Have you ever been in a situation where someone is upset with you, and you don’t know why?
More often than not you know why someone is upset with you. But sometimes it is baffling. This happened to me years ago. I took my dog to the dog park every day. I had my *dog park friends*. These were people with whom I socialized while our dogs played. One, I will call Mary. We hung out. We threw ball after ball for our dogs. We chatted. Then one day, she just would not talk to me. She went to another part of the park. This was the biggest wall of silence I have ever encountered. I asked mutual dog park friends what was wrong. And no one would talk. They knew, but did not want to get involved. I begged her to just tell me what was wrong. Nothing. I never did find out.
The point is that not knowing was very hard. You can’t fix a problem without discussion. I figured there must be a simple misunderstanding. I said or did something that was taken the wrong way. If Mary would have talked, I could have cleared things up and we could have been dog park friends again. Or at the very least we be civil.
The reason I bring this up is because I know someone who is unhappy with a neighbor. There is a language barrier so they can’t just chat over the fence. She has left nice notes on their gate. They have been something like I care about you and I hate seeing you so unhappy and frustrated when there is a very simple solution. My friend has extended the olive branch so to speak. The neighbor does not respond. So, the neighbor continues to be very frustrated over a situation. And does not even try to work on the neighbor relationship.
What would make the difference? Asking. The neighbor does not even try to understand the issues between the two neighbors. If the neighbor would ask, to understand, things could be worked out. Just like my situation with Mary. All it would take to work things out would be to ask and clear up any misunderstanding.
If you are having problems with someone, and you don’t know why, ask. Now they may react like Mary, and just not tell you. They may think you should already know, and you need to figure it out on your own. Or maybe they want to *punish* you with their silence. That probably has a solution. But if they won’t tell you there is nothing you can do about that. But if they are interested in working things out, they will tell you.
If, you ask and get no response, it is possible that you can figure out with some guided questions from someone like me. The answer is within your grasp. Sometimes it is hard to see it yourself.
RAT: Relationship Acceptance Training
If you need help with any sort of relationship, spouse, parent-child, friends, co-workers, or neighbors, I do what I call Relationship Acceptance Training. Helping people to get to the source of the issue. Then, learn to accept each other as they are versus trying to change the other. Now, people have to be willing to work things out. We can’t have any *Marys* in this training. People have to at least be willing to talk. But if the other person is a Mary, we can try to work with that. The Mary in the scenario is meeting a need by keeping a tight lip, but we can help Mary meet that need on a higher level to get her willing to talk and work on the relationship.
Remember: It takes communication to work through any relationship issues. If you don’t know the why, ask.
Happy relationships!
Coach
www.facebook.com/lisaylifecoach