The scene? Our counseling office. The clients? Rick and Amy, a married couple of less than a year.
“I hear the words coming out of your mouth, but I just don’t understand what you mean!” Rick’s frustration was unmistakable. “It’s like you’re speaking a foreign language.”
“Well, you’re the only person I’ve ever known who didn’t understand me when I talked,” she replied angrily.
“What you say sometimes just isn’t logical,” he countered.
“I’m not like you, Rick, analyzing everything, picking apart every word.” Amy was close to tears.
“I know. I just wish you weren’t so emotional when you talk. I don’t get what you’re saying. We just can’t communicate.”
That’s it, the number-one complaint in marriage: We just can’t communicate. The truth is every couple communicates whether they want to or not. Saying nothing is communicating. What most couples mean by this complaint is that they don’t understand one another.
Like Rick and Amy, many of us have difficulty talking to each other from time to time. He answers a question simply and succinctly; she says he’s not “listening” to her. She tells him she knows exactly how he feels; he thinks she’s trying to put him in a box.
In order to understand better and communicate more effectively with our partner, we have to slow down and think. Good communication takes time. When the best-selling business book “The One Minute Manager” was popular, there were a hundred spin-offs, including “The One Minute Marriage.” Give me a break. Maybe managers can accomplish their goals through quick contacts, but a husband and wife? Not likely.
When we slow down the conversation with our partner, we are less likely to give hasty orders, snappy solutions, and thoughtless comments. When we slow down, we are more likely to listen to the emotions that underlie our partner’s words and pay more attention to the nonverbal messages. Taking care in these ways helps us avoid foolish conversations and brings about true understanding.
Talking can happen on the run, but understanding requires less hasty intervals. Listen again to the wise message of Proverbs: “There is more hope for a fool than for someone who speaks without thinking.”
Related Resources
Meditations on Proverbs for Couples draws from the ancient wisdom of Proverbs to provide modern couples with 31 down-to-earth and thoroughly modern meditations on communication, money, sex, commitment, forgiveness, conflict, and more. The wise sayings of Proverbs must be talked about. Read them aloud together, commit a few to memory, and fill your marriage with wise and good conversations. This book is a great way to join hearts and minds.
To order your copy, click here.
Smile at her and since I know she loves me, ask myself, “How is she trying to improve our marriage or help me understand her with this comment?”
Love your heart here, Pleas!
Thank for this weekly thought, and action challenge.
While I am single after 32 years of marriage.
It is great to get information on what I should have done. 🙂
It is never too late to walk a different path with guidance like you suggest.
🙂
So glad you’re enjoying this little resource!
Yeah this is the first time I’ve read that marriage & business are not the same. Hearing & listening are two different things as well and everyone processes information differently. The marriage relationship is 24/7, is the most intimate form of relationship and each person comes with there own communication style. My husband & I used the 5. Love Languages book along with your book & cd and the combination revealed plenty about both if us. The trick is to practice what you’ve learned “be a doer and not a hearer only ” as the bible says you fool yourself if you don’t do what you’ve hear.
Ahh. Yes. Putting it into practice. That’s the rub – for all of us. 🙂
My husband has Aspergers (mild not enough for the psychologist to document) personally I disagree. My background in education (observation technique) brought me to this conclusion but I’m not trained in working with autism. I love him, want to have a successful marriage but don’t always know how to work with him as some of his behavior different. I’m not asking for clinical help I know you can’t do that but I would appreciate prayer & tips on how to interact with people who have Aspergers
Dealing with any diagnosis like this adds new layers to the already challenging task of being husband and wife successfully together. While many of the same strategies apply universally, they sometimes require contextualizing (as you know). We’re praying for your today.
Chances are, we are sitting and having a meal, while catching up on the TV shows we enjoy watching together. When one of us wants/needs to share/ask something, the other grabs the remote and pauses what is on the screen…for however long it takes….
Different strokes, right?
Smile! than ask myself, “Is the comment or my response intended to improve our marriage or help me understand him? Consider the receivability of the comment or question in the delivery? And aim to listen openly and more fully to his response.
Love this thought, Brit. Sounds like you’re hinting at empathy here – seeing the world or a comment through their shoes. Empathy is incredibly powerful and transformative to a relationship if it can be practiced regularly.
My husband and I are in our seventh year of marriage. We have learned to take time to turn off everything else and listen. We also have learned that some of our best “dates” are breakfast. For some reason, we just communicate best in the morning. Maybe we are just fresh for the day. We have just had our quiet time, and we sometimes go out to our favorite breakfast spot and linger for more than an hour over coffee and pancakes just talking. It is often there that we share our hearts more freely. When we can’t go out, we have our breakfast outside, listening to the birds, and watching the squirrels play. Again, we find that we share more, and actually communicate more this way than when we sit down in the evening when we are both tired.
Jennifer, sounds like you and your husband have found a great routine that works! Fantastic idea. Plus, you can enjoy the benefits of being morning people together. There’s a mountain of research showing that morning people are happier and healthier than their night owl counterparts. Keep it up!
To connect better- turn off all media!
That’s a great insight, Kristi. I think we can all benefit from more face time and less screen time!
What an excellent message! Communication takes time and work. My wife and I have learned and accepted that there are significant challenges to men and women understanding each other’s “language”. Not only are we wired to think differently as males and females, but in the case of the couple you are using as your example (and in the case of my wife and I) they are wired with different personalities. Many times I think if I could just figure her out (and I am sure she thinks the same about me) out it would be so much easier. However, to do that you would have to unlearn they way you think and thus loose what significance and uniqueness you bring to the relationship. Instead my wife and I have spent time working on our universal translators. I don’t have to think like her or her like me, I just have to have the ability to translate her “language” into something I can understand. Sometimes I need her to help me do that and sometimes there just isn’t a word for what she is trying to communicate in my “language” so we accept and move on. But the most important thing is it takes work and time, it doesn’t just happen and you can’t just change the “language” of the yourself or the other person.
What great insight, Andy! Perhaps you should write our next devotional! Great insight that can be so helpful to us all!
You are very kind…. I am happy you find my insights helpful. Maybe the next time you and Leslie need a week off I can write something for you. 🙂 ~~Peace