Communication In Your Marriage and Life!

Communication was such a fun thing to learn about! If you can improve you communication, you can improve all of your relationships.

I want to share some of the facts that I learned as we discussed the topic:

- There is 67% ability to predict the outcome of a conversation (or confrontation) by the first 30 seconds and how the person brings the topic up. If you can have a soft start up to a conversation then it will go much better. This goes for things that you know are a hot topic and those that are not. If you walk into the room and start yelling at your husband for not picking his shoes and socks up then your not starting with a soft start up and something that could have been handled lovingly and sweetly gets blown out of the water because he probably wont take lightly your negative response of him forgetting to pick his shoes up. You can see how much worse it would be if the topic in and of itself was an explosive one.

- “Be a good person, not just a good communicator”… after all, Satan communicates very well.

-In a confrontation, if you can make what is called “repair attempts”, you can often keep it from getting even more out of hand, but even better will often be able to cool the situation down as well. Its not submitting, and turning over what you think to be right but rather trying to show that you love the other person and that you are not mad at them, but rather the problem or choice. In a repair attempt, you let them you love them and that the problem is not going to get between you two anymore.

-A huge, huge, huge, part of communication is listening. People don’t know how to do that anymore. I don’t mean sitting down and shutting up, but actively listening. When I realized how important this was, I tried it out. Whenever I called home to family or friends, I realized that time on the phone meant time to check my email, to work my homework assignments, to be on facebook, ect. It even got to the point of me putting stuff off that I wanted to do, saying Ill work on it when I am calling. In my mind, I was listening, right? But when I decided to be an active listener, I stopped doing all that. I sat down. I listened. I restated what they said to make sure I understood. I asked questions. I paid attention. And guess what? Its so much better! I am able to focus on the person on the other end and be able to communicate with them- not just at them or be talked at. I feel closer to my family and they are able to feel closer to me as well.

Kids, parents, spouses all know when you are or are not paying attention to them. Be an active listener.

Along with listening, I think that the ability to more fully sit in silence needs to be practiced in homes, families, relationships of every kind. In one of my mission prep classes awhile back we talked about the importance of silence. After a question is asked (in any teaching moment), sit and let the person think about it, let them process it and don’t jump in if they don’t have all the answers right away. The person needs time to think about the concepts, and ideas given to them. If you want better communication, be okay with silence and be an active listener.

- Have you ever thought about the process that takes a thought to words and back again? There is a lot involved.

You think-> you encode it-> the thought is now a word and has to go thought media-> the other person hears it, and decodes it-> they think about it. And it all starts over.

The middle part, “media” and the “encoding/decoding” are the danger zones for communication. Media is anything that might distract form the true meaning of the first persons words. Background noises, distractions, driving, lack of the other persons attention, kids, ect. The encoding is when you decided how you are going to say something. Be careful of how you say the message. Even if you are mad, make sure you think about how you say it. And lastly, decoding is how the person interprets what you said. Note that how the person feels at the time will have a huge impact and effect on how they take what you said. So be careful and both parties need to watch out and not assume the way they heard it is how it was intended to be taken.

After all, you might just be decoding it wrong. Warning: you do all of this without thinking- so think about it!

-Use “I-messages”. State how you feel, don’t place blame. “I feel like my work does not matter and goes unnoticed when the dishes are left on the table after dinner.” Not “You always leave your dishes on the table, don’t you care at all about the work that I do to cook and clean for you?!”  You can feel the difference in the two scenarios… state how you feel and express it calmly, lovingly. It will get you much farther.

-How to you fix a conflict?

Conflict resolution steps (couplecommunication.com)

1. Identify/ define issues (and then stay on that issue. Also, your spouse is not the issue. Its detrimental to the relationship to make him/her the problem and not the problem the problem).

2. Contract to work through it. (Talk about how, and most importantly, when to talk about the problem. If one or both of you are just ticked off and don’t want to deal with it, then its probably not the best time to talk about it. Or if your in a place that is not appropriate to talk about the subject, then don’t discuss it right then. Agree on a good time so you both can cool down and calmly talk about it).

3. Clarify the issue completely, on your own and together. (think through your feelings, thoughts, about the issue both on your own and together so that you can be clear about the subject and the facts versus the emotions or assumptions).

4. Identify wants for yourself, others and “us”.(What do I really want for you and for me? Deep down, what am I really trying to get? Don’t mix this us with the little things that are just the signs of the underlying problem).

5. Identify alternatives- Brainstorm. (Say everything you think of! And don’t judge! Any idea goes on the board, come together in the process).

6. Solidifying Alternatives- Choose plan of action- Think win/win! (Don’t think compromise because that is a loose/loose mindset, but rather what can I do to make you happy and to make me happy? If both parties think like this, all needs will get met by the other, together. That’s not to say you will get everything you want, but you can walk away happy.)

7. Try the plan and then review and if need be, renegotiate.

-Communication can be broken up in 3 categories: Words, tone and non-verbal. Words make up for 14% of communication, tone 35% and non-verbal 51%.

So if you words only make up 14% of your communication, you have to do more than just talk more to improve your communication skills. Pay attention to your tone and non-verbal ques. After all, couples who come into counseling usually have no problem with saying words to their spouse.

- And one of the most important things to remember is that no marriage or relationship will be without conflict and stress. It is how the situation is managed that matters, not that there is differences. The times we have to come together and agree has great potential to build the relationship.

I think that if people put more energy into learning how to communicate effectively, then we would have less marriages failing. A simple analogy is this: if someone is standing behind another person, the one in the back cant see anything but the person they are behind. The person in the front can only see where they are looking. But if both people stand next to each other and look at the world together and explain what they see, they can have a much broader view of the same picture. That is the blessing of healthy communication- it lets you see a bigger picture that could not be obtained in any other way.

I challenge you to apply one thing that I have learned and let me know how it worked. If you already knew all this then check out these websites and see if you can find something to improve your communication skills. Happy Communicating!

http://smartmarriage.com/index.html

The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work: A Practical Guide from the Country's Foremost Relationship Expert by John Gottman