Marriage Breakfast Club: Week 2

Communication is the key!

This week we covered Chapter 17 which was about communication. Apparently because this is such a key in marriage, we will be covering this topic for the next 2 or 3 weeks.

In the book that we are covering, Marriage on the Rock, Jimmy Evans says this about communication, “Communication is the bridge that connects the lives of two people making free access to the other person’s hearts and mind possible.”

We learned about the power of our words. That they have the power to build up or destroy. Proverbs 18:21 says that “the power of life and death are in the tonuge.” We have the ability in the context of marriage to lift our spouse up and encourage or beat them down and abuse them with our words. As one of Jimmy Evans’ seminars he made the profound statement that “words are NOT evaporative.” When we speak something to our spouse, we are “planting a seed” into their life and either positive fruits will grow or destruction will come about.

Suzanne’s show-and-tell consisted of different of seeds, including the seed of a habanero pepper which she could only hold with rubber gloves, She told the story of her daughter cooking with different peppers and once used the habanero and for a week could not remove the burn from their hands. Like this seed, our words can leave a “burn” that can be hard if not impossible to remove. When we speak hatefully towards our spouse or are just trying to establish our position or “rightness”, we can leave our spouses feeling hurt and vulnerable. We should create a “safe place” for our spouses to come to discuss their thoughts, feelings, and dreams.

As women, we are emotionally immodest and physically modest, where men are the exact opposite. Women can share ANYTHING with just about ANYONE! We can share our life story with the telemarketer from AT&T, however it takes a safe place for us to open up sexually to our husbands. Women need to know that they are loved and protected. Men can open up sexually at the drop of a hat, literally, where they must feel that their wife’s respect their need for confidentiality and trust. Men feel betrayed when their wives blab to their friends about their “soft side.” Just this evening, I was watching an episode of “Everybody Loves Raymond”, Raymond had written a eulogy for his father and in it he described a story about how he caught his tough father petting a pet bunny every night. Raymond left this out and his mother found it and thought it was sweet, so she shared it with her friends because she thought it was cute. Well in the end, Raymond’s dad found out about it the eulogy and denied the whole thing while reaffirming his family and taunting friends that he was a tough guy and had not actually done what Raymond thought he had seen as a young child.
This is exactly what women are guilty of very often. We take the time to cultivate our relationship with our husbands and the second he opens up, we run to our friends and we blab about this personal, for-our-ears-only information. When our husbands realize that this has happened, they feel that their trust has been betrayed and they will be less likely to open up in the future.
Now as for husbands, women are motivated by conversation. The woman’s need for open communication is as great as your need for sex. If you often dismiss your wife when she wants to talk or share your “feelings” with her, it is the same rejection that you feel when she rolls over night after night with a “headache”…(although, sometimes, we do have headaches). She needs communication to feel connected and when there is a lack of it, she can feel shut off and rejected by her best friend.

We learned how to have a “truth talk”which consisted of:
1. Caring about your spouse’s feelings- realizing that first, the issue is not the issue. Your spouse’s feelings about the issue IS the issue. Once we can understand them, we can reach resolution (not necessarily agreement, but a resolution)
2. Feelings are not right or wrong. They just are and can’t be judged.
3. Make a decision to set your need to be right aside
4. Choose body language that reflects care and respect
5. Begin the talk with affirmation and praise. DO NOT focus on what is “wrong” with
your spouse.
6. Listen with the goal of understanding your spouse’s feelings
7. Speak the truth in love and make your goal openness through intimate conversation.

Try using this technique while discussing a “area of particular uneasiness” with your spouse, even if it feels methodical while going through these steps. This will help diffuse any anger or defensiveness that might come up in a usual “discussion”.