“Cheaters often dismiss or avoid topics and questions by labeling them as “”stupid.”” By attacking your question, they side-step the issue and invalidate your concerns.
They kill two birds with one dismissive comment. The only truly “”stupid”” questions are those never asked. Because the cheater doesn’t understand what you are asking or why it matters does not make your question stupid, or you stupid.
When the cheater dismisses your question, they’re indirectly dismissing you – so how can you handle the stupid question situation?”
Are there stupid questions? <<– listen to the audio here
Hi, this is Jeff Murrah with Affair Recovery Radio. I’m glad that you’re here with me today. In today’s show we’re going to be dealing with the question, are there stupid questions?
Part of the reason I bring this up is because when you’re talking to the cheater, or if you’re the one that cheated, either way, when you’re discussing what happened there will be questions. Some of these questions that come up may be regarded by one party or the other as stupid.
This happens quite often. Part of the reason for this is that cheaters often dismiss and avoid topics or questions by labeling them as stupid.
When you stick that label “stupid” on it, or “dumb” on it, it invalidates the whole thing. It sends the message what you’re talking about doesn’t matter, it’s not important.
And when they attack your question, they sidestep the whole issue. They kill two birds with one stone. They dismiss the comment and invalidate your concern anyway. The only truly stupid questions are the ones that are never asked.
Because the cheater doesn’t want you to understand what you are, what you’re asking, and why it matters.
Whatever your motive for asking questions, that doesn’t make it stupid or useless. And when the cheater dismisses your question they are indirectly dismissing you.
When that happens, what can you do about it?
How can you handle these stupid question situations? That’s what I’m going to present today.
The answer, I’m going to use anagram of SLIK, stands for Simplify, LIsten, and Know.
1. First off, use simple questions. Simple questions are important because they reduce the cheater’s ability to play games with their answers. Simple questions are often the fruit of working through the issues.
Now, many times you may have to think through what it is that you really want to know and condense it down to a few simple questions. Takes some thought to do it, it takes some work, but it is very effective because when you come at them with these complicated questions those are the ones that they don’t like to deal with.
2. Listen to their response. In many cases they answer your questions without realizing it. This is one of the fascinating facets of human interactions, is that many times we give answers that we don’t realize that we give. And the answer may be verbal or non-verbal. It may be hidden in our selection of wording, the words we use or maybe even the words we avoid, in answering a question can give you clues to what you were asking.
Because there’s something inside of us that we really do want to communicate and sometimes we just hide what it is that we’re actually feeling.
3. Know a power play when you hear it. Sidestepping questions and calling what you’re doing stupid amounts to nothing more than a power play. And cheaters often consider themselves smarter than you are. And since they consider themselves so smart they see your questions as below them.
Dismissing your question as stupid is one way that they keep this power imbalance going. Since a healthy marriage depends upon a relationship between two adults, when they can turn around and think that they’re the smarter adult then they can disregard what it is that you have to say.
That doesn’t make for a sound foundation for a marriage and it’s a sure sign of some trouble.
These three things, simplify, listen, and know, will help you in dealing with the stupid question issue. I encourage you, take these three, put them into practice as soon as possible.
The sooner you put them into practice the smoother your conversations with the cheater are going to go.
If you have an feedback or questions for me I encourage you to leave them here at the site where you listen to the show, or visit my blog at www.surviveyourpartnersaffair.com/blog. Post your question there and I’ll be glad to respond to it.
Best Regards,
Jeff
PS-If you want to know more about ways of improving your marital communication, my video, “Let’s Talk: Hurting People, Healing Questions” guides you in making positive improvements in your marital communication. Just click the link, fill out the form and within minutes you can be taking steps of improving your marriage rather than just putting up with problems.
