The Conversation You’re Not Having

This week I found myself thinking about a lesson my mother taught me many years ago without ever intending to.

It has shaped the way I think about relationships, coaching and loneliness, and it can be summed up in a simple observation:

A complaint is often a request in disguise.

Many years ago, my mother remarried and on her first birthday as a married woman her new husband bought her absolutely nothing.

No card. No flowers. No present. Not even a dinner out.

I remember her bursting into tears and I was furious. In fact, furious doesn’t quite cover it. I hated him that day. I thought he was selfish, thoughtless and completely lacking in emotional intelligence. As far as I was concerned, my mother had married the most insensitive man on the planet.

Then something unexpected happened.

My mother told him how upset she was. More importantly, she explained that birthdays mattered to her. Feeling celebrated mattered. Being remembered mattered.

And from that moment onwards everything changed.

He never forgot another birthday. Flowers appeared. Jewellery appeared. Dinners were booked. Opera tickets materialised. The man I had been convinced was selfish turned out to be perfectly capable of being thoughtful once he understood what was important to her.

Looking back, the lesson wasn’t really about birthday presents at all.

It was about the assumptions we make about other people.

My mother’s husband wasn’t operating from the same rulebook she was. His previous wife simply didn’t care much about birthdays. He wasn’t being deliberately hurtful; he genuinely had no idea how much significance my mother attached to them.

The older I get, the more I realise how often we make this mistake ourselves.

We assume other people share our values and priorities. We assume they know what matters to us. We assume they understand our expectations.

Surely they know I’d like flowers on Mother’s Day.

Surely they know I’d love them to call more often.

Surely they know I’d like more affection, more support or more appreciation.

But why should they?

Some people couldn’t care less about birthday presents, while others care deeply. Some people love being texted three times a day, while others find it intrusive. Some people feel loved when somebody brings them a cup of tea every morning, while others barely notice.

People are not difficult.

They are different.

And that is why communication matters.

I see versions of this dynamic all the time in coaching.

Recently, I was speaking to a client who longed to spend more time with his adult children and grandchildren.

In his mind, he had a very clear picture of what that looked like. He imagined everyone renting a villa somewhere warm, sharing meals together, watching the grandchildren play in the pool and creating the sort of family memories people talk about years later.

The difficulty was that he had never told them.

Instead, he was sitting with a mixture of hope, disappointment and resentment, waiting to see whether one of them would suggest it.

If they didn’t, he would feel hurt.

If they did, he would feel loved.

The trouble was that they didn’t know they were taking a test.

I recognised something of myself in him.

Most of us have moments when we secretly hope the people we love will simply know what matters to us. We hope they’ll remember. We hope they’ll notice. We hope they’ll understand.

And when they don’t, it can feel surprisingly painful.

The trouble is that people are not operating from our set of assumptions.

They’re operating from theirs.

One of the things I notice in coaching is how difficult many people find it to simply say what they want.

When I ask clients what they are actually going to say to a partner, friend, boss or adult child, I often hear a complaint rather than a request.

Someone will say:

“It would be nice if you’d think of me for once so I don’t have to spend my birthday on my own.”

Or:

“It would be great if, just for once, you could unload the dishwasher.”

Or:

“Can you not ignore my texts like I don’t exist?”

What strikes me is that none of these are actually requests.

They are expressions of frustration.

A request sounds different.

“I’d love us to do something together for my birthday.”

“It would really help me if you could unload the dishwasher this evening.”

“It would mean a lot to me if you replied to my messages, even if it’s just to say you’re busy.”

The distinction matters because complaints and requests tend to produce very different responses.

The first version often creates guilt, defensiveness or an argument. The second gives the other person an opportunity to understand what matters to them and a chance to respond.

This is where many people get stuck.

They believe they have asked for what they want when, in reality, they have expressed frustration about not getting it.

The other person hears criticism rather than a request and responds defensively.

“I do think about you.”

“I unloaded the dishwasher yesterday.”

“I’m busy. I can’t always reply immediately.”

Before long, the conversation has become an argument about the criticism rather than a discussion about the underlying need.

The result is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

We walk away thinking, “See? I tried talking about it and it got me nowhere.”

But what often got us nowhere was not the request.

It was the criticism.

A clear request gives someone the opportunity to succeed.

A complaint often invites them to defend themselves.

So why don’t we simply ask for what we want?

Because asking is vulnerable.

If we ask, we risk hearing no. We risk discovering that the other person doesn’t want what we want, or cannot give us what we need. We risk rejection.

Complaining feels safer because it allows us to express our unhappiness without exposing ourselves.

But there is a hidden cost.

Many people believe they are protecting themselves from disappointment by not asking. In reality, they are often guaranteeing it.

If we never make the request, we never give the other person the opportunity to respond.

And if they say no?

The outcome is often no worse than if we had never asked in the first place.

At least now we have information.

At least now we know where we stand.

At least now we are free to make a different choice.

Most people are not deliberately letting us down. They are simply responding to the information they have been given, or not given.

People cannot respond to needs they don’t know exist.

Every relationship contains conversations that haven’t happened yet.

The conversation about what you need.

The conversation about what matters to you.

The conversation about the support you’d like, the affection you’d appreciate, the invitation you’re hoping for or the future you’re quietly dreaming about.

Many of us spend years wishing people would somehow work these things out for themselves.

Sometimes they do.

Often they don’t.

This week, pay attention to your complaints.

What are you complaining about most often?

What frustration keeps showing up in your relationships?

And if that complaint is really a request in disguise, what is the conversation you’re not having?

It might feel uncomfortable.

It might feel vulnerable.

But it may also be the conversation that changes everything.

Katinka Blackford Newman

From Stuck to Unstoppable

www.kbnlifecoaching.co.uk