What happens when they fail the test

Sunday evening followed a course you could have predicted. There was the need, then the signals, then the missed signals, and then the verdict. After that came the part this chapter is about, which is what you did next.

Courtney Wright and Michael Roloff studied this sequence in people who were dating. They measured how strongly each person held mind reading expectations, meaning the belief that a partner should know what you feel without being told. Then they asked about occasions when the partner had upset them and hadn't realised it. People with stronger expectations were more likely to say they'd become combative, or had given their partner the silent treatment. The researchers traced the path. Holding the expectation meant that the partner's failure to notice was itself upsetting, over and above whatever the original problem was. That extra upset led to the fighting or the silence.

You'll recognise the doubling. On Sunday there were two hurts. One was the week you'd had, and the other was that they didn't see it. By half past nine the second was much the larger, and it was the one you took to bed. The first was the kind of thing weeks contain. The second was produced by the test.

Then there's what the silence does at the other end. Your partner knows something is wrong. They don't know what it is. They asked, and were told nothing was wrong. So they're left to guess, and they'll probably guess wrong. Perhaps they'll decide it's about work, and leave you alone, which is the opposite of what you wanted. Perhaps they'll decide it's about them, and become defensive or anxious.

Perhaps, after enough Sundays like this one, they'll stop asking "You all right?" at all, because the answer is always "Fine" and what follows is always the same. From your side that will look like further proof that they don't notice. In fact it's what the habit has taught them to do.

The silence also destroys information. If you had said at four o'clock, "No, I'm not. It's been a horrible week and I'd love a bath and an early night," your partner would very probably have said, "Go on, then. I'll do the kids." The whole evening would have gone differently. You'd also have learned that they're willing. As it was, you learned nothing true. You went to bed believing they didn't care, and they went to bed believing you were tired. Neither belief was right.

Sometimes the unspoken needs pile up and come out all at once, in a row about something small. "You never think about me" arrives in the middle of a discussion about who left the milk out. The other person is facing months of grievances they didn't know existed, delivered in anger. It's the hardest possible form for them to respond to well. They defend themselves, and you feel unheard again.