Marriage and Your Communication Skills

Improving your Marriage Communication Skills

Even in the best situations, conflicts in relationships, family life, or work are inevitable. Unfortunately, the unskilled and negative ways we typically respond to conflict often causes even more stress, thus eroding relationships. This creates resentment within families and lessens personal and relational effectiveness. Here are some ways to improve your communication skills:
• Set an example—If you want your partner to open up more, set the example by sharing more of your own thoughts and feelings. Try sharing interesting things you’ve heard or read. Relate an experience that it happened during the day.
• Keep it light–Try talking about something else besides the problems. Make a decision not to bring up the hassles with work, kids, or finances, at least until later.
• Make “I” statements—Avoid starting a sentence with “you.” It sounds like an accusation or invitation to fight.
• Use the feeling words—Use good descriptors when describing what you’re feeling. It’s not fair to expect your partner to guess or figure out what you’re trying to say or feeling about an issue.
• Do something together—Experience has shown that people, particularly men, are more likely to share their feelings when they’re doing something together that both can enjoy.
• Listen… don’t talk— give the other person a chance to get his or her ideas and opinions across.
• Ask questions—guard against assuming you know what the other person meant by asking questions.
• Keep an open mind—don’t just listen for statements that back up your own opinions and support your beliefs. Be willing to listen to someone else’s point of view and ideas.
• Don’t jump to conclusions— don’t assume you have the gist of the conversation or think you know what the speaker’s going to say next. If you do not listen, you may miss the real point the speaker is trying to get across.
• Listen between the lines—remember a lot of clues to meaning come from the speaker’s tone of voice, facial expressions, non-verbals and gestures. Body language is usually an accurate indication of the speaker’s attitude or emotional state. Concentrate on what is not being set as well as what is being said.
• Provide feedback– Make eye contact with the speaker; nod your head when you understand the specific point or provide other feedback that shows you’re really listening.
• Summarize—when the person finishes speaking, repeat what the speaker has said in your own words to confirm that you understand. Summarize points of agreement or disagreement.

5 Tools of Successful Families: #1.Listening, Part Two

The art of listening….

One of a humans greatest need is psychological survival, to be understood, affirmed, validated, and appreciated.

In other words, we need to be heard. It isn’t always easy, and we live in a busy world, and many of us spend our days in a time crunch.

But the experts agree, when we take time to listen we improve relationships, promote an atmosphere of cooperation and encourage creative thinking, and even save money by avoiding costly errors caused by miscommunication.

Active listening does not come naturally. Stephen Covey notes that when someone speaks, our initial reaction is to evaluate and scrutinize them… the opposite of what we should do.

Instead, we should focus on empathetic listening with the intent to understand and we must does this with the goal of helping…

There are four phases of empathetic listening, according to Covey…

1. the first is to mimic content, repeating exactly what the speaker has said
2. the second stage is to rephrase the content to what was said in our own words
3. third, you may reflect feelings or make a non-judgmental statement about the speaker’s emotions, empathizing with what or how he feels
4. the fourth stage is a combination of the second and third stages, to rephrase content and reflect feelings

Sometimes you don’t want to hear what’s being said, choosing to be annoyed instead of understanding the other person’s view… this only damages a relationship. We’d make a better choice of moving forward, forgiving the offense and the offender, and resolving the problem.

Listening must come from the hear. If it is not sincere it will show regardless of what you say… nonverbal gestures will expose true feelings. When this happens, make it a point to remain focused on what the speaker is saying, actively participating in and practicing the stages of empathetic listening… the art of listening lies in understanding that to be an effective father, leader, spouse, or any other role we must not only care about what others have to say, but also how they feel… just remember your kids need your full attention, your patience, and a listening ear… so listen well when they speak. It will make you an even better father than you already are …