Mary Jane's Niche

The two virtues of assertiveness and tact complement one another and, when practiced, can make your personal life much easier. Assertiveness means saying what you think and how you feel, and tact means saying these things in a gentle, nonoffensive way. People usually get into more trouble in relationships by not being direct or by being tactless and hurting other people’s feelings.

Sometimes, we attempt to control other people to give us what we want through criticism or verbal assault. Instead of trying to control the other person to meet our needs, we should just make a simple, positive request, that’s how we do it if we call on the virtues of assertiveness and tact. For example, if your partner is away from you more than you’d like, you could say, “I need to have regular time with you to just be together.” This delivers a much more effective message than “You don’t care about me,” or “Obviously I don’t mean anything to you…”

When we are tactless, we embroil ourselves in angry or unfulfilled relationships. We often express ourselves without stopping to think about how our words will affect other people. We can hardly simplify our lives when we are not getting along with the people who are important to us. And when we are not assertive, nobody knows what we want or need, so we go around with long faces wondering why people are not cooperating. During my first few years with Tim (we’ve been in a relationship for almost 9 years now), if I was angry at him, and he would ask me what was wrong, I would just snort, turn my back, or hang my head low and say, “Oh nothing. Just please go away and let me be.” Then, of course, I would just be upset that he did not do whatever I thought he ought to be doing. I did not have the nerve to tell him what I really wanted or how I really feel . And it does take nerve to tell people how we’re feeling. We’re always afraid we will hurt their feelings, or that they won’t understand, or they’ll be angry, whatever.

(more…)