I Only Say this Because I Love You

One "I Can't Even Open My Mouth" Separating Messages from Metamessages in Family Talk Do you really need another piece of cake?" Donna asks George. "You bet I do," he replies, with that edge to his voice that implies, "If I wasn't sure I needed it before, I am darned sure now." Donna feels hamstrung. She knows that George is going to say later that he wished he hadn't had that second piece of cake. "Why are you always watching what I eat?" George asks. "I was just watching out for you," Donna replies. "I only say it because I love you." Elizabeth, in her late twenties, is happy to be making Thanksgiving dinner for her extended family in her own home. Her mother, who is visiting, is helping out in the kitchen. As Elizabeth pre- pares the stuffing for the turkey, her mother remarks, "Oh, you put onions in the stuffing?" Feeling suddenly as if she were sixteen years old again, Elizabeth turns on her mother and says, "I'm making the stuffing, Mom. Why do you have to criticize everything I do?" "I didn't criticize," her mother replies. "I just asked a question. What's got into you? I can't even open my mouth." The allure of family which is, at heart, the allure of love is to have someone who knows you so well that you don't have to explain yourself. It is the promise of someone who cares enough about you to protect you against the world of strangers who do not wish you well. Yet, by an odd and cruel twist, it is the family itself that often causes pain. Those we love are looking at us so close-up that they see all our blemishessee them as if through a magnifying glass. Family members have innumerable opportunities to witness our faults and feel they have a right to point them out. Often their intention is to help us improve. They feel, as Donna did, "I only say it because I love you." Family members also have a long shared history, so everything we say in a conversation today echoes with meanings from the past. If you have a tendency to be late, your parent, sibling, or spouse may say, "We have to leave at eight" and then add, "It's really important. Don't be late. Please start your shower at seven, not seven-thirty!" These extra injunctions are demeaning and interfering, but they are based on experience. At the same time, having experienced negative judgments in the past, we develop a sixth sense to sniff out criticism in almost anything a loved one says even an innocent question about ingredients in the stuffing. That's why Elizabeth's mother ends up feeling as if she can't even open her mouth and Elizabeth ends up feeling criticized. When we are children our family constitutes the world. When we grow up family members not only our spouses but also our grown-up children and adult sisters and brothers keep this larger-than-life aura. We overreact to their judgments because it feels as if they were handed down by the Supreme Court and are unassailable assessments of our value as human beings. We bristle because these judgments seem unjust; or because we sense a kernel of truth we would rather not face; or because we fear that if someone who knows us so well judges us harshly we must really be guilty, so we risk losing not only that person's love but everyone else's, too. Along with this heavy load of implications comes a dark resentment that a loved one is judging us at all and has such power to wound. "I stTannen, Deborah is the author of 'I Only Say this Because I Love You' with ISBN 9780679456018 and ISBN 0679456015.