Abusive and Negative Communication | Marriage Today | Jimmy Evans

when your voice begins to be raised and you can't talk about something inappropriate manner stop and cool off walk away don't walk away for three or four days but walk away for three or four hours and say I need to get in control because I know right now I'm going to say something that I'm going to regret later this is this is one of the things that I have found over the years bad words are never worth it you're always going to pay the price later on for a lack of restraint so abusive kinds of language number seven is insensitive insensitive speech is just Karen told me when we first got married and she was talking about her weight one day and how she was frustrated with her weight and I said well you stop eating now at that time I weigh 260 pounds soaking wet now today I weigh like 160 you know five a little bit more than that but but you know how insensitive was that I just stopped eating just stop eating you know she would tell me about her feelings and I would say that's crazy you're crazy that's kind of insensitive you know there was a guy that I counseled and and this really represents more than one guy but he went to his wife and his wife didn't has sexually he's a nice guy is a nice Christian guy didn't have secondly and and he went to her and he just said I'm dying and I don't want to be unrighteous I'm keeping myself for you I don't want to take my needs somewhere else I'm committed to you but I've got this need and I need to have sex and she looked at me she said I'm just not attracted you and I don't want to sex with you and he won the bad-looking guy and he was a nice guy it's just like validation is what our spouse needs I may not understand what you're going through but I validate that you're going through it I vow that you don't Karen I don't back in I didn't know what it was like to have a weight problem because I could eat and eat meat and I could never gain weight it was night one of my frustrations as I couldn't gain weight I solved that problem I promise that right now we climb that mountain but how insensitive of me to say things like that so we need to be sensitive and validate each other number eight hopeless will always be broke we'll never get out of this hole you'll never change you'll never change I don't know if I want to stay in this marriage I don't think we'll ever get any better you know on and on and on and using hopeless faithless type of words that convey a spirit into our marriage and what we have to learn to do is speak faith works when you don't feel like it the reason it's faith is because I can't see it right now it's not happening right now but here's the faith words I love you and we're going to make it I know God's going to come through for us there's an answer for us we're going to break out of this by God's help we're going to break out of this and we speak words of faith and what happens is is it brings life in the marriage number nine type of dysfunctional speech is final speech and that is in in the progression toward divorce the fourth stage before divorce is always what's called stonewalling and stonewalling is don't ever talk to me about that again I don't hear about it don't talk about no it's over I'll talk to me every couple needs an emergency plan because probably at some point in your marriage your need to get going to need to get outside help for your finances for your children for your sex life or for something that you're going through a health issue or something and an emergency plan just says this who would we call if we could not resolve this issue on our own and it's just like having an emergency hurricane route out of a city if there's a if there's a problem we know what we're going to do we're committed to this now if we reach an impasse we are not going to call our lawyer we're going to call our counselor and when we walk in there we know that we're not objective our emotions are very high we're going to submit to whatever they say because we trust them number 10 is reactive the Bible says be quick to hear and slow to speak and reactive means we're we're reacting without thinking that we're saying things that we shouldn't say it also means that we don't have a plan that we need to sit down and be proactive in our communication we teach people how to have a vision retreat and a vision retreat means that we go away we talk we pray we get a plan for our children a plan for our finances a plan for our lives and that means we're not reacting all the time because we have a plan and it's very very important we all have areas of our lives where we don't communicate properly in fact it could be very damaging Karen and I when we first got married I was terrible is that not only was I not as affirming of her as I should have been at that point I was very negative in fact when I got mad at Karen I would use my words to punish her and it didn't just punish her it devastated our marriage it punished me also and that really is true there are things that we can do better in communication but there are certainly for all of us things that we can stop doing that are affecting our relationship in a negative way and the thing I want to encourage in today when I do marriage seminars that you saw a part of on today's program what I try to tell people is that words are nuclear is you just can't underestimate the power of words many people are still hurting / what a person said to him twenty or thirty years ago way back into their childhood because words come into our soul and they have the tremendous ability to lift us and encourage us and enlighten us they also have the potential of devastating us and so just a word wrongly spoken can really put a chill into your relationship and damage the intimacy and goodwill of the relationship the good news is so will good words it will do the opposite it will be able to heal and to restore and to bless and to build intimacy in the relationship and my encouragement to you is today don't focus on your spouse I know I know they're doing stuff they shouldn't be doing and that's our tendency sometimes is to listen to a teaching like this and think boy I wish I could you know get my spouse to listen to this well I'm sure they need to but listen there's something I'll bet that you could change in the way that you communicate to your wife to your husband and that's my challenge to you right now you do the right thing first that's I've heard this saying that I love the best person does the right thing first and in our relationship it was Karen Karen was the one who was really the Redeemer in our relationship but through her example it changed me and I began to be convicted I began to feel bad about being such a jerk in our relationship in the way that I was talking to her and that's really how I changed and I did change and one of the things that I did that was so important was change the negative way that I spoke in these dysfunctional ways of communicating that I really didn't know that I was doing wrong I didn't mean to do it wrong but when I began to change our marriage change hey listen you can have the marriage of your dreams thank you for joining us experience the life-changing series sex love and communication on CD or dvd follow your interests and get social by connecting with Jimmy and Karen and the ministry of marriage today on Twitter marriage today's latest book lifelong love affair is an essential tool couples can turn to again and again for inspiration and strength order your copy today become a rock solid partner today and equip yourself with the tools you need for a successful marriage $14 $28 or $56 per month choose the partnership level that's right for you become a rock solid partner today you

Channel: MarriageToday

Views: 153,236

Keywords: marriage, divorce, relationships, counseling, Christian, relationship help, Jimmy Evans, sex, love, communication, Abusive, insensitive, negative, reactive

Id: bVtPf7b1Mv4

Length: 7min 56sec (476 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 13 2012