Turtles and Hailstorms: Communication Breakdown

Couples get into trouble because of characteristic differences in communication style. If you are a turtle, you tend to shut down when you are confused, scared or hurt. Your face might close up tight. You might actually leave. Hailstorms, at the other extreme, verbally pursue and persist.

Nothing good happens. Turtles don't come out in a hailstorm, no matter how persistently the hailstorm hails. Neither gets heard and understood, which is the only way loving connection and relief can happen.

In heterosexual relationship - there are exceptions of course - the hailstorm is often female; the turtle, male. Social conditioning. Males are trained to keep their feelings inside, out of sight; females learn to show and share and then some...

Same-sex couples can find themselves in a similar mix of style, one more turtle, the other more hailstorm.

Turtles shut down quickly - after just a few frustrated words from the hailstorm. More verbally skilled, hailstorms also tend to name and process their feelings much faster. They are in their element and the verbal associations they make can leave turtles in the dust. 

In my practice I often ask hailstorms to slow way down. Take a deep breath. Say only a few, a very few, words and stop. Take another breath. Let the turtle process. The turtle is inevitably relieved. There is a calming of nerves and maybe eventually a fruitful conversation.

We all think our words are utterly obvious and that we should not even have to say them. Not true. We have to say way more in intimate relationship than we ever expected. We are not obvious. We need to tell. Calmly.

The telling is useless if clothed in scorn, irritation, frustration, exasperation, anger. Only the tone, the body language gets through. Long gone is the turtle.

Hailstorms can be particularly non-plussed by the shut-down face of a turtle. He/she can appear cold, uncaring. Uninvolved. Infuriatingly aloof.

It's a stress response. He/she froze. Nothing will happen now. That shell is a hard one. Turtles only poke their head out when all threat is gone and the coast is clear.