<p>I have come to a point in my life where I am able to speak my mind, even though I know I am not being heard. I STILL speak it. But when my husband says “oh here we go again,” it makes me angry but it does not cause me to stop expressing myself. I guess what is most difficult is when you DO speak your mind and you know that the other does not really hear you (or care).</p>
<p>I know my daughters find the same thing when dealing with others. They know that if they were to speak their mind to certain people (girls in their group of friends who are there but they do not particularly care for) that the backlash would be so severe that it is just not worth it. Certain girls would go on and on in nasty ways to “prove” they are right.</p>
<p>So my daughters will tell me “so and so was so nasty,” or “so and so made fun of something I said,” but they will not say anything back because they know that the other person will not hear them, it will get loud and nasty, and they will accomplish nothing except to have a huge banter with someone who JUST DOES NOT CARE about how they feel.</p>
<p>^Agree. You have to pick your battles and are hopefully able to limit contact with those types of people.</p>
<p>I can see where in a sorority or a similiar type of social setting you might run into it but if it’s pretty regular then they should probably be seeking different friends.</p>
<p>If it’s simply a matter of not wanting to confront a few nasty people, that’s one thing. If it’s avoiding all<br>
forms of conflict that’s a problem. Esp. with one’s
spouse.</p>
<p>A perfectly good phrase, but it brings back a bad memory for me. When my former spouse and I were going through our divorce years ago, I remember asking at one point if my ex would be willing to be with our son (who was then 12 or 13) on weekends once in a while instead of only sharing time on days during the week (so there’d be an opportunity to spend entire days with him and do something fun with him), because he was starting to feel unwanted. The response I got was “sorry, that doesn’t work for me; I need my weekends”! (Like I didn’t?? I think I had something like 100 entire weekends in a row at one point. Oh well, that’s all done with now; he spends time as he wants to when he’s home.)</p>
<p>I just hope that the fact that I did not stand up to my loud husband did not teach my girls that they should not stand up for themselves…because they actually saw me express myself and him either walk away or yell. So really, they saw HIM behaving in a way that does not work.</p>
<p>OP … you hit on one of my bigger parentlng challenges; when my behavior does not model behavior I’d like to see from my kids. I have taken two approaches to this … first, change my behavior to model the desired behavior (and frankly having kids has really helped me clean up a lot of the “little” ways I sued to cheat on my beliefs) … and, when I can not change a behavior pattern or slip up in a one-off situations … I talk to them about my limitations and how I would like to handle situations better. I started this a couple years ago and I really like it for two reasons … first, I can be quite explicit about what I believe is correct behavior (even when I do not model it) … and secondly, I am letting them see me work on some things, and struggle with some things, even as a 50 year-old … hopefully modelling that we are all not perfect and all can work on improving and that each person has some things that are just very difficult to change about themselves.</p>
<p>Questbest, it doesn’t sound like you showed them the wrong thing at all. You are right when you say that it is not worth even speaking up to some people. Those that don’t care about your feelings are best avoided. It is hard in HS (and perhaps even in college) to avoid some nasty people who may be part of some group or other, but it is not worth getting into it with those who just don’t care. Realizing that there are those mean kids out there who just don’t care, and knowing who is not worth your time is a good skill. Some people don’t know when to stop, and engaging them, even in “self defense” may be worse than just walking away. Aggression against aggression probably solves nothing.</p>
<p>Learning that some people want to dump on others is better learned sooner rather than later.</p>
<p>On the topic of the snotty friends comments…A girl at my daughter’s HS had a great response to a comment directed at her one day. She turned to the offender and said: “You did NOT just say that.” It let the offender know that what he said was wrong without making him all defensive.</p>
<p>The issues surrounding your husband’s lack of communication skills will likely affect your daughters’ choices with regard to men later on in life. His behavior will not make those choices better ones. Does he have any clue about this - that the way he treats you will inform his daughters about how they should be treated? Is he okay with them possibly chasing around emotionally unavailable men the rest of their lives? </p>
<p>You can be instrumental in helping them see that their Dad’s behavior is unacceptable and how to recognize men who do not treat women with respect. One way they can learn to stand up for themselves is to develop a good “picker” when it comes to boys/men. I apologize for this up front - but you want them to be better pickers than you were. I say this from personal experience because I worked very hard with my D to help her make better choices than I did.</p>
<p>“the particular meek quality brings out that bullying instinct in some people. You’d be surprised how quickly people will back down once they sense that you will truly not put up with abuse.”</p>
<p>Boy, oh boy, that’s the truth. Bullies are often cowards and they will turn and run when you put up a fight.</p>