How do we communicate?

[KimberlyS]

Communication I have learned is a big, no HUGE deal in a relationship. And everyone and every couple communicates differently. And there are a great number of books available to improve your personal communication skills, relationship communication skills, work/group communication skills, and many other more specific areas or skills. What are the ways in which you and your spouse communicate? And I do not mean just about CDing issues but also in general. But if you want to highlight any specific CDing communication techniques that would be great. So not to steer the flow of communication, I will wait and post mine/ours after a few others have.

So how do you communicate with your wife, girlfriend, or significant other?

[Carol Ann]

Hay Kimberly S:
Well let me tell you something, the wife and I have been married 43 years the other day and we have no problem communicating with one another.
I guess it comes with long love and knowing your partner. Yes we have our differences about a lot of things and some times it takes a day or two to fix what every is wrong. But in the end love will win out.

[CJ]

Hi all,

Interesting subject, Kimberly.

I'd say the most important thing in communication is learning to listen well.

As a little test, just notice how easy it is to catch ourselves framing a reply or a rebuttal in our mind while the other person hasn't even finished saying what she's saying to us. We do it all the time. When we do so, we're not really listening to the other person but rather to ourselves. And oh! how we love the sound of our own ideas and opinions.

A few suggestions for those who want to communicate well:

1. Let other people finish saying what they're saying before replying.
2. Do not finish other people's sentences for them; let them have their say in their own words.
3. Make sure you've understood what other people have said by reformulating their thoughts and ideas in your own words.
4. When in even the slightest doubt, ask for confirmation of meaning.
5. Make sure everyone is talking about the same thing (define terms, if necessary).
6. Be generous by giving other people's thoughts and opinions a sympathetic "reading" (i.e., try to see their views in the best possible light).
7. Understand that there's no shame in being wrong; to err is human.

I find that many disagreements and disputes and much discord could be avoided if we could only learn to listen better and if we could just stop cherishing our own opinions so much.

Life is short, friends. We stand to learn much from the views of others.

Love,
CJ

[Lydia]

Spot On ! CJ

Your 7 points are great. I know that I have a tendency to violate #1 and #2. Especially when speaking with someone who talks slowly. It is terribly impolite, for one thing, and I have to watch myself. My SO (Paula) gives me a gentle elbow nudge from time to time.

Listening is essential - often we hear the other person, but we don't listen.

When it comes to my CDing, I can speak freely about it to Paula, and she is equally frank with me. I think, in spite of any reservations she might harbor, it is the only way. Without total trust, there lies disaster. I know this can be difficult and necessitates compromise.

Hugs,

Lydia

[KimberlyS]

Ok not quite what I had in mind, but I like where it has gone.

I hear so many people answer the question of: Do you and your spouse have good communication, with an answer similar to, of course we talk all the time, I say hi when I walk in the door and tell her what I am doing for the night and she tells me what her and the kids are doing; at dinner we talk about our days. In other words similar to the responses that I got from Carol Ann and Lydia. And no I am not picking on you both, but thank you for I guess kinda proving what I am trying to point out. And from talking and reading your posts you both seem much above the norm for communication with your SO's.

Most just do not get communication. Communication is what CJ outlined. But my question is how do you and your SO do this. Some people sit down and have family meetings once a month maybe. Some call meetings or have impromptu to meetings as needed. Some people actually communicate at the supper table and get beyond the how was your day and the weather, to details and feelings.

Some of the things my wife and I have and continue to learn to help us communicate better are:
-- Get a third person involved which hopefully that has some training in communication and marriage counseling. Yes it can be spendy, but if you want spendy we had the cost of the session, which lucky insurance picked up some of it, the gas, extra maintenance and 3 plus hours of time to just get there and get back, and cost of a sitter if the session was joint. Some week we had up to three trips, and some days two trips due to my wife's and my schedules. And we did feel some money crunch due to the costs. But we both wanted to make our relationship last. So it can be well worth it if both partners are willing and ready to dig in and do it, and really work on things. If one person of the couple does not relate to the third person you need to find someone else. Often pastors are trained it this and can be less costly.
-- To great surprise to all of our counselors (ours, hers, mine, and ours) was, in addition to counseling sessions that my wife and I had a session after each of our personal or joint sessions to discuss it. We called them our sessions after the sessions. We tried to have them the night after the session if possible. Some times they would last just a few minutes and some times hours. We usually had the sessions after the kids were in bed, but it was joint, we would also do them on the hour ride home, in the vehicle at some parking lot close by the office, or even stop along the road on the way home to continue and focus on it.

-- Actually ask how the other spouse/SO is feeling as part of our daily update to each other or even more often.
** Some times it is when we greet each other coming home
** Some times it is part of the family supper table, but seldom
** Some times it is during our kid free time before we go to bed
** Some times it is in bed when I am half asleep and my wife is thinking of something.
** At times one of us has said they need to talk and we either sit down and do it then or schedule a time.
** Many times it is just on the fly, squeezed into the day.

-- We will use Email to send each other notes / comments/ or letters for the other person to read. Sometimes a response is sent back via email and other times as above. We will use this mostly with quick things, but also with in depth writings to give the other person time to digest it.

-- Something we started when we began to work on the CDing issues was we both got a journal book. It does not have to be fancy, it can just be a spiral notebook.
** But with in it we kept thoughts we had through out the day, things our spouses said, things we wanted to think about or write about, assignments or thoughts for our personal or join counselor when we were seeing them. This then allowed us to look back, reflect, do our assignments, and also very important, talk to my spouse about what I wanted to talk about with her.
** And one important thing IMO was we kept spewing information when we would just be thinking a bunch of random thoughts that really made no sense or followed and format or flowed at all. They were often times of great confusion, anxiety, anger, reflection, and thought. But later it allowed use to look back at it and try to make more sense of what the spewing thoughts. And over time many of these "Spews" began to show very helpful patterns.
**Spewing to a journal allowed me to keep more negative out of our discussion by reflecting on it before discussing it
**A big plus of writing down thoughts was it got them out of the brain and released them in a way that allowed more reflection on them.
**A big plus for the journals for me, it allowed myself, to look back on all writings and reflect with more focus and productivity to working things out.
**Reading each others journals was off limits, but we would often share some pages for the other person to read.

-- And the one main thing that I did at the beginning of starting to work on the CDing issues between my wife and I was I sat down and wrote and got some information off of the web. My wife wanted to know details, I mean DETAILS. She did not want any information left out. So I wrote to the best of my knowledge from the first time to present how I seen my CDing history, any feelings I could remember, what I did, where I went out, dates that I could remember. I even included relationship information while being married and how I felt that it related. Over time I did remember more and added to it via my journal. We also used this as an intro to two of the counselors we seen, because of course we were going in to fix me, my CDing.

So we really do not have any real set pattern on when or how we communicate. And I also know I am forgetting other ways also.

I know first hand, learning to communicate better with one's spouse is not easy. We had some pretty angry sessions, long sessions that little got done, and some very productive short sessions. But we all can improve our relationship with our spouse/so. Our marriage is much better and more loving since we have learned to communicate better. We may not always be happy with each other, but we have learned to communicate our feelings better, but still have a long way that we can go.

So my question to everyone again is:

So how do you truly communicate with your wife, girlfriend, or significant other?

[CJ]

Hi all,

Great post, Kimberly.

Like you and your SO, I think Rina and I communicate mostly on the fly, in a very unscheduled way. Of course, we do talk about the daily toils and troubles but we eventually go deeper (as we must if we're to get to know each other better).

We usually meet after her day is done for a "daycap" in her favorite restaurant close to her workplace. We socialize for a spell and then head home to fix ourselves supper (this is a bit of a kink we need to iron out: a true Anglo, she likes to eat around 8:00 pm; a true Franco, I like to eat around 5:00 or 5:30). At home there are a few rules:

-- We don't watch television or do anything else but eat and chat while we're having supper (I don't really watch TV to begin with, so this one's easy for me).
-- We find as many opportunities as we can to snuggle and get close (this, uh, contributes significantly to our communicating prowess ).
-- We always try to minimize distractions during our conversations; in other words, we make the time to talk and listen (a sore point with me: her job requires her to be reachable by phone 24/7/365, so distractions inevitably occur... yet, I knew this going into the relationship so it's a non-negotiable topic for us).

Carol Ann makes a good point; when two people have known each other for a long time, they start getting a feel for when things aren't right with the other person. I usually pick up on this very quickly and don't wait it out; I bring whatever malaise I perceive in Rina to the table pronto. I'll admit that our relationship is still new enough that it's a bit harder to do this with as much assurance as if we'd been married twenty years; sometimes, trouble brewing slips right by me, unnoticed, until Rina herself can no longer contain it. It's difficult, though, because she has a much harder time discussing feelings and emotions than I do. Before we started going out (four months today), one of her colleagues once asked her what was up between Rina and me. "Dan?!?" she allegedly replied, "are you crazy? He's like a woman; he always wants to talk about feelings and stuff."

So. Rina and I make the time to talk about ourselves, about each other, about our relationship, about our thoughts and feelings. However, like everything else in our lives, our communication skills are but works in progress. It so happens it's work we love, though.

Love,
CJ

[Anita]

Hi All--
Good topic, Kimberly.

I have found that it gets harder to bring up sensitive topics, CJ, the longer two people are together. I'm like you--I was often the "woman" in the relationship, when it came to noting that something was wrong. In the early months or years, the woman is more receptive to me doing this. As we go along, habits and comfort levels start to set in, and pretty soon I'm hearing, "Oh, no, here you go again, being too sensitive." There's resistance to hearing from me--she feels like she's 'heard it all before.'

And of course she's often right--the same problems do come up, again and again. I had to learn how to address the 'old' problem in a here/now fashion--"Here's what I feel about it right NOW." And I really, really try to avoid the extremes. We all know them--saying something like, "You ALWAYS do blah, blah." That's a sure-fire turnoff.

Our support group talks about "I" statements. It's a great reminder.
"When you do A, I feel B, and it makes me do C." It's taking responsibility for your own feelings, and it doesn't put the blame on your partner. She may not like what you feel, but you're not blaming her for it!

Tonight I had a homeless transgirl in the group, and she had a lot of bottled-up things to say after the meeting. I listened, and listened, and then my attention started to go. She noticed this, and said, "I'm way too intense for people, aren't I?"

It took me a moment, but I said, "No, it's not your intensity. It's that you're not asking me anything about me. There needs to be some give-and-take."

It took her a while, but later on, she did ask me some questions. It was hard to say that, but she needed to know that her communication problems were not all about her pre-conceived ideas. It happens to couples too, so I note it here.

[Stormy(SO)]

We just do it! We talk about everything and anything. I will tell you that I found out about Melyssa by accident. I had time to process what I'd found, examine how I feel and I was the one to talk to her about it. This was before we named Melyssa and she felt awful that she'd kept a secret. It really is not her nature. Given the topic I could understand the deception. I periodically am a "secret" smoker and now out <G>!!

However, we talk. We don't over analyze who is saying what or how but we talk. I listen about her work and she listens when I vent about mine! She is gorgeous as either a man or a woman and has never been a "typical male" communicator - whatever that is exactly I'm not sure.

She listens closely and while I violate #1 and #2 from time to time - I'm not sure that's relevant either. If you want to talk about something - sit down and really talk about it - don't dance with it. We talk about people, places, things, things we have read, things that we think, her day of golf (as him), etc. You name it - we talk about it!

We are unique unto ourselves.

I agree that if someone's eyes start to glaze over you should change your approach and find something tha works and bless you for even realizing that you have lost their attention.

As a paralegal I'm a wordsmith. I can craft a plausible argument for just about any topic on the planet. It's fun but you have to be able to keep up with me. Melyssa does all that and more.

Is this more along the lines of what you were looking for?

Stormy

[Absaroka]

What I have found helps a lot is if we are doing something else which is not too demanding. Going for walks is a great way because we can talk but if there is silence or something you can just keep on walking until you are ready to talk some more rather than getting up and leaving like when you are sitting. Plus it is real private, no kids interrupting, which sabotages many a spousal chat.

Another time for just catching up is helping make dinner together. Not a great time for heavy communication since everyone is stressed from the day but if you keep talking about the little stuff the big stuff is easier.

One of the big obstacles we both have is how we react to the others feelings-we both tend to take responsibilty for the others thoughts and feelings. Just the other day we were discussing how Christmass is always difficult for me. It is the one time of year that I really miss my parents. And my wife keeps feeling that she should be able to plan a nice Christmass so I will be happy, rather than letting me take responsibiltity for my own feelings. Which in the end makes us both unhappy-she feels like she has failed and I feel like I have betrayed her efforts. But what I need to do is just feel my feelings but not let them impose on others. Always a very tricky path and one we read of all the time here.

Absaroka