When I googled the top reasons for marital conflict and divorce the most common themes were infidelity, sex, finances, and communication. Yet when I read through these surveys and trending information sites, I believe that hopelessness and lack of skill in communicating can pretty much sum up the real culprit to these issues.
Marriage breakdown will continue in its viscous cycle if new skill in communication and resolution isn’t learned and practiced. When you continuously find yourself fighting with your spouse day after day about a topic in your marriage that creates unresolved strife and relational distance, eventually hopelessness sets in and you will believe it will never change because your spouse is incapable of change.
Einstein once said, “insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result”.
When you find yourself once again in a deadlock argument with your spouse and you think “this will never change”, consider maybe it’s related to the fact that neither of you are changing the way you communicate. Both of you are most likely using the same words and phrases over and over again hoping for new results.
So, I ask you this, what if you choose to look at your marriage from a different perspective? The kind of perspective where you focus on changing you, your communication strategy? Whatcould happen if you had hope for your marriage because you’ve committed yourself to learning how to communicate differently then you are now? What if it’s as simple as learning to listen to understand? What if your hopeless is related to lack of skill and not lack of love? What if there was a path to rediscovering love and rekindling passion in your marriage because it’s not deeply lost as thought? Would you consider leaving insanity behind and doing something different?
Being the change!
Communication involves more then just the words we speak; it’s involves how the message is heard. How many times have you told your spouse “but that’s not what I said”, and yet that’s what they heard! There is something called reflective listening and it’s a place to start if your looking for a new skill in the way you communicate.
Reflective listening is a communication strategy where you listen to understand. Most often we listen to respond, meaning while the person is still talking, we are forming a defense strategy much like in a courtroom.
Why is reflective listening effective?
Reflective listening works because it teaches the listener to understand what the speaker is sharing. When the goal is to understand the message, it conveys to the speaker that they are understood, it affirms how the speaker may be feeling about something. Understanding a message doesn’t mean agreeing with it, agreement isn’t the goal, understanding is the goal. Many heated arguments are rooted from the frustrations of not feeling understood.
What does reflective listening look like?
When we communicate, one person is the speaker and one person is the listener. After the speaker finishes, then the listener summarizes what they heard. The key in listening is learning not to form a response or defense strategy while the speaker is sharing; this defeats the goal of listening to understand.
It goes something like this:
“I hear you saying that (insert what you heard) and it makes you feel (insert feelings shared) when (insert words or situation that is the problem) is said or happens. Did I hear you correctly?”.
Helpful Hint: practice sharing only one piece of information at a time, saying too much can result in the loss of hearing the information we are trying to share.
Doing this may feel awkward or unnatural at first, but it will produce different results which is the goal. Listening to understand will eliminate some of your natural tendencies to defend yourself when communicating.
What if?
I will leave you with these thoughts; what if your marriage isn’t as hopeless as once perceived? What if you were the change that was needed to change your current circumstances? What if it was as simple as changing the way you currently do things to produce different results?
