One of our assignments for class this week was to write down 8-10 "unspoken rules" we've grown up with in our families. That's really hard to do! When you grown up with an unspoken rule, I think it becomes so engrained in you, it's not a rule, but a way of life, and you think surely that's how EVERYONE lives. There was only one rule that I was able to come up with easily, and I was only able to come up with it so easily, because it's broken by my roommates constantly!
Realizing why it was so easy to come up, I think I discovered the point of this assignment. When two people marry, they come from two different families (we're going to assume that, anyway...). Regardless of the culture, religion, socioeceonomic status, race, etc. of these two families, they have different unspoken rules. The couple coming together might never think to discuss these rules, because they just seem like the way life is. This can cause trouble, because as I know from my roommates, when you grow up with the unspoken rule that anyone awake stays quiet until everyone is awake, and your roommates didn't grow up with that same rule, you wonder what in the world is wrong with them, and want to throw your pillow at their heads.
It's important to discuss things like this with someone you're coming into such a relationship with. As that's difficult to do, it would be good of each of us to be aware that when someone doesn't meet the expectations that we never think to express, it is not out of disrespect, or inconsideration, but the simple fact that they do not know the same things we know. And we need to have enough humility to realize that we may very well be breaking one of THEIR rules.
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