Love and Communication Considered Harmful

Image: yupiramos

“Polyamory is abundant love! The first rule of polyamory is communicate, communicate, communicate!” Raise your hand if you’ve ever heard one of those things. Raise both hands if you’ve heard them both.

Today I’m going to throw cold water on your hopes and dreams, commit an act of heresy, and possibly make you angry: Both of these mantras are nonsense.

In fact, no, I’m going to go further than that: Both of these ideas are dangerous nonsense, if misapplied, because both of these ideas can trap you. There’s a subtle danger in these thoughts, as there usually is in any Profound Truth™ that’s small enough to fit on a bumper sticker.

Polyamorous folks (well, not just polyamorous folks, but polyamorous folks are particularly bad about it) like to believe that love conquers all, and communication solves any problem. Hell, I used to believe the bit about communication myself. You’ll probably find words to that effect buried somewhere in my various blogs.

But here’s the thing:

Love is not miraculous. There’s a saying, “love is gentle, love is kind.” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people say some variant on “if they love you they won’t mistreat you.”

Not to be a downer, but that’s absolute rubbish. Someone can indeed sincerely love you to the best of their abilities and still mistreat, even abuse, you. It’s tempting to want to believe that someone who loves you will never abuse you. “Love is gentle, love is kind” is a cultural narrative a lot of folks cling to because we want to idealize love, to see love as some mystical thing that magically brings out the best in us.

It’s bullshit.

Abuse is most commonly rooted in a need for power and control. Here’s an ugly, uncomfortable truth a lot of people would rather not think about: Abusers generally don’t abuse people they don’t care about. They abuse people they’re deeply frightened of losing. Abuse is a dysfunctional response to love and attachment. Abusers abuse you when they’re afraid that loss of control over you means they will lose their relationship with you.

I think the people who believe if someone hits you or gaslights you or manipulates you obviously doesn’t love you are well-meaning but dangerous. Those who are abused often say “well then, what I am experiencing cannot be abuse, because it is quite clear that my partner loves me.” I’ve experienced this myself, and it caused me to stay in relationships I should have left much sooner. I sincerely believe those who abused me, loved me to the greatest extent they was capable of.

Yes, a person can love you and still abuse you. That’s an awful thing that is hard to stomach, but it’s true, and we do those in abusive relationships no favors by pretending it’s not.

“Does the person who hits me love me” is the wrong question to ask, because our cultural narratives around love teach us that love is the point of a romantic relationship, and so if we are loved, of course we should stay in the relationship.

No.

Sometimes it’s possible to be in a loving relationship that still isn’t good for us. We need to be able to acknowledge that. A person can sincerely love you to the bottom of their heart and still be bad for you. It doesn’t matter if someone loves you or not. Framing questions about should you stay or go in terms of whether or how much the other person loves you is the wrong way ’round, and will lead you to staying in harmful, destructive relationships. What matters is, should you stay in a relationship with someone who mistreats you? The answer to that question is no, even if that person loves you.

Now let’s talk about communication.

Image: Stockbursters on depositphotos

A lot of polyamorous folks will tell you “communication is rule 1 of polyamory.” Go to any poly meetup or talk to any poly folks about problem-solving and you’ll hear “communicate, communicate, communicate.”

Which is, in most circumstances, most of the time, not a bad idea (in before anyone starts shrieking, “hey, look everyone, Franklin says you shouldn’t communicate!”), but it isn’t the panacea some poly folks make it out to be and it isn’t always the right solution, or…(get your torches and pitchforks, folks!) even always the right way to do.

Former FBI hostage negotiator Chris Voss is credited with saying, “There are people who don’t argue to resolve. They argue to win. And winning means you feel crazy by the end.” He makes a distinction between people who communicate to solve problems and make themselves understood, and what he calls “instrumental communicators,” people who communicate to get their own way and establish power or control. To an instrumental communicator, words aren’t tools of communication, they’re instruments to assert control.

“Communicate, communicate, communicate” assumes everyone is on the same page and is seeking genuine understanding. To instrumental communicatiors, communication isn’t that, and you will not make yourself understood through communication.

You cannot, you cannot communicate with an instrumental communicator to arrive at consensus or understanding. An instrumental communicator seeks control, not understanding and certainly not compromise.

Voss has advice for dealing with instrumental communicators: Withdraw from playing their game. Don’t explain yourself. Don’t defend. Don’t give them an emotional reaction they can exploit or manipulate. Don’t try to make them understand you; that’s not their goal in the exchange. Respond neutrally. “It sounds like you’re angry. It sounds like you’re frustrated.”

Then stop talking.

A common tactic of instrumental communicators is they want you to fill the voids in the conversation with your own words, your own emotions, so they can find something to manipulate you with. Don’t play that game. Keep your replies short, on-topic, and unemotional. Don’t try to fill the silent spaces.

Therapists call this “going gray rock” or “the gray rock strategy.” By not engaging emotionally, by not losing your temper or becoming defensive, by listening but making your responses emotionally neutral, by not volunteering information that can be weaponized against you, by giving short answers directly on point, you deprive the instrumental communicator of the emotional hooks to manipulate you.

Instrumental communicators do not like gray rock communication strategies; that’s kind of the point. You’re not engaging on their grounds, on a playing field they control, and by not doing that you deprive them of the means to control you.

Instrumental communicators and manipulators may hate you for this, they may tell you that by not reacting with anger or defensiveness you’re harming them…and they may even believe it, because you aren’t giving them what they want. Abuse and instrumental communication are both rooted in need for control, and a person who needs control can genuinely feel harmed by not having it.

Thing is, you cannot communicate your way to a resolution with an instrumental communicator, at least not a resolution based on consensus rather than control. When you’re engaged with an instrumental communicator, the only winning move is not to play.