Podcast: https://bit.ly/3HyRc36

Another cause of “no news” is mind reading. Or failed mind reading, as the case may be. 

You want something, or you really need something in your marriage to change. But you don’t think your spouse will do what you want, so you don’t bother to communicate the desire. You figure you’re doing both of you a favour by avoiding a needless argument. 

There are two problems with this. The first is most of us are horrible at mind reading. We may be projecting our fear onto our spouse. We may be thinking they are the person who rejected certain things in the past, when in fact they have grown and changed. Or we might be selling short their willingness to do things for us because they love us.

The other problem is our spouse never gets a chance to wrestle with whatever. Even if their first reaction had been no, they might have changed their mind after considering it, or hearing it from you a few more times. 

Beyond that, if you don’t ask for things you assume they will reject, they have no idea how many things you need that you are not getting. They may tell themselves they are doing well, as they almost never say no to you. They feel no need to give you more because your failed mind reading has resulted in them not seeing your unmet needs.

Here is a truth you need to realise: If you didn’t ask, you have not been told no.

~ This is Paul, and Doing Marriage Well never involves mind reading.

Propagating strawberries.

We are moving them to a new location, and this area will soon be turkey yard. So we are leaving the weeds for them.

Image Credit: © Paul H Byerly created with ideogram.ai & Paul Byerly
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