Communication Breakdowns and Misunderstandings! Lack of Communication or the Silent Treatment!

If you ask any couple to name one thing they struggle with the most in their marriage, they would probably say something about communication. Communication between any two people can be difficult, but in marriage lack of communication or communication breakdowns can bring a lot of unnecessary harm.

Join us for this episode as we give you the breakdown on how to communicate effectively with your spouse.

To be effective communication must be...

 

Clear-

This means it must make sense, not only to us, but to our spouse as well. We don’t need to intentionally speak in a way that is confusing to our spouse. They shouldn’t have to decipher our words like some kind of code to “hopefully” figure out what we are trying to say.

Calm-

We learned that only 7% of the message another person receives comes from our actual words. The rest of the message comes from 55% body language, and 38% tone. This shows us that staying calm and in control of our body language and tone are very important. Staying calm in a situation will always improve communication. But we all know when tempers flare it’s easy to say and do things we regret later.

Current-

This means we need to communicate with our spouses every day. There does not need to be long stretches of time when we aren’t speaking to our spouse. This also means the communication we do have needs to be up to date, and frequent. We don’t need to leave anything to assumptions.

Now you can break “current” down two ways in your daily life:

• Communicating any changes that happen.

• Not being historical, especially during a conflict.

Constructive-

When you have a situation where you do not agree, it can cause a lot of stress, especially if this decision will impact your future. Yelling and screaming and being downright belligerent will in no way make your communication or your marriage better. If you are not emphatic, it can cause your spouse to feel like you do not value them or their opinion, which can lead to more issues down the road.

On our next podcast we are going to bring down how you can constructively communicate with your spouse.

The Break Down on Communication - A Beautiful Adventure Marriage