“My marriage is important to me but,” is what a client said to me one day. He then proceeded to talk about how busy work was, how he needed to spend two hours at the gym to relieve the stress, and how he had to play golf both days of the weekend to stay connected to clients. In other words, why his marriage wasn’t really all that important to him.
In my world, words matter. My clients often think I am playing grammar gymnastics when I suggest different wording for what just came out of their mouths. But your words reveal your true thoughts and feelings about something. By the way, this is just one of the many reasons not to speak in anger. Deep down inside a part of you believes what you’re saying.
What my client did, and what you probably do, is use what my friend Ed Riggins calls eraser words. An eraser word is one that signals you to discount or minimize what was just said and to pay close attention to what comes next. Some examples of eraser words are ‘however’, ‘nonetheless’, and ‘anyway’. But the most common and biggest offender eraser word is ‘but’. As soon as that word shows up it means that what you just said isn’t true, that what you are about to say is how you really think or feel.
Two kissing cousins of eraser words that show up in marriage are ‘if’ and ‘when’. These words are often spoken silently, and you use them to let yourself off the hook for something you know is the right thing to do. I hear it all the time from clients. “Why should I have to do this when my wife doesn’t?” “I’ll be nice to my wife when she is nice to me.”
Eraser words and their relatives keep the focus on you, not your relationship. They lead to scorekeeping and power struggles. To resentment and contempt. To the death of your love and the demise of your marriage.
What are your words exposing? Is it what you want to share?
What do your wife’s words give away? Is it what you want to hear?
Beware of eraser words. They reveal more than you know.
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This post was previously published on Foundations Coaching.
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