Have you ever had a relationship in which you could be completely honest?
I don’t mean to imply that we’re liars, but that sometimes, we speak in code. Or we feel one way while acting like we feel another. We gunnysack all the things that bother us until we don’t like the person who does them (or until we explode). We avoid expressing ourselves explicitly because, frankly, we don’t want what we want from whom we want it unless we can get it without asking.
And when we don’t get what we want, we sincerely cannot believe such a frustrating turn of events. How dare [so-and-so] not do [such-and-such], even after I dropped an almost unending series of extremely vague hints?
If you’ve been there (and you have. Don’t lie!), you know that it is frustrating. And fruitless. It stunts growth. Assumptions don’t work where communication is required.
I’ll leave it to two famous guys to prove my point:
“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” -George Bernard Shaw
and
“Assumptions are the termites of relationships.” -Henry Winkler
?