The Assertiveness Thread!!

[grundrisse]

OK, so I am not very good at assertiveness. I tend to end up in the camp of passive-aggressive or hostile. I am trying to improve my skills - I realise this is to do with practice.

One problem I have is that when something happens that really needs a response, I freeze. My mind goes blank and I panic. My PIL are extremely bullying and passive-aggressive and they use the pause to their advantage. So I am trying to get in training for Christmas by thinking through some likely scenarios an working out my response.

I am really hoping others want to join in with their own examples, for entirely selfish reasons! I think I can probably learn a lot from thinking through other situations as well. Please indulge me!!

"I am offended by your comment, I think you should apologise"

Watch out mousy, the cat's hungry

"That is rude, don't speak to me like that"

"What did you say?"

"I am still speaking"

"I will speak to you when you are calm"

All said with eye contact and icy calm yourself. Do not be provoked into raising your voice or being rude yourself.

and breathe....

You know that thing where you think of a great come back at 4am? That's because you are trying to tailor the response to the initial attack. You don't have to be that clever.

Raised eyebrow and Okaay works so well because it is the generic, works in all situations solution. You can do it every single time the moment your catty-bitch-radar goes off. Train yourself to have it as your "freeze reaction".

I like it extra because if the person didn't mean to be rude or aggressive it is easy for them to explain and you both to move on with a laugh and be all friendly afterwards.

You need a next step too, if she escalates and challenges your okaaay (which she will after she's had a few 4am moments of her own). My favourite is "It was a such a strange thing to say." Remember you don't need to defend or justify your actions or reactions unless you are in an actual court of law.

As for aggression: You must always exit the conversation if voices are raised to you, if there is a direct personal verbal attack on you, if there is even the slightest physical aggression, invasion of your personal space. "I won't talk to you when you are like this" Walk off. This is the time to be rude.

Your DH will be learning from you soon. What has BIL done that is so successful?

Oh my God, you guys are RIGHT. I need to be more decisive. I'm so confused about this, but it's really, really helpful to get views from people who are better at it.

I am making a notebook called 'Grundrisse's Assertive Survival Guide' that I can read through to calm me down and to try to 'rehearse' for some of the situations that I can be certain will come up. The eyebrow raise technique is now firmly in there!!

Part of the issue I suffer from a really unusual verbal problem. I don't even know what to call it - a tic? A psychological speech defect? I've never really seen anyone else quite like me (in terms of being so awful at it, I'm sure there are people who can identify though!). When I'm talking to someone, especially someone I don't know well, I am very nervous. I try to think of the perfect way to encapsulate what I'm saying, and I am in a state of great anxiety about how what I'm saying will 'go over'. This means I often start editing myself half way through, to the point that the end of the sentence will sometimes not really match the grammar of the start of the sentence. I often end up with the verb in the wrong place. This started when I was quite old - at about 18, at around the time when I started to realise how abnormal my background was (don't want to go into details here but lots of abuse of all kinds).

I need to be more concise, and more clear and to be comfortable in my own skin with that. I don't want to approach these situations with so much anxiety any more.

For the record, I don't think PIL would yell any more (FIL was like this to DH when DH was a small boy). They are utterly and completely PA.

Mindfulness then.....have experience with not-very-nice inlaws.

I get nervous when I have to speak to them... there is no point in trying to be reasonable with them; they see that as a weakness.

I now calm myself before talking to them about anything (weather, cats, whatevs) - FIL in particular can slip a nasty remark in before you realise what he has done.

Lots and lots of mindfulness and assserting myself where it doesnt matter so that I have the practice under my belt for when it does.

Oh and do look at Amy Cuddy

Did it take you a long time to learn how to be so assertive? How did you learn?

I went to a great weekend assertiveness course, bought a couple books, and just practised stating my needs in low-stakes situations, and getting used to the feeling of transgression ("Oh surely I'm not allowed to be so direct and so bold!") until it started to feel normal:

Practise returning an item at a shop.

Practise telling your boss that your workload means you can't do task B while you also still have task A on your plate, so he has to tell you: which one of the two is the priority that you will work on? (no, you can't do both).

Practise saying no to telemarketers and street-side donation drives (you can still donate online if you like the cause, but you don't have to be interrupted at home or on the street when you have other priorities right then, iyswim).

Practise asking for what you want, not just what you need: ask for pear rather than apple in the apple-mango-raspberry smoothie at the smoothie place. Just ask them, even if the recipe on the billboard says something else. They can say no. But you can ask for what you want.

Do all this without apology or explanation, just by stating your own position: "I want to return this item. I can do either A or B. I don't have time to speak to you. I want X." etc.

Practice makes perfect!

Have you been through all the worst case scenarios? So what if something you say goes over badly? What's the worst that could happen? I bet it isn't actually that bad.

Have you considered practising PIL conversations proactively instead of reactively? The two options that immediately spring to mind are:

1. opening yourself up to their comments at a time of your choosing. I bet you know what to say that will definitely lead to a snotty comment. Plan it, do it, see if your prediction of their behaviour was correct, and how your response worked.
2. play act, role play with DH where one of you pretends to be the PIL. That could be a lot of fun especially after a couple of drinks

Above all, remember, you are not trying to keep the peace, you are trying to ensure that the people in your house treat you with respect.

(Which means ultimately that either they treat you with respect or they leave your house).

I do need to practice!

I think it is something quite specific. I am actually good at the practical stuff where I don't have a relationship with the person. I can return stuff in shops. I can complain in a way that gets action taken without being angry. I can do prepared public speaking without nerves. I feel quite comfortable doing those things, to the point that friends will ask me to do them for them.

It's when I interact with people I know and have a relationship with that the problems with articulating things suddenly start. I think I have particular issues with PIL because in situations where I'm assertive (shops, etc) I am polite and firm but nice, though I do have a Steely Voice that I can bring out if necessary. PIL's schtick is a bit different. I feel that they deliberately ignore all social hints and clues (even of the not-so-subtle variety) to get their own way. Their behaviour has for many years been excused by DH and BIL as 'They mean well, but they're just socially clueless'. It's only since I and BIL's partner came on the scene that this perception has shifted toward 'Oh my goodness, they are actually really passive-aggressive'.

They put me in a place where I feel I have to be what I have formerly thought to be 'rude' to get my message across. I have done so on a couple of occasions. Once I was driving them to a dinner (because I was the only one not drinking) down a dual carriageway and FIL (terrible backstreet driver) started shouting in the back of the car, because he thought I was going to collide with a lorry. I was nowhere near the lorry - it was parked on the hard shoulder and I was in the left hand lane!! However, the sudden yelling was dangerous in itself because it was startling. I very firmly said 'I need to drive, please be quiet'. There followed scene after scene of apologizing of the kind that made me feel really bad for having said anything. I think this probably says everything about the way control is used in their relationships!!

I realise now that it's not actually 'rude' to push back, but I am going to need to practice going there before I feel OK with it.

Backstreet driver?! BackSEAT!

He is not a Backstreet Boy. Alas.

Ooh that's very PA....
"you've asserted yourself, but it's hurt my feelings, so now you have to fix it"?
Is it like that?

You're not being rude...and if you continue to play the game, they continue to get what they want (and you don't).

I often think that this type of passiveness with the sneaky (but well thought through) remark, is harder to manage versus the shouty, clearly unreasonable type.

Yes, it's always done in such a way that they can maintain the idea that 'we're nice people, just a bit socially tone deaf'. It's a bumbling, bludgeoning kind of behaviour- this is not incisive scapel-like nastiness, rather a bull-in-a-china-shop attitude to pursuit of their own wishes. Behind it is not a calculated intention to wound with utter dexterity and finesse but a lack of care whether others get wounded in their head-on pursuit of their own way. They choose not to 'see' other people - we are all just assumed to want exactly what they do, and it requires a push of considerable force to get them to acknowledge you!

When you are with them, you are allowed no private space. I don't just mean that we have to do everything together all day every day (though that is wearing enough), nor that there has to be constant and excessive social noise and clatter (including being woken up quite literally in the middle of the night for no reason), but that the idea that you might be a private person with private feelings and desires that don't concur with theirs does not even occur to them.

Never try to get into specifics - be ready with stock phrase to bat back immediately - for every occasion these people never engage brain and gob so that they have to explain themselves ...

"Is that what you think?"

Or

"What do you mean by that?"

Neither are aggressive - can be used for anything - practice in the mirror and on other occasions to you hear it out loud....

ummmm

this is not incisive scapel-like nastiness....Behind it is not a calculated intention to wound with utter dexterity and finesse"

See, I can't square your interpretation with a MIL who can immediately come back with
I bet you couldn't have done it without the cat either - I bought Grund a sign that says 'behind every great man is a great cat'

That's pretty incisively nasty.

I wonder if, in fact, your own reasonableness and flexibility of thinking is overly generous to them?

You have analysed the situation very well: they don't allow for other people to have their own space or their own minds.

So your job is to assert, repeatedly, your space and your mind. Because they're never going to do you the kindness of thinking you have the right to either of those things.

It sounds from your description that you need to add a lot of sentences to your arsenal, such as:

"I need to sleep."
"I am going to do X activity alone out of the house today."
"That's nice, but I am doing X right now."

Your response to FIL in the car was perfect, btw. Who was doing all the apologising afterwards: him, or you? If it's him, just thank him and cut off the stream, again with more "I" statements: "Thank you. I don't need any more apologies, I'm just glad you understand the danger."

"I" statements are really confusing to the controlling, since a) they don't really see you as a separate entity, and b) they can't fight them.

Hilary- I can understand it might read that way. And I am not excusing it or being generous to them in any way when I say it's all done with a veneer of cluelessness. Because I think there is definite calculation there, but it's more about complete selfishness than an intent to wound in an overtly bitchy way. Its kind of worse, in a way, because being a bitch to someone is a kind of negative acknowledgement of their separate existence. It's almost like I'm not even a person to them, if you see what I mean.

I should add that MIL regularly talks to me like a small child, which is also very strange (e.g. asking me what santa is going to bring me, and there's only a bit of a nudge and a wink about it. I'm 38).

Rice- '"I" statements are really confusing to the controlling, since a) they don't really see you as a separate entity, and b) they can't fight them.' I LOVE this. It it what I consistently fail to do as well. I need to feel comfortable claiming the 'I' in my conversations with them. I have this inherent guilt that says that saying 'I feel hurt' is burdening other people. I realise this is silly.

(It was FIL who kept apologising btw).

"I feel hurt" is actually really empowering.

The hurt belongs to the person feeling it...it's theirs and their responsibility to do something about it.

At the moment, you are caring for everyone else but not yourself.

Why do you think you should look after others feelings but not your own?