How To Build Better Communication With Your Spouse

[Music] it's more likely to be the wife who says it I feel lonely the husband might reply what do you mean you feel lonely we're together all the time no no we're in the same house all the time or in the same room but we're not really together because there's not really any conversation taking place it's like we live more as roommates than we do as people who are once lovers is there a solution for that can you actually get to the point where that life is not so busy and you can actually have time to communicate with each other well believe it or not there is and is there a method to do that without having to work through some deep psychological stuff absolutely and we'll teach you how in the next couple of minutes hi I'm Dr Joe Beam with marriage helper this is Kimberly Holmes our CEO and Kimberly you look like you've been tired been working hard lately huh well yes but even just today I mean we batch record these right and so you and I have been talking about relationship stuff for infinity and beyond and Beyond so yeah we yes yes good stuff good stuff and today or for this episode we're talking about how to reconnect when you feel disconnected from each other and then maybe our subheading would be try disconnecting from your phone if you want to connect to each other let me put it this way typically if and again let's say it's the wife who's saying I need you to talk to me I need you to spend more time with me quite often the response they'll get to that is the husband and it could be reversed you know but typically it would be the husband who would then be responding by talking about his negative goodness what I mean by that is what do you mean I don't run around with women I don't get drunk I'm not gambling our money away you should be happy and we teach people all the time it's important not to do the things that would destroy your relationship so it's good that you're not running around with somebody that you're not getting drugs that you're not gambling the money away those are good things and so don't do them because they will destroy a relationship but not doing them doesn't build a relationship not doing them keeps from destroying it but not doing them doesn't build a relationship which means that there are certain things you need to do so Kimberly you're a woman we've noticed that so let's ask this question to begin with why do you think that men and women particularly sometimes have so little to talk about with each other particularly if they've been married for a while yeah if you're not really intentional about continuing to learn and be curious about your spouse the way that you were when you were dating then you do lose things to talk about because you both become ingrained in your own day-to-day in a typical kind of scenario the husband may just focus on going to work coming home you know getting to bed while the wife is taking care of the kids and so on and so forth and so you start living in separate silos of life and if you're not intentionally connecting and finding things to to connect about and to do that are unique with each other then you get habituated you get stuck in a rut stuck in the day-to-day I was at a a party several months ago and I had two couple there were two other couples in the same room as me and I heard the wives they were both frustrated at their husband who were both in the room as well and both of them were saying you know you come home you're like you work so late and when you do finally get home you're on your phone the whole time and why why can't you just put it down why can't you just stop working and both of them kind of looked at me knowing like you're gonna fix this foreign but in my mind I'm thinking I get where actually both the wives and the husbands were coming from I knew a little bit more about both situations but you know the the wives had been alone all day and when their husband comes home they want time with him but the wives were not communicating in such a way where their husbands necessarily could hear what they were really saying because all it sounded like was attacking complaining grumbling and so you you have to approach this situation as like okay there's needs that need to be met on both people's sides so how do you disconnect from the things that are distracting you and intentionally connect with each other in order to build better okay so one point here then is this the way to get a spouse to talk to you does not start with telling them that you're unhappy about the fact they're not talking to you right because as soon as you start from that standpoint it comes across as a negative like you never talk to me talk to me and now the other spouse whether it's the wife of the husband sitting here thinking about what you just attacked me I'm not prepared for this and so if you really want to entice your spouse to have a conversation with you then make sure you're doing it a time when they're not really busy doing something else now understand that busy doing something else might not be what you think is important but it could be important to the spouse so let's say he is a big fan of Ohio State University football and the Ohio State University is playing Michigan on television which is the big game of the year and you think now is the time we want to talk and he's thinking but you don't understand how important this is to me or if if she's actually in the middle of a chapter of a book that's intriguing to her and he thinks okay the time to talk is right now when she's really got her Focus someplace else it will not just be because I'm ready it needs to be there's a reasonable time now for us to talk and the best way is not to attack but to ask a question um open-ended questions are the way to start conversations yeah non-threat non-threatening open-ended questions can you explain what you mean by that yeah so I mean asking the open-ended question of do you still love me and why are you not talking to me anymore those are open-ended questions but they are kind of threatening there's a there's a defense that's probably going to go up on the husband's end if a wife were to ask that question or vice versa although some women might love if it's like what's what's been standing between you and I yes let's go deep into that right now I would love to do that but yeah so something more non-threatening a great one to start is how has life been for you lately what what's stressing you out at work what's been going well what's been going on at home and just start to get an understanding of what their life is like right now if you don't really know okay and it can even be more situational so for example if the wife is in the middle of that chapter and she finally finishes it and puts the book down he can look at her and say I can see that you're really into that book can you tell me about it and now she's talking about something of interest to him or to her and and if he watched the Ohio State Michigan game yeah and it's over she were to say you know I didn't understand some of the things that can happen can you kind of restructure that and help me understand it that's the intellectual part of Pies so for those for those of you who know about the term pies it's what we talk about in terms of Attraction physical intellectual emotional and spiritual and when we want to attract our spouse to us in all four of those ways one of those ways is intellectual and we say it's about connecting about things that that you know that they enjoy that they know you enjoy finding things that you share in common and so asking the questions about like the Ohio State game right as a as a woman I know nothing about football my husband doesn't watch football but if he did then a great way if he's involved in that if he's watching that then for me to ask that question he's going to find me more than likely more intellectually attractive because does we will then share a common knowledge base and he's going to enjoy explaining to me the thing that he understands and loves them so your case it might be something like the Renaissance Fair yes exactly exactly okay and you can ask him or more recently like War into Political like global politics right if I can just ask questions about global politics let's go back to the Renaissance Fair yeah he's like what kind of costume you're going to wear this year why did you pick that why is that of interest to you not not in a p like what what but like just general conversation so why is it do you think that we tend to be more drawn to that phone than to interacting with our spouse dopamine dopamine in what sense in the sense that as we said in a previous episode dopamine is the anticipation in anticipation chemical so it's what is waiting for me on the other side of that and I would even say I would say it's about anticipation of attention and connection so if there's someone or something like if there's a possibility someone's messaged me on Instagram or there's an email in my account then there's someone who needs me they want my time they want my attention right now and I want to be wanted as a person so that's why a phone has such an Allure because it's unendless possibilities of what's on the other side of that especially if you're not getting that in your relationship but if you're in a home environment where your kids are not just draining you asking you questions but actually like Mommy Daddy you know tell me help me with this can we build something together if you're getting positive interaction from them or from your spouse hey tell me about your day tell me about what you just read then you're getting that attention and affection from someone in your real life which is what what you want and while it may not be the same dopamine Spike you're actually including in some instances oxytocin into it which is a bonding chemical especially if you do things that through touch and things like that you know cuddling on the couch while watching movies together something like that and that helps you to want to actually crave that more than the phone okay and so for a person like me I'm constantly wanting to learn something new so on my phone I'm reading articles I'm looking at the news I'm seeing what's happening in other countries I'm because I always want to learn learn so I'm being stimulated by that mm-hmm and so if Alice wanted to change the conversation too you know Christmas dinner is coming up I wonder what I should cook for Christmas dinner there's no comparison to my brain about the stimulation of learning and talking about what are we going to have for dinner on Christmas Day and so one thing you might want to think about then is this if you're going to be asking to open any questions think of what's important to the other person what does he or she like so you can ask him what have you learned today oh I found this interesting thing here because now it's still in terms of them and if you say well I don't know if I can always know what's of interest to the other person here's another recommendation we have it's something we recommend you do every sorted turn off the television turn off the phones turn off the children turn off everything and then and and say okay this is our story time each one of us is going to take up 10 to 15 minutes to tell a story for my childhood now here's the deal pick a story that you think influence is the way you think act feel or believe today and and I want you to see it in your mind and describe it to me as you tell me the story and so sometimes he'll tell it in three minutes sometimes eight minutes sometimes 12 minutes but and then you do the same and then you can talk about hmm I wonder how that influenced the way that you think what do you think and and and here's why I've seen it that I think I can see now why I understand why you think or act the way you do because of that story you can actually begin to do some very great learning about each other and if you think we've been married 20 years we already know everything about each other I'll guarantee you you do not well we've been married 70 years we never think about each other well you've forgotten a lot of it plus plus you never completely know another person and so you can actually have conversations if you don't know what well should I talk about this that or the other under intellectual attraction you can talk about let's talk about life how have things in your life influenced who you are today so pick a story and then I'll listen I won't give you advice I won't say why don't you do that I'll listen and we'll talk about that and I'll tell you a story from my life and if you do that even once a month it's amazing how often you will have really deep and involved conversations with each other it's all about learning it's not the fact that I need to demand that you pay attention to me it's that and this is going to sound terrible Kimberly so correct me if it sounds too bad I need to earn your attention by talking about something that you would have at least some interest in rather than you sitting there so if Rob wanted to talk to me about global politics I would lose it you'd be like I would not be a good conversationalist with him when it comes to that because it I don't know that much about it Etc but if he wanted to talk about the skill of writing because he's an excellent writer I'd be right into that so sometimes it's a matter of understanding what's important to the other person in that sense earning the attention you get is that too harsh is it putting too much responsibility on me now I think it's appropriate but it's also a give and take yes right so was it last night it was either last night or the night before Rob comes downstairs and he before he came down he said I need you to act like you care about what I'm about to show you so I said okay I understand my mission at this point and he comes down and brings uh this like helmet type thing that he has created it was actually pretty cool like he was explaining to me what he had put on it and how it worked and all of these aspects and I already knew my marching orders were Care like act like I care so I just asked some questions it was what 10 15 minutes but he really appreciated like he was excited to show this like a little kid like look what I made so he was excited to show this thing and so we talked about it it was actually really cool um but just like he needed to do that for him in that moment I also have needs like that in moments of myself as well right and so even being able to just say to your spouse I need you to listen and let's just connect about this for a minute and then talk about it right so both of us have those needs and we need to be able to communicate that to each other so it's not just it is partly about earning it but also it's about realizing your spouse is going to need it as much as you need it right right so we recommend you avoid the triggers like we need to talk I don't care if you start with that the other person is going to be going oh crap what's gone wrong now but you can say hey I need you to care about what I'm about to tell you it's a different way to approach that yeah although I will say I've tried to do a little experiment about saying we need to talk knowing that it's a good thing we need to talk about so I'm trying to see if I can like pavlovian experiment away from the bad association with that word and I think it's going pretty well but I never I always say when there's something positive we need to talk about that's actually pretty smart see so so Rob has become your dog because we have a lot more yes but that may be what is too harsh to say okay all right hopefully you gained something from this could be worthwhile we'll talk about this a little bit in the next episode about well what happens if one of them is always at work like my husband and wife and working too much how do we work that into what we just talked about that's from The Next Episode but before that if you and your spouse feel completely disconnected and you're saying I hear what y'all have been talking about but it feels like a very wide Chasm for us to be able to even across this and be able to talk to each other well at this point then our three-day couples Workshop is exactly what you and your spouse need you can find out more about that by going to marriagehelper.com Workshop thank you for being on this episode of relationship radio and we'll look forward to talking about well what about if work is intruding in a marriage on the very next episode see you then [Music]

Channel: Marriage Helper

Views: 90,276

Keywords: marriage helper

Id: h43pAGvzh2g

Length: 16min 55sec (1015 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 02 2023