Recently, I had a series of private
phone sessions with a person who was very frustrated. Listen to how this person
described their situation. I bet you’ll be able to relate to it.
This person said they felt trapped
in their basement trying to communicate with their spouse via Morse Code. They
said they were banging on the pipes trying desperately to be heard. They would
bang on the pipes and wait for a response. Bang and wait…bang and wait…bang and
wait. But each time they finished banging, there was silence. No matter how
hard they banged and no matter how long they waited; their spouse never heard
them.
Are you trying to get heard? Do you
feel ignored? Is your spouse not responding to your communication?
We live in an interesting time. With
one click, you can communicate with anyone in the world. It’s easy, quick, and
free. You even have options. If you don’t want to click, you could dial, beep,
page, instant-message, or Fed Ex. It’s true. Your ability to communicate with
the outside world has become increasingly easy. But my guess is that your
ability to communicate with your spouse has become increasingly difficult.
The reason for this is that most
people confuse INFORMATION communication with PERSONAL communication.
Technological advancements give us all sorts of options to communicate
information. But how do you feel the pulse of someone’s soul? How do you
communicate the subtleties in your heart? You can’t text message that. You can
have the latest and greatest in communication gadgets, but it won’t matter.
PERSONAL communication is a whole different ball game. And it’s PERSONAL
communication that determines the success or failure of your marriage.
I’m reminded of a scene from a
Broadway play. A man and woman happen to meet on a train and engage in polite
conversation. They were both headed home to New York after
a day in New
Haven, CT. After further discussion, they
learned that they were going to the same building on Fifth Avenue. Lo and behold they
discovered that they had the same daughter and lived in the same apartment.
They finally discovered that they were husband and wife.
You know what’s killing marriages these
days? EMAIL! More and more I’m seeing husbands and wives resort to email to
communicate with each other. You want to do something tangible TODAY to improve
your marriage? STOP EMAILING YOUR SPOUSE! Email is for INFORMATION. But in a
marriage you’ve got to HEAR each other. And I don’t mean hear the sounds of
each other’s words. You’ve got to be able to hear the silence between the
sounds and interpret the unspoken meaning of a pressed lips or teary eyes.
You’ve got to be able to hear the shapes and sounds in each other’s heart. You
can NOT accomplish this via email.
And let me be clear about something;
you can’t do it with communication techniques either. There’s no clinical
communication therapy that can help you and your spouse think each other’s thoughts,
feel each other joy, and cringe from each other’s pain. Our 1-on-1 phone
session schedule and the Marriage Fitness Tele Boot Camp are filled with
casualties from traditional communication strategies and the usual marriage
counseling approach. If you’re like most people with marriage trouble, you’ve
been down that path and you know that it does NOT work.
Today my 4-year-old son came to me
with a bruise on his leg. He was crying and I could see that it was black and
blue. He said, “Daddy, I need a band-aide.”
I responded, “But it’s not
bleeding.”
He said again, “Daddy, can you put a
band-aide on it?”
I realized that my son’s perspective
was that when something hurts a band-aide makes it better…even if it’s a bruise
and not a cut.
So what does this have to do with
communication in a marriage? Because most people think that if spouses aren’t
hearing each other that communication techniques will solve the problem. But that’s
like putting a band-aide on a bruise. It’s the wrong solution.
Communication techniques can help
colleagues transmit INFORMATION clearly. Communication techniques belong in
seminars that teach negotiation and sales. But you’re not trying to complete a
transaction with your spouse; you’re trying to renew a relationship. I can
almost guarantee you that your problem is not clarity; it’s concern.
Ironically, communication techniques sometimes give people clarity that they
don’t care what their spouse thinks or feels. They “got it,” but “it” doesn’t
matter to them anymore.
How do you get back to the place
where you and your spouse care again?
This is one of the things that are
unique about the Marriage Fitness approach to repairing a relationship versus
traditional counseling. Most approaches to marriage success preach
communication skills. But communicating effectively will not create love in your
marriage. In fact, the correlation is the opposite. Creating love in your
marriage paves the way for efficient communication. I’ll demonstrate it to you.
Think about when you fell in love.
How was your communication? Good, right? In fact, when you’re in love, you
communicate with the wink of an eye and you can finish each other’s sentences.
And yet you haven’t known each other that long and you haven’t learned any
communication techniques.
Then, years later, after getting to
know each other inside and out, employing psychologically tested and proven
communication strategies, and taking into account all the differences between
Mars and Venus, you can’t get through to each other.
Listen carefully: Communication has
very little to do with techniques or knowledge of each other. It has everything
to do with the depth of connection between the communicators.
The question you should be asking is
NOT, “How do I communicate effectively with my spouse.” The question you should
be asking is, “How do I connect with my spouse again?” Once you reconnect, you
won’t be sitting in silence in the basement. You’ll hear the sound of the pipes
from above. It’ll be your spouse. You were heard.
If you want to learn how to connect with your spouse again, subscribe
to my FREE report, “7 Secrets for a Stronger Marriage” and get my FREE marriage
assessment. CLICK HERE to subscribe. It’s FREE.