Eve had a lump removed from her breast. Shortly after the operation, talking to her sister, she said that she found it upsetting to have been cut into, and that looking at the stitches was distressing because they left a seam that had changed the contour of her breast. Her sister said, “I know. When I had my operation I felt the same way.” Eve made the same observation to her friend Karen, who said, “I know. It’s like your body has been violated.” But when she told her husband, Mark, how she felt, he said, “You can have plastic surgery to cover up the scar and restore the shape of your breast.”
Eve had been comforted by her sister and her friend, but she was not comforted by Mark’s comment. Quite the contrary, it upset her more. Not only didn’t she hear what she wanted, that he understood her feelings, but, far worse, she felt he was asking her to undergo more surgery just when she was telling him how much this operation had upset her.
“I’m not having any more surgery!” she protested. “I’m sorry you don’t like the way it looks.” Mark was hurt and puzzled.
“I don’t care,” he protested. “It doesn’t bother me at all.”
She asked, “Then why are you telling me to have plastic surgery?”
He answered, “Because you were saying you were upset about the way it looked.”
Eve felt like a heel: Mark had been wonderfully supportive and concerned throughout her surgery. How could she snap at him because of what he said-“just words”-when what he had done was unassailable? And yet she had perceived in his words metamessages that cut to the core of their relationship. It was self-evident to him that his comment was a reaction to her complaint, but she heard it as an independent complaint of his. He thought he was reassuring her that she needn’t feel bad about her scar because there was something she could do about it. She heard his suggestion that she do something about the scar as evidence that he was bothered by it. Furthermore, whereas she wanted reassurance that it was normal to feel bad in her situation, his telling her that the problem could easily be fixed implied she had no right to feel bad about it.
Mark assumed the role of problem solver, whereas she simply wanted confirmation for her feelings.
-Deborah Tannen
Copyright © 1991 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
