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TIME IMPACT SERIES | COMMUNICATION 2 | SEEING IT FROM BOTH PERSPECTIVES |

Posted by : Dele Agbogun Posted date : December 2, 2013 In Marriage 0

The previous post focused on the basic understanding of the place of time in a communication between spouses. It also looked at possible outcomes of both effective and ineffective communication outcomes. In this post, i like to give practical, useful guides.

The following are useful guides to making time impact positively on the state of communication between you and your spouse.

1. Expression of empathy. Sensitivity to each other’s needs or concerns. You cannot maintain a position where only your voice that need to be heard. If this is the case, then you are inviting a lot of disagreements in your marriage relationship.

2. Improving your listening skill. You need to seek to understand before you can be understood. It works better this way. You will be frustrated and angered the more if all that you want is for your spouse to first understand your point of view. I remember the earlier arguments I had with my spouse. Her style of handling issues was obviously different from mine. I always attempt to debate issues from my point of view which usually run contrary to her views. The varied views usually created lots of strain because neither of us would be ready to step down and listen to the other party. Deliberately seeking to understand your spouse is a fruitful route to take as this will give you the opportunity to view issues from a different stand point. This will encourage harmonization of differing viewpoints and also increase your understanding of each other. When this is maintained over time, it helps reinforce your communication with each other.

3. Learning to accommodate each other’s weaknesses. If you fail to admit that you have a weakness, then anytime something goes wrong it MUST be your spouse. You need maturity to handle each other’s vulnerability. Seeing the need for you to work on yourself will provide the needed tolerance for your spouse. I read that most of the things we raise as issues are really not as bad as they seem. We view weaknesses through our own blurred sight. Just like how bad our sight can be when we have a ray of light shines through our windscreen, same is true when you view your spouse through your strengths. But when you agree that you have a weakness, it does something to your mind that help justifies your spouse’s weakness. This will help both parties work as a team to improve on their areas of weakness. And ultimately your communication is enhanced.

4. Deliberately allow flexibility towards each other. Rigidity is counter- productive to the health of any marriage. When there is no flexibility, it makes each person’s opinion seems superior to the other party. This usually results in defensiveness from the other party who thinks contrary , and this will obviously work contrary to the effectiveness of communication in marriage. Agreed, you used to carry out your communication in a different way as a single person, but it is totally a different ball game now. Stereotype approach MUST give way to a fluid approach, where adjustment in your thinking is allowed.

You might be in a dilemma feeling your marriage is not as blissful as expected due to lots of communication issues. You need to understand the following to aid having a healthy relationship in your marriage;

1. Understand that nobody is perfect.

2. You need to let go of complaints and accusations when resolving issues, learn to engage in healthy discussions. You must put persons aside in order to deal with real issues. If this is not done, the focus on persons makes issues personal, and also aggravate the situation over time.

3. Attempt to get the person your spouse holds in high esteem after you must have tried all other possible means without meaningful progress. You should understand what your spouse is capable of doing though. This will inform whether you need to deploy the third point.

4. That if all the above three have been exhausted and the state still remains the same, seek professional counsel. The other option is for you to send mail to mail@senseportal.org for personal counselling.

Now, if communication plays such role in marriage, it suggests therefore, that high priority is needed to make it effective. Irrespective of your race, culture and your geographical location, without the effective working of the above-stated factors, effective communication cannot be experienced and a successful relationship may remain a mirage.