How “Keeping the Peace” Is Hurting Your Relationship
Do you shut down what you really want to say just to end the conversation?
Shove aside your feelings just to keep the peace?
When your partner asks what you want, do you respond, “Whatever you want!” …and when they pick the option that you secretly didn’t want, do you speak up?
Keeping the peace feels like it maintains stability in our relationships, but in reality, it destabilizes them.
If you’re in relationships that require you to suppress your needs to maintain stability, I invite you to pause and sit with this for a moment. What do you fear will happen if you show up fully? What is the cost of having a relationship contract that only allows parts of yourself to exist?
It might be true that your partner/friend/family member will have a hard time hearing how you really feel or what you really think. After all, some of them entered this relationship with a different version of you, the “you” that you chose to present.
However, it might also be true that they’re more capable of navigating this than you know, and perhaps past experiences have clouded your ability to recognize it.
If this resonates with you, chances are that at some point in time, you learned that expressing your feelings upset those around you. This might have looked like being told to “Suck it up and figure it out” as a child. It might have looked like witnessing a parent becoming overwhelmingly dysregulated when you were upset.
When you grow up minimizing your experience, you internalize that your experience is “wrong.” You prioritize others’ feelings above your own, learning to avoid your discomfort to regulate others (Examples: You didn’t complain because your dad would get angry. You didn’t express fear because your mom would panic.) You begin to believe that what’s happening for you doesn’t matter, and that sharing it with others is a road that leads to nowhere.
As a child, your brain adapts. It finds ways to maintain connection by existing as you “should.” The problem is that it was never your job to regulate your parents. It was never your job to figure out what upset them and how to avoid it. But there were consequences to the alternative, so you had no other choice.
As an adult, the survival strategies you once developed often become less effective. You encounter new people who want to know you. People who care about your needs, your feelings, and your desires. But your brain has learned to shut these down. It’s learned to say, “Whatever you want!”
Yet underneath the surface, you simmer. And now the people in your relationship are confused. They’re hurt when you finally explode with your unmet needs. “Keeping the peace” doesn’t keep the peace at all.
Communicating is vulnerable and uncertain. Vulnerability and uncertainty suck. But while the short-term consequence of expressing yourself is uncomfortable, the long-term consequence of keeping the peace is exhausting.
So, ask yourself – what do I fear will happen if I say what I really need? Is the long-term consequence of ignoring this need worth avoiding short-term discomfort? If you’re used to keeping the peace but it’s no longer working, perhaps it’s time to explore the alternative.