Why You’re Listening All Wrong in Your Marriage

Life gets busy. Pause. Breath deeply. Try again.

The longer you're married, the more likely you'll hear the phrase “You never listen.” Hearing is one of our primary senses, though we don’t pay much attention to it. Like sight and taste, we take it for granted until it’s interfered with… through a cold, a bad cell phone connection or deafness. Partly, we don't think of listening as a skill. Like eyesight or tasting, we don't know we can improve it. We just assume that we're always hearing/listening and doing a fine job.

I once read that the beginning of a new love relationship is like being intimate with a “Big Ear.” Your new relationship partner hangs on to every syllable and listens to every word you say. They are totally "tuned in" - and this is a turn on! This leaves you feeling good. Cared for. It’s in these moments of the relationship that we feel most connected, most heard and ironically most “seen”. If the relationship progresses, we feel accepted.

Perhaps we consider marriage the ultimate sign of acceptance. If someone agrees to merge their life with ours, despite our sometimes unsavory stories of a character flaw or a life dramatically lived, we can put down the Big Ear and get on with the mundane tasks of day to day living. We float back to listening as we always have... only tuning in to hear, when the station is of interest.

Our marriage partner often does the same thing. Now, they listen with half the effort of the Big Ear. This pattern can lead to marriages that get into the poor communication rut. Maybe it looks like this:

• Everyone is talking and no one is listening.

• Your partner is talking and you're interrupting.

• Your partner is talking and you’re thinking of “the right answer”.

• You’re scared to ask questions because you don’t know what to do with the answers.

• You take their words so personally, it’s hard to listen.

• Your marriage partner is talking and you’re not tuned in at all.

We make mistakes and that’s okay because we’re all human. However, if you practice these Don’ts and Dos you’ll ultimately build your skillset and find connection in your marriage again.

DON’T:

1. Focus on your answer.

2. Fidget.

3. Try to shut down the conversation quickly.

4. Personalize what your loved one is saying and become defensive.

5. Hold your breath.

6. Stare so hard you’re not blinking.

7. Rush to fill the silence.

The good news is to be a good listener, you don’t have to know the answer or come up with an immediate solution. Most connection happens when you’re being the “Big Ear”.

DO:

1. Slow and relax your body movements.

2. Express curiosity “How was that ____ for you?”

3. Offer words of understanding. “That makes sense…” or “I understand you could feel that way.”

4. Take thoughtful breaths.

5. Pause and allow 2 seconds of silence before you fill the space with words.

6. When it’s particularly uncomfortable, remind yourself that you are loved by this person.

What matters, is that both people in the marriage want to feel connected. They know they felt appreciated and accepted at some point in time and they’re willing to hang in there to get back to those old feelings. Listening is different than hearing. Enter these moments with the intention to hear. Get tuned in, turned on and watch your marriage connection grow.

CLICK HERE... for a good example of right listening.

Surviving an Affair: The Wounding Party Needs to Become a Marriage Rebuilder

The roller coaster after the affair is hard but not impossible

The pain felt by the wounded party after the revelation of an affair is immense.  They feel blindsided. Their world has been turned upside down. Everything they thought to be true in their marriage is now in question. They hear everything through a filter of “possible lie” and betrayal.  Even truths that they have known in the marriage for years are now taken into question. I’ve heard clients say, the person they love most in the world has “stabbed them in the back.” Unfortunately, all too often the wounding party underestimates the damage and pain inflicted on their spouse and the marriage.

In the immediate days and weeks following the disclosure or discovery of an infidelity, the wounding party can feel numb, avoidant, shame-filled or remorse. None of these emotions create the same emotional roller coaster that the wounded party feels. However, each party gets caught in the emotional dilemma of wanting connection and not wanting connection with each other. Clearly, this is a tough time and the marriage becomes very fragile.

These first days and weeks are critical to the survival of the marriage. If the wounding party immediately takes the right steps, the repair work can begin. If the person who stepped out of the relationship can now see their role as the *“marriage rebuilder” they can weather the roller coaster ahead.

Seven “DO” steps the wounding party can take immediately, to help start repairing the marriage:

1.     Come clean. Truth. Truth. Truth. Full truth.

2.     Let your spouse express their pain as often as they need.

3.     Answer the same question 100 times.

4.     Take it on the chin.

5.     Acknowledge your actions as being incredibly painful and wrong.

6.     Apologize often. Then, apologize more.

7.     Break ALL ties with the affair partner.

8.     Hold space for your loved one’s pain. 

(Read next BLOG post on Why You’re Listening Wrong in Your Marriage)

If you are the wounding spouse and you want to save your marriage, you must take your role as “the healer” immediately.  For more information about creating repair after an infidelity and becoming a successful Marriage Rebuilder read: * How to Help Your Spouse Heal from Your Affair: A Compact Guild for the Unfaithful By Linda MacDonald. 

Book: How To Help Your Spouse Heal From Your Affair

The #1 Way to Become the BEST Gift Giver

While some of us love giving gifts to our romantic partner, others of us dread it. Will we get them the right thing? Will they like it? Will they hate it and not tell us… you get the picture.

Many times the way we purchase gifts is in a state of unconsciousness. We think about what the person might need or we think about what we would like the person to have. Often, we're not paying attention to what our partners want - and this is where we can blow it.

I just had a client this week tell me that he gives gifts to his wife "all the time" but it doesn't improve their intimacy. When I asked him if he does this number one thing before he gives her the gift, he went on to tell me about all the things he likes to buy her. While this is sweet and good intentioned, this loving man was missing the boat. As many of us often do.

Think about all the times you've gotten a gift from your romantic partner and wondered "Do they even know me"? And now, think about the gift that you would truly love from your romantic partner.

To give a great gift you have to do it in a state of authentic awakeness – if that's even a word. What I mean by that is,  you have to do it in a way that you truly consider what your romantic partner wants most from you (not what you mostly want to give them). I know you're saying, "But Jenn... this takes work. This takes more time then that unconscious stuff."

According to author Gary Chapman, there are five main ways we want to get and experience love. Each of us has a "primary" way and often a "secondary" way. He calls them the 5 Love Languages. These love languages include:

• Gifts
• Acts of service
• Quality time
• Words of affirmation
• Physical touch

Consider this, we often give love the way we want to receive it.  If your primary love language is "gifts" and your romantic partner's primary love language is "quality time," you could be spending a lot of money and missing the boat, every time. I know It's hard to see the disappointment in your loved ones eyes, when you buy them that little négligée that you thought was the perfect gift. However, through some easy investigation you can easily identify their primary love language and from now on, be giving them, what they feel, is the best gift they could ever received from you - and that's quality time! In fact, with some thoughtful awakeness, you could be giving them quality time while you're having lunch, holding hands, making eye contact and then shopping for that perfect négligée that you would love them to have. See how this works.:-)

Women often think that men's primary love language is physical touch. But most recently I had a couple who learned that his primary love language was actually words of affirmation. She was surprised and pleased to know this. He confirmed it was some laughter. Do you know your primary love language?  Do you know your romantic partners primary love language? If you do you're on your way to being the best gift giver!

The number one way you can be sure to rock it out of the park now and always is to be awake in your gift giving, Consider the person you're giving the gift to and what is their primary love language?  Give them the gift they want and watch them beam from ear to ear. 

To find out more about discovering your romantic partner's primary love language (and becoming an awesome gift giver) go to

www.5LoveLanguages.com

 watch the sweet 3 minute video and take the quick quiz.

For more information about having the best relationship you can have, check out

www.Orlandotherapyproject.com

or call me for a check up, check in or double-check.

The Secret to a Happy Marriage/Relationship –Lean into The Tough Conversations

How many times have you heard the question…”What’s the secret to a good marriage?” You’ve probably heard this or thought about it 1000 + times. How often have you heard an answer that makes sense to you? If you’re like me (and I see couples all the time), rarely! The dreamy answer of  “Never go to sleep mad” lingers with me in a romantic kind of way; but then I think about all the people who are up all night because they don’t want to go to sleep mad and then my brain gets fuzzy and I get fuzzy and my brain jumps to a new topic. Then, I’m left one more time with no answer to this burning question.

 After many, many, ma (I get 1 “many” for every 10 years) of practice & training, I have settled on a few things when it comes to marriage / relationship:

1. All marriages go through tough times. This isn’t saved for the crappy ones.

2. When marriage / relationship gets hard, this isn’t a universal indicator that it’s time to bail.

3. Divorce / separation doesn’t end pain. It just morphs it for a while.

4. Never going to sleep mad takes super human determination that may be only available to superheroes & cheesy movie characters.

5. Couples feel more understood and connected when they talk (to each other :-).

In the beginning, of a relationship, we’re often more generous with our time and more thoughtful with our words. But, there are times in all marriages when things get tough, when we want to run away. So what do we do? We go silent, we fight and sometimes, we run away. This strategy may work a few times, but it’s not the recipe for a “Happy Marriage”.

It turns out that happiness is only sustainable through connection and conversation. To be heard and feel known - to be understood by the person you love, that creates happiness. 

When a topic is tough or times are hard, you may find yourself avoiding significant conversations in your marriage. You find yourself “leaning out”. You can’t bear the discomfort, the sadness or maybe the anger. So, you wall off and over time disengage, maybe just one topic at a time until you feel alone in your relationship. (And this is where trouble can come knocking.)

The statistical research on couples shows, and I see it everyday in my practice, that the greatest indicator for success in a marriage / relationship is the couples’ willingness to have tough conversations. The willingness to “lean in” to the discomfort; take a chance; to move slowly. When couples “lean in” to the tough conversations, they are essentially saying to their loved one: “I care about you / us so much that I’m willing to take a chance, a roll of the dice – that we’ll find our way through this and be strong on the other side.” It says “I have your back and I don’t want you to feel alone in this world.” It says, “You’re worth it. We’re worth it”

So the next time you hear the question, what’s the secret to a happy marriage? And you hear the answer “Never go to sleep mad,” you can interpret that to mean: don’t clam up and ignore the tough stuff. Don’t “lean out” when things are hard. “Lean In” to the tough conversations; the rewards are immense.