The Quiet List
Season 2 Episode 7 with Jill Griffin & Molly Bierman
In this episode of No Permission Necessary, Jill and Molly talk about “the quiet list,” the things that stop being said out loud in long relationships, partnerships, families, workplaces, and marriages.
They explore the compliments that fade, the needs that go unspoken, the dreams that stop being mentioned, and the frustrations that get tucked away because it feels easier than starting a hard conversation. Through honest examples from their own lives, Jill and Molly discuss how silence can feel like keeping the peace while still creating resentment, disconnection, and distance.
This conversation also explores ambition, family schedules, business partnerships, household roles, appreciation, conflict avoidance, and the courage it takes to restart the conversation before silence becomes the relationship dynamic.
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Molly Bierman (00:00)
Well, nobody decides to stop talking. It just goes quiet.
Jill Griffin (00:04)
Yeah, and silence feels like keeping the peace, but it really is about protecting either yourself because you're uncomfortable having that hard conversation.
Molly Bierman (00:15)
Mm-hmm.
Jill Griffin (00:16)
Or maybe it's like the tenth time you've tried having this conversation and the person reacts the same way every time. So you just kind of have this defeatist attitude of like nothing's gonna change.
Jill Griffin (00:26)
Welcome to No Permission Necessary. I'm Jill Griffin.
Molly Bierman (00:29)
And I'm Molly Bierman.
Jill Griffin (00:30)
Real conversations about recovery, identity, success, relationships, and the pressure to hold it all together.
Molly Bierman (00:36)
From two behavioral health experts who've lived it.
Jill Griffin (00:39)
No perfect answers, no polished performance.
Molly Bierman (00:42)
This is no permission
necessary.
Jill Griffin (00:43)
No Permission Necessary.
Jill Griffin (00:45)
All right. So we're talking about partnership today. Every long partnership has a list, right? Like
Not of like the fights, but oftentimes when things go quiet. So like maybe the compliment or affirmation we stopped giving, the dream you stopped mentioning, the thing that bothers you that you decided isn't worth wanting anymore. We talked about this recently on an episode. So today we're talking about like what that looks like. What is the quiet list?
Molly Bierman (01:15)
Well, nobody decides to stop talking. It just goes quiet. So today we're gonna jump into that list.
You know, this topic for me feels very relevant in a lot of arenas. And it doesn't necessarily have to be only in your intimate relationships, but obviously that's easier to point out than any other, because it's the one that's the most constant and consistent. So compliments and appreciation that used to be automatic start to fizzle out. I can remember early on in my relationship.
It was easy peasy, right? You're in a position where you have an immense amount of love, you have a lot of freedom, you're looking at all the things that are going well, and compliments and appreciation flow, right? And then what happens is we start to, you know, breathe in the small irritations.
You
know, that once could be easily rolled off our back, become more calcified, become more intense before it become more concrete.
Jill Griffin (02:18)
You know, I look back at the evolution of any relationship. And I think when you're talking about romantic relationships, there are the neurochemicals involved in lust
Molly Bierman (02:32)
Uh-huh.
Jill Griffin (02:33)
and the whole attraction to somebody else and like the feel-good chemicals that we get, the oxytocin and the dopamine and all these things from being in love and that like.
That romantic feeling. So it makes a lot more sense why we get sucked into this, like almost like, you know, this pink cloud of the relationship. And then when you get into living life, the irritations start bothering you more. I can say from a therapist's perspective, when I'm meeting with clients a lot of times, they'll mention things and I'll be like, So did they not do these things when you first met?
Well, they did.
So why does it bother you more now? Let's just explore that.
Molly Bierman (03:11)
Why why does it?
Jill Griffin (03:14)
Because oftentimes when it starts bothering people more, it's when responsibilities shift. It's when stressors are piled on, right? So when oftentimes I see it when there's a transition.
Maybe a parent moves in because now you're taking care of a sick loved one. Maybe you have children. Maybe somebody loses their job and more of the, you know, financial burdens put on one person. So that's how life is. And so if you're entering into the a partnership with the intentions of everything's gonna be good, everything's gonna be feel great. He loves me. I love him. yeah, great.
Life's still gonna happen. And then how you work through those hard times is really how the relationship's going to continue to grow. And in talking about those hard things can be really tough, especially when you're not used to coming up against those irritations. Now, in a business partnership, I see
well, what is your agreement going into this partnership? Right. Because when you
Molly Bierman (04:13)
Right.
Jill Griffin (04:14)
go back to that agreement, what did you all agree on? Because if you agreed on one thing, but then now we are here.
Five years, seven years, 10 years later, where you've been putting up with somebody not really holding their end of the bargain. They haven't been doing their part. You've just gone quiet though, because it's easier to just keep doing things the way that you know how to do them instead of ruffling feathers, instead of confronting somebody, instead of maybe hurting their feelings.
But now it's not working for you anymore, and now we
Molly Bierman (04:51)
Well,
Jill Griffin (04:51)
have to say something.
Molly Bierman (04:52)
I think the quiet also is to me selfish. If you're going quiet and then you're starting to resent or be frustrated or not verbalize and bubble,
Jill Griffin (05:01)
And bubble, yeah.
Molly Bierman (05:04)
that is a selfish act. It's not in it's not something that is going to improve relationship.
Right. So you're basically saying it's not worth my time. Right. Again, you're not saying that outwardly, but you're saying I'm not invested. It's not worth my time. I fear the reaction. I fear the outcome, whatever it is. But if we're able to
seek the courage to vocalize it, that's really where the repair will happen anyway.
Jill Griffin (05:33)
Yeah, and silence feels like keeping the peace, but it really is about protecting either yourself because you're uncomfortable having that hard conversation.
Molly Bierman (05:43)
Mm-hmm.
Jill Griffin (05:45)
Or maybe it's like the tenth time you've tried having this conversation and the person reacts the same way every time. So you just kind of have this defeatist attitude of like nothing's gonna change. And so, you know, it goes back to those recovery sayings, but it's like you either have to accept.
Or you have to have the courage to change something, right? Courage to do something different. Because a lot of times I'll hear people say, well, it's just how he is, but you're not accepting that. You're not, because you're still spun about it. Real acceptance, real acceptance
would be like, you know, making peace with it, like and working with that.
Molly Bierman (06:19)
Or
being vocal about it and saying something, right? You seem off, right? So if you notice someone's being quiet in your life, whether that's your business partner, your spouse, your child, and you're noticing that there's this like internal dialogue happening, but it that's not being voiced to you, like the responsibility to me is in the partnership where someone has the greater risk and the greater courage to say you seem off.
Because if you continue to edit it out or you continue to put it in a box, just in the spirit of being low maintenance or non-confrontational, that doesn't actually change the dynamic.
Jill Griffin (06:58)
Yeah, I I can think of a few years ago,
You know, my husband and I really went through this period where I wanted certain things for my career, which meant
Molly Bierman (07:08)
Mm.
Jill Griffin (07:08)
really it it meant that we were all gonna have to just accept this was gonna take some more time on my end and also maybe take me away from the family a little bit more. And was I gonna have his support? And I think on his end there was a lot of fear around that. And so I can remember this dance that we had to do for
A while
Molly Bierman (07:29)
Mm-hmm.
Jill Griffin (07:30)
where he wouldn't say anything, he wouldn't say anything. I could feel it bubbling, but again, that like I can say something like, Hey, is everything okay? Hey, is anything off? If you're not going to respond to that, okay, we'll just keep it
Molly Bierman (07:42)
Right.
Jill Griffin (07:43)
moving then. You have to wait until I guess you're ready, but we're gonna keep it moving. I'm stating and being clear with my ask, I'm asking you to participate.
If you aren't able to participate though, we're gonna have to we're we're gonna be in this really strange place where you're not saying your needs. And it's not
Molly Bierman (08:00)
Mm.
Jill Griffin (08:01)
helpful to us getting to a resolution. But what end what ended up happening is that it would bubble over and it would be like, I don't know, I would put something on the calendar or I would tell them I had something coming up. You always do this. When is enough gonna be enough? Why do you you always want da-da-da-da-da and it'd be this whole thing? And it's like, whoa.
I but I stated. I I talked about what I
To be come with me. This isn't me just deciding on my own, but you're not participating here, right? And so for a while, I can remember being quiet about my goals, my dreams, because I felt like he couldn't hear it. I felt like he couldn't handle it.
but it was almost like you should just be okay with what we have. Like we shouldn't, you don't
Molly Bierman (08:43)
Mm.
Jill Griffin (08:43)
need more.
And and now I can say, because we have these conversations now, like it took a lot of back and forth in that dance for us to get to a place where we can have these conversations and say out loud what he was protecting maybe from saying. Maybe he had to say something that he thought was gonna hurt my feelings. And I had to sit with that and really wrestle with that. And like we had to get to a place where we can have a conversation and it not turn into a fight, right? I know I can be
Molly Bierman (09:10)
Yep. Yep.
Jill Griffin (09:11)
guilty of that.
I'll stay quiet because I know I'm not in a place to have a conversation. If I speak,
it's going to be an eruption.
Molly Bierman (09:20)
So I'm looking at the communication guidelines, which I literally have on my desk. Okay.
we can add to our own guidelines. So like being clear and like what works for us.
Owning our judgments. And then also like the biggest one that came up when you were talking about that is that owning the feedback as I rather than you, right? And so I think for me, some of the dance has been similar, right? you know, my husband's always been super supportive of my career and my ambitions and
working alongside one another and then working separately. But I do feel,
it has been something that we have had to really work on and vocalize. Cause I'm the first one talking about the calendar. I am the very first one to throw something on the calendar and be like, well this is just what we're doing.
So how did you work through that when you were at this like juncture where there was that rub? Like, how did you work through in partnership?
when you've kind of been in these designated roles and now your partner's saying, Well, this doesn't work for me anymore.
Jill Griffin (10:26)
I will say that the the calendar and the schedule and the ambitions and the careers and the competing priorities, and then you add children in, and now they have
Molly Bierman (10:34)
Yeah. Yeah.
Jill Griffin (10:35)
their own ambitions and they have their own wants and needs and schedules, right? Like
Molly Bierman (10:40)
Totally.
Jill Griffin (10:41)
I am so grateful that my husband and I wrestled with this over the years because
Molly Bierman (10:47)
Yeah.
Jill Griffin (10:48)
I will tell you, If you saw our family schedule.
And sprinkle in our work travel and the work events, and your head would spin. I mean, it is every day there is something after school. Somebody has something. I mean, but we are dialed. And and now we got to this place because we had to really take the risk and say the thing that was hard, which sometimes was.
I feel like you think your career is more important than mine.
Molly Bierman (11:20)
Yep.
Jill Griffin (11:20)
I think it feels like to me that what I do isn't as important as what you do. And I'm expected to be flexible and move my stuff around all the time. You
Molly Bierman (11:31)
Mm-hmm.
Jill Griffin (11:31)
know, and it's so it it's saying the things of like, I don't think you respect or or even understand when I tell you these are the things I want or need.
Molly Bierman (11:40)
Right. Right. Right. My time. Yeah,
right, right, right, right, right. Yeah.
Jill Griffin (11:44)
Now, does that mean we don't sometimes go toe to toe with this stuff? No, like that's just how partnership is. But the point is, when we were quiet about it, we could not get to a resolution. When when we're quiet about it and we're not saying the thing that we're thinking and and how we're feeling, then the other person in that partnership, they're trying to read your mind. And I can guarantee that you guys are not on the same page about what is being thought about, right? Because
Going back to the compliments that aren't said, going back to the appreciation, you know, I think there had to be a recognition on my end that I I was not, I don't think it wasn't even that I wasn't saying it. I don't think I was appreciating how flexible and how much my husband has accommodated for my
All of the things. I mean,
I
Molly Bierman (12:34)
Yeah.
Jill Griffin (12:34)
there my my ambition and my career has been evolving for the last five years, right? So, like, he's accommodated a lot to support me in various ways, right?
Molly Bierman (12:42)
Mm-hmm.
Jill Griffin (12:44)
Like, I
I can really impose my will sometimes and like some of that is me, right? Like I have to recognize when it's
Molly Bierman (12:50)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, be flexible.
Jill Griffin (12:52)
like, okay, like it doesn't always have to be my way. I would love it to be, but it doesn't have to be.
Molly Bierman (12:58)
And the flexibility is much harder because I feel like what happens for me is that I will create whatever the system is around me and I will have already teased out the flexibility I believe in my head, singularly alone, right? And like made what I think are the accommodations. So then when someone comes in, aka my husband, and is like, hey, this doesn't really work for me, I'm like.
Well, I've already been flexible in all these other areas. And he's Well, you didn't talk to me about any of those other areas, right?
Jill Griffin (13:28)
You do that with me sometimes
too. I think sometimes Molly sometimes in her head has communicated the plan
Molly Bierman (13:36)
Yeah.
Jill Griffin (13:37)
to everybody else, but really what she wants is everybody to get on her plan when she announces what that is.
Molly Bierman (13:45)
Because I this literally just came up this week
Jill Griffin (13:47)
Ha ha
Molly Bierman (13:48)
in therapy. Cause I was like, look,
You've already gone through the whole plan in your head. So why do we have to talk about the plan?
The plan has already been developed, executed, and ready to go. We're on to the next plan. Okay.
Jill Griffin (14:00)
Alan's
definitely going to be like, That's Jill.
Molly Bierman (14:03)
So what is one thing, you know, that you felt like your silence was protecting until you came to that position where you were able to vocalize like the sacrifice for each other?
Jill Griffin (14:17)
I think sometimes it was protecting. I mean, if I look back at the times when we were really rumbling with this, you know, my husband was really rumbling with his own kind of rupture in the in the career and professional space. So like
Molly Bierman (14:32)
Mm-hmm.
Jill Griffin (14:33)
I felt like I was protecting him a lot of times of like not saying
Molly Bierman (14:36)
Yeah.
Jill Griffin (14:37)
what I felt like. And so some of it's timing too.
Molly Bierman (14:41)
Mm-hmm.
Jill Griffin (14:42)
And for
me, I can do that better some days, not every day, but some days because I have my professional background, some days I can do that better. Like today's not the day.
This week's not the week, right? Not always, but and I
Molly Bierman (14:54)
Right, right, right, right. Not always.
Jill Griffin (14:58)
can not always, but I felt like in that moment I was able, I was able to do that. It's not always protective of
Molly Bierman (15:05)
Well
Jill Griffin (15:05)
him, though. Sometimes it's like I I know.
And I can feel it, like if I open my mouth, it's gonna be an eruption.
Molly Bierman (15:13)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Jill Griffin (15:14)
I'm getting better at that too, but like I have to keep my mouth shut a lot of times.
Molly Bierman (15:18)
Yeah. And how we're actually able to restart the conversation is not necessarily all the things that we've been staying quiet on, because I tend to do that too. Where if I'm in like a conversation with somebody, I'm like, okay, the floodgates have finally opened. I tend to revisit all the things. It's like, well, that's not really all that effective. You know, I think that right, or fair. So starting with
Jill Griffin (15:41)
Yeah.
Molly Bierman (15:44)
like one
situation, one sentence, one event, whatever it is. And then being able to acknowledge also some of the things that have gone well.
Jill Griffin (15:55)
Let's get
into the speed round and say it out loud. What's a compliment that you think but stopped saying?
Molly Bierman (16:01)
That my husband really sacrifices a lot to accommodate my demands.
Jill Griffin (16:12)
I feel like I've been really good at complimenting, especially my husband lately. However, I have been I I need to step it up in terms of my support team, you know, professionally.
Molly Bierman (16:21)
Topic you avoid because it always goes the same way.
Jill Griffin (16:24)
There's some there's some professional conversations that
I I think it goes back to one of those things where like if you're gonna be quiet about something, then you gotta accept it and not sit in resentment about it. Right. And so
Molly Bierman (16:36)
Mm, mm-hmm.
Jill Griffin (16:38)
I think sometimes the the the the pause is different than the quiet. Sometimes the pause is where I have to tease out, is this something that can change? And if it's not, can I accept it?
Molly Bierman (16:52)
Does it need to be said? Does it need to be said by me? Does it need to be said right now? Save that. Write it on your mirror.
Jill Griffin (16:57)
Yeah.
what is hardest to say? I'm hurt, I'm bored, or I need help.
Ooh, totally. Definitely.
Molly Bierman (17:05)
Mm hands down, period.
Jill Griffin (17:07)
bored. I'm ADHD. I I make I make things fun all the time. And if there's boredom, I'm doing something new. I'm starting a new business.
Molly Bierman (17:18)
Something your partner has probably stopped saying to you.
Jill Griffin (17:21)
To stop wanting more.
Molly Bierman (17:22)
Mm. I would agree with that. It's he's over it.
Jill Griffin (17:23)
He's he's just he's just along for the ride at
this point, yeah. He's over me.
Molly Bierman (17:29)
One sentence you could actually say tonight.
Jill Griffin (17:31)
Thank you, because I'll be in a different state and he'll be taking my kids and friends to the mall.
Molly Bierman (17:37)
I feel like one sentence I could actually say is that all been worth it, even when it's been a struggle.
So guys, permission to start with saying one kind thing out loud to your partner, to your employer, to your spouse, to your kids. Let's start shaking things up.
Jill Griffin (17:57)
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Molly Bierman (18:19)
Until next time, guys.
