Miscommunication: How preconceived notions cause misunderstanding

Do you ever misunderstand your spouse?

You are probably chuckling and shaking your head in answer to that question.  Miscommunication seems so hard to avoid even in good relationships.

My wife and I can sometimes just look at each and know what the other is thinking. 

However, there are also those times when one of us completely misinterprets a simple message.  It happened to me on Friday.

I hope you can learn from my mistake.

My preconceived notion caused me to misunderstand

It was definitely a case of misunderstanding.

I was off work on Friday so, my wife and I along with our preschool daughter, went to lunch.

After lunch my wife said she needed to make a quick run to the grocery store to pick-up a few things.

My brain heard “quick” and “a few things”.  I jumped to a conclusion about the length of the trip based on my preconceived notions.

Even though my wife was already headed toward our house to drop me and the kid off, I volunteered to accompany her to the store.

In my mind, the words “quick” and “a few things” implied a 10 or 15 minute stop.  We were just going to run in grab 5 or 6 items, check out and head home.  No problem.

To my wife, the words had a completely different meaning.  We ended up spending an hour at the grocery store and bought about a half a shopping cart full of items.

I wish I could say that I maintained a good attitude about it, but I didn’t.  I got bored and a little frustrated.  After the visit to the store was over, I grumped a little about it.

Fortunately, my wife took it pretty well so, it didn’t escalate into a bigger issue.  After a bit, I got over it and we moved on.

It is so easy to let assumptions lead to miscommunication

I’ll admit that this simple misunderstanding didn’t have big consequences.  However, in a different set of circumstances, assumptions based on preconceived notions can cause ginormous trouble.

Miscommunication has lead to:

• Divorces
• Airline crashes
• Malpractice suits
• Contract disputes
• and a ton of arguments, feuds and other battles.

This situation just highlighted how easy it is for us to let our assumptions get in the way of real understanding.

I’ve been married to my wife long enough that I should’ve known exactly what she meant when she said “quick” and “a few things”.  I didn’t think about it long enough.

More importantly, I should have asked questions to clarify instead of relying on my own interpretation.  This could have greatly increased my real understanding of her message.

My wife knew what was best.  She had started to drop me and my daughter off at home, but I intervened without proper understanding.

I should have confirmed my understanding or even better I should have just trusted her judgement because she had a better handle on what was about to happen.

Avoiding miscommunication is not all that hard!

In summary, in the future I will try to:

• Avoid making assumptions based on my preconceived notions.
• Ask questions to confirm I clearly understand the intended message.
• Trust the judgement of others when they have more information about the situation.

Hopefully, this will help me to keep from falling into this trap again.  It always seems so simple after the fact.  I just hope I can put these straightforward ideas into practice to pave the way to better communication in all my relationships!

How do you avoid miscommunication?

Photo by lanuiop