Why Should I Talk?

Almost all the people I know keep complaining to me that I talk very less. The queries keep pouring from all corners, Why don't you talk? How can you not talk for so long? Why don't you say something? and the list goes on.

I wonder what all the fuss is all about. I believe people don't talk for two reasons.

The first being they have a lot to say, they want to talk but don't know how to say it and are afraid of expressing whats inside them. The other being that there is not much inside to come out and there is no genuine reason to talk.  

I belong to the second category. I don't understand why I should talk just for the heck of it. If I have something to say I will definitely say it, but just muttering out something just because my mouth is free doesn't make sense.

When we are together my wife keeps telling me say something, don't be silent. I feel as if two people who know each other just cannot sit together and be silent. When they are silent it feels as if there is an undercurrent of tension between the two and the tension can be broken only by talking to each other. I feel this tension forces us to say something or the other in that situation.

I just wonder is speech the only way to communicate with the people we know. In case of strangers it's understandable that we need to talk to build a relationship, but what about the people whom we know intimately. Even with the people whom we share every thing in life, do we have to talk to express. Can't we just sit together hold hands and just enjoy each other company? Why do we feel uncomfortable when we are together and we don't talk?

One more thing that baffles me is that when two people talk, what I notice is that both are interested in saying something and nobody is interested in listening to what the other person says. It's like when one person talks the other person is preparing himself to say what he wants to say, rather than listen to what the other person is saying. It's not Talk & Listen routine that goes on but Talk & Talk keeps happening. So the end result is that both the persons have talked without listening to one another. I wonder what the heck did they talk? Was it a dialogue between two people or just each person doing his own monologue.

If this is the case that happens most of the time, then whats the point of replying to the other person. I can just keep quite and the other person will say what he wants to say in-spite of me saying anything. So I believe it's just better to keep quite, let the other person finish his speech and move on. There is no point replying him, since he will not listen to me anyway.

So the summary is :

People like to say something

They expect you to listen to them

They expect you to reply back

But they will not listen to your reply and

They will get angry if you don't reply or talk and

They will say YOU DON'T TALK.

Does it make any sense?

For more interesting articles on Human behavior check out my other posts at Confessions of a Family Man blog

Why do People Change after Marriage?

I always tend to here this from Husbands and Wives "You have changed so much after marriage" or "you are not same person whom I met before marriage". Well most of the times the statements are true and I keep wondering what is that about marriage which forces people to change.

So let's start by listing out the major changes that marriage brings in the lives of the couple and may be this information can lead to the causes for people transforming after marriage.

1. Sharing of living space

2. Sharing of money earned

3. Sharing of ambitions in life

4. Sharing of each other extended families

So basically what happens is instead having your own living space, money, goals and families, we have share all these with our partners after marriage.

But does sharing all these things really cause so much change in peoples behavior?

Do we really share everything with our spouse or we just give them access into our life with a lot of conditions attached?

Are we really and completely open minded that we allow our partners an unrestricted and no holds barred access to our life?

The answer is we are not.

In the Honeymoon period we are eager and excited to share each others space, love and opinions with an open mind. We tend to share all the good looking, sweet smelling aspects of ourselves initially with much enthusiasm, but as when the reserves of these sweet things gets exhausted we become confused. We start looking for more good stuff in our closet and after some time there will be nothing new to share. As time roles on all the things that where wonderful, sweet, cute and sexy in our partner tends to be taken for granted. It becomes a every day routine, it looses it's freshness and our partner looses their mystic.

With marriage there is no more need to impress each other as there is no more uncertainty and insecurity in the relationship. So we tend to take each other for granted and from this point on the game reaches the next stage.

Till now we have experienced the best the other person can offer, now it's time to make them give us what we want. When the relationship is new we accept our partners exactly as they were but when we start taking them for granted we expect them to be the way we want them to be. So we try to impose our image of a perfect wife/husband on our partners. We ask each other to dress in certain way, to talk in a certain way, to behave in a manner which we thing is appropriate. Whatever we thought was sexy in our partner before marriage tends to become boring and inappropriate, whatever we thought was adventurous behavior becomes silly and childish. Slowly we start to impose ourselves on each other and start changing each other into objects which fulfill over desires and fantasies.

Over time Husband and Wife looses their individuality and turn each other to mere objects. Wife becomes an object to fulfill husband's need of sex, she becomes a nanny, a babysitter, a caretaker and also a source of good income, she very rarely is treated as a beloved, a friend or as a lover. The is true for the husband also.

The two individuals who loved each other and decided to share each others lives, turn each other into mere objects. One day when we just pause and look, we realize that the person with whom I lived for so many years is not the same person whom I married. Then we ask him/her

"You have changed so much after marriage, you are not same person whom I met before marriage".

So why did our partner changed so much after marriage, because we wanted and forced them to.

JKS

What are My Wife's Expectations

After 4 years of marriage I keep asking myself this question a lot. What is it that my Wife wants from me.

In the first year the journey was unbelievably smooth. Believe it or not we never had an argument, there was not even a single skirmish. This spotless record lasted for a full 1 year until the newest member of our family entered into our lives. Our child was welcomed with great joy and love from the entire family.

We as a couple never had time to think about anything else other than our son. Things started to change when his late night and loud awakenings started. We got to know what the power of a crying baby really is, it was touching us at all levels. The stress and anxiety were boiling to a peak and his consistent late night timing was adding fuel to the fire. It took a toll on us and more so on my wife. As she was the one who was with him 24/7 the impact was very high on her.

This was the situation in which our first arguments started. She used to get angry no matter what I did or not do. I was immature and was doing my best to add further heat to the situation, instead of understanding her situation I was more interested in defending myself and pointing fingers at her. The situation got worse day by day and one day it peaked to a point of almost a total breakdown, were we felt as if talking to each other was a total waste of time.

That night I was forced to reflect on what has happened and how can an absolute joyful relationship can turn into a hopeless one in a matter of few months. I made the usual excuse of our child playing the part in this whole scenario but on further contemplation I realized that he might have been the trigger point, the matchstick but the actual fuel was inside both of us. I thought of a lot of reasons for why this deterioration of the relationship should happen and the end of it I could not get any answers. Finally I decided that, it's me who have to take the responsibility and analyse what makes me and my wife get angry on each other and what exactly do we expect from each other.

I started to work on my patience and started observing her behavior a lot. After almost three years of observation and study I think I have made a cut  and am able take a peek into her mind.

These are the things I was able to derive what she expects from me.

1. Complete wholehearted attention

Talking to her while watching TV or working on the computer makes her go mad. She wants me to be with her both physically and mentally even if it is for a short period. This I learnt the hard way after facing her wrath on many occasions.

2. Spend quality time with her and my son

She expects me to be with her and play with my son everyday. She doesn't care on how much time I spend with her, but on how much I was involved with her. It's the quality and not quantity that matters here.

3. Do not compare

This is a no brainer. Nobody likes to be compared with anybody else, it's the same with her.

4. Do not tell her how to do things

She likes her style of doing things and doesn't like me interfering in her work. The rule is not to give advice unless and until it is asked for.

5. Don't discourage her

She expects me to support her in whatever she does. But I have other opinions, the least she expects is not to discourage her. So I just let her know that I am not supporting her in that scenario and I just let her go ahead in whatever she wants to do. Sometime she fails, when it happens I make sure I am there for her move on. We don'y like to talk much on each others failures. We just move on.

These expectations looks simple on paper but takes a lot determination to follow in real life. Most of the time my ego and my instinct of belittling her take over and I falter. By day by day things are improving and peace is settling in the relationship.

Our relationship is not perfect but I am sure that by understanding my wife's expectations of me I can avoid the bumps and path-holes of our lives and make the journey a lot more joyful, happier and enjoyable.

JKS

How To Make Children Listen

I am a father to a 3 year old lad and he is definitely not the type who listens or even has inclination to do what he is told to do. As all the parents do I tried all the methods to make him listen and do what I want him to do.

I tried seducing him with sweet treats, it works the initial 5 attempts with degrading efficiency on each attempt,

I tried black mailing by describing mean extra terrestrial creature who will come and snatch his favorite thing (which changes on a weekly basis), it didn’t even make scratch on him on the contrary he enjoyed the whole drama.

I tried voice modulation techniques (also read as shouting at various sound levels), which basically results in me having sore throat and he matching my voice with his own version of Voice Modulation (which makes it impossible for me to maintain my prosthetic harsh look at him and stop laughing at his antics).

There where other stupid techniques that were tried and as usual failed  drastically.

As all hopes failed and all the internet based techniques failed to show any results, I remembered somebody telling me that ” Children learn the most by imitating”.

If imitation is their way of learning and if parents are the obvious choice to imitate then all I had to do was do the things that I want him to do myself in front of him.

I thought about it and contemplated a lot on this idea and wanted to try this method also.

The first thing I did was to put all his toys back to Toy Bag after his daily exploits, without asking him to do any of it. The first two days he ignored but the third day he joined me in putting his toys back in the bag. Then I starting having dinner at same time when my wife feeds him with all the skills of a Car Salesman, Lawyer and  Barathnatyam Dancer combined. He observed the poise with which we have our food and the enjoyment of it. It took some time and by about 10 days he started asking for his own plate and insisted that he will handle his food himself .

After about a month things started to fall in place.

THIS IDEA WORKS

We started to do things the way we want our three year old to do it and slowly, one by one the pieces in the puzzle are starting to fall in place.

There are some Off-Days when things go out of control and our Hero manages to get on our nerves. But at end of the day before sleeps envelopes me, I contemplate  on why this Off-Day happened. I by and large feel that we as his parents have something wrong. Either our behavior, our speech was not on par or our love for him on that day was not 100%.

Slowly every day I keep realizing that if we (parents) start observing ourselves, our behavior, our attitudes towards various aspect of life, our priorities and try correct many of the shortfalls in our own selves, then our children will automatically follow us. We don’t have to teach them a lot, they learn a lot quicker than us and are definitely a lot smarter than us. All we have to do is to make sure that environment in which they grow is fertile with vibrant energy, proper attitudes, calmness and great role models. Our children will on their own blossom into awesomely fragrant and energetic Human Beings, who will definitely make this place into a far better one than we have done so far.

JKS

Hyper Smash

P.S: It's just the beginning, the journey of experiments and self discovery continues........