Crisis Communications
I just heard today that one of my good friends called off his wedding. And not like one of those, "I’m nervous, but I’ll be right back on track" faux cancellations.
I’m talking about throw the girl out, change the locks, don’t pick up your phone cancellations.
I really feel for the brother, because even though I don’t know the whole story, for something to be drastic enough to reverse field on a marriage has to be major. Major enough that you should have seen it coming before you asked the big question.
But it also brings up the question of how do you communicate in the toughest of times? What happens when you want to blame the world for something gone wrong, but only your spouse is around?
What happens in times of crisis?
I can honestly say throughout the course of my relationship, we’ve never really had a major crisis. We’ve blown things out of proportion and acted like it was a crisis, but nobody was dying or dead, we weren’t bankrupt, and no one’s trust was betrayed.
By profession, I know how to deal with crisis situations. You assess the problem, acclimate yourself and your constituents to how it can be best addressed, and move towards fixing it. Somehow, the seamless plan always seems to burst at the seams in times of high emotion and confusion.
But with time, you learn from your partner all of the buttons to push and not push. You learn about buzz words, buzz topics, and how they buzzzaw right through your partner’s heart. Whenever you have a big fight? You can take it as a lesson on what not to say or how not to say it.
Some things you just can prevent, like a sudden traumatic experience or a devastating loss. What you can do is learn that silence is good medicine in matters of the heart. It allows personal reflection on both ends, and for the need to reach out to flourish.
I hope that’s what my buddy learns to do. Because if you don’t learn to reach out, you eventually withdraw so much that no one can reach you.