I was thinking.

You're the way you are, and you think that's a better way than others. But it's not necessarily, so YABU to get demanding & angry (yes, I read anger in your OP) to expect others to be like you.

It's tough but I think you need to back off.

I don't know in what way you fucked up with your friend, cailin, but to me she sounds like a decent person who has been badly hurt by you. Can't you respect that and let her deal with the aftermath in her way?

Well tbf I'm assuming she wouldn't have dropped you if you hadn't have hurt her.

I have never said anything about being morally superior

You said that not talking was toxic. This does imply a somewhat morally superior attitude on your part.

I am very annoyed about a being dropped after a 15 year friendship, yes, but I have never been angry or demanding with her. She said she was annoyed about what happened, I apologised, she ignored me. That was the end of that.

YANBU. Traumatic, mad things could happen and the family I grew up in would respond by never, ever mentioning them again, and pretending everything was supernormal, even when it clearly wasn't. And if you challenged that facade, or scratched the surface, you quickly saw that there were nasty undercurrents of rage suppressed beneath. I find it very inauthentic, and unnerving, and it got to the point that I had to break contact with that family because I couldn't just go on smiling and drinking tea and playing the game.

I think it comes from living in a society where "getting on with it" is valued above openness and authenticity, particularly with the baby boomer generation and older. (I've a theory this is all war related but that's another thread!) I'm not advocating endless whinging, but it strikes me as very sad that people close themselves off, and don't get the help that they need, often because they don't want to "complain."

Ok, so to clarify what hurt her. I didn't text her directly after having my DD, as I was exhausted, understandably from being in labour for 12 hours. I called only immediate family and then put an announcement up on facebook, which she is normally on a lot.

She then texted me the day after and it was clear she didn't know DD was born, so I texted back saying she'd been born and a photo. I got no response, so I asked what was wrong and she said she thought I'd text her. I apologised and explained I hadn't had a chance to text everyone, I'd just put an announcement up on facebook but was going to call her that evening. I said I totally understood why she was hurt and was very sorry.

No response. For two years.

Her response (or lack of) seems very odd - there must be more going on in her head than just that?

See I think that's a very petty thing for her to take the nick at, so I understand less why you feel the need to talk to her again, why you are letting this bother you.

YY Eliza, my family are a whole other ballgame.

My mother's brother lost a baby to SIDS, everyone went to the funeral and then it was literally never once ever mentioned again. I said once, as a child, in front of my uncle and his wife that I really liked the baby's name and my mother told me to shut up. I ran out and my uncle's wife followed me and kissed me - I felt so incredibly sad for her, having to live in all that silence.

Being open to 'talking things out' (and actually, what do you need to talk out here, given that she expressed annoyance with your behaviour and you apologised?) requires a lot of trust in the other person. Trust that they won't use the conversation as an excuse to be defensive and self-justificatory and critical. Maybe your friend just doesn't have this trust in you any more and, if she resumes the friendship, would prefer to keep it at a casual level?

I'm "letting it bother me" because my friendships mean a lot to me wiggles, I can't just switch it off.

Actually, having read your account of what happened, I do think that was very petty of her. I thought you'd done something much worse!

How would I know Irene, if she won't tell me?

Thing is, if she was fuming, I'd have been fine with that. She could have just told me why she was fuming and we'd have worked it out somehow. But the silence just entirely cut me off.

You see to me her reaction is just a big drama about something that has precious little to do with her. If I were you I'd be thinking I'm well rid and not giving her a second thought, but I think I've we've discovered we are very different fish.