How To Communicate Effectively With Your Partner - WTW

[Music] no matter what the odds may bring away i can see the blessings [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] hey guys it's dre i'm brie and you're tuned in to worthy wait podcast brought to you by the relationship restore podcast network where we talk all things relationships sorry i didn't he did not bring me with that that's our normal intro so anyways in this episode what we're talking about as we begin this whole uh this podcast journey we're kind of revisiting a lot of things and in this part of our relationship in this part or this episode i should say we want to talk about uh just communication in a relationship and how important that is and um how we had to learn to communicate with each other throughout our relationship and how important that is sorry one second breeze phone just fell it's okay but it's up oh never mind we're good so um i'll start with this is that one thing i learned in our relationship is that and being in a relationship is that um good communication isn't honest communication good communication isn't transparent communication it isn't blunt communication good communication is effective communication and only way to communicate effectively with the person that you're with is by understanding your person's language and for me that was something that i really had to realize when it came to operating with bree and i asked people this question a lot for people who say that they know their person or they know a lot about their person the question is is like i don't want to know their favorite color i don't want to know where they like to eat or what they like to eat or where they would want to go on vacation the question that i ask is that if you had to deliver something critical to your partner or constructive criticism to your partner how would you do that that's knowing somebody because that's the way that you're going to be able to communicate things to your partner effectively because effective communication means that whatever you're trying to tell them they're receiving if they're not receiving it what you communicate it is not effective it don't matter how clear or honest you thought you were if they don't receive it then it wasn't effective effective is that it actually gets the job done so i say that to say is that you know in my relationship with brie i had to learn a lot about how to communicate with bree effectively like if i had to tell bree something how to do it i realized with her to answer that question is you have to do it over a meal this girl like to eat because i'm a thug she she don't take no crap she like to eat she like to eat i'd be hangry so if you give her food she's in the best of mood so even if you have to lay something even if you have to lay some bad information on her like do it over a meal preferably steak do it over a meal oh don't take her to chimas and she'll probably be like okay whatever it's fun it's cool uh but yeah um understanding how to communicate that was was important but i want to step into this part too um and you could talk about this as well from your perspective but also love languages is like a huge thing and that's part of communication as well like understanding how to communicate love to your partner because if you're communicating it in a way that they don't receive it they will feel unloved in that relationship and i realized that midway through our my relationship with brie is that i was communicating love to her but she would come to me and tell me like even sometimes crying like i don't feel love from you and it's like i'm looking at like yo i do this i do this i do this i do this like how are you not feeling loved but then realizing like yo you were speaking spanish but she understands like chinese in a sense and it's like no matter how clear and how much you break it down in spanish if she speaks chinese no matter how well you break it down in spanish she ain't gonna understand it so you can give an example of this um so dre would he would do all the things right almost like it was like he was like perfect and i'm like so then why do i feel how i feel and it was simple things like holding my hand when we're crossing the street or like if we're in public like putting your arm around me and like doing things that for me my love language being physical touch makes me feel loved um even something as simple as if we're laying in bed and when we first get into the bed like snuggling me like immediately like i'm like like i just feel loved but if i go to snuggle him and he's like wait hold on i'm doing like i'm doing something i'm like and it's like i'm shut down and and it's like so simple he's doing nothing wrong per se but just when i had to explain like i like x y and z because it makes me feel like x y and z then he's like ah gotcha so now even though he can love me through all of the other ways that you know he receives love or that he knows how to love me he has to be like intentional with showing me the love that i desire in the way that i desire it doesn't mean that if he doesn't hold my hand i'm like you literally logically don't love me because you've shown me through actions like no it just hold my hand you know and it took you like it took like a few months for you to like do it naturally and now it's like it's supernatural because we had that conversation years ago but for me i was afraid to tell him and even in saying it i knew i was like i don't want to say i don't feel loved because you're doing all the things you're just not doing this particular thing and it was hard for me to like put my words together to explain it but when i did explain it he was able to receive it because his love language is words of affirmation so when i communicate with him he looks at that as love like you're trying to communicate that to me shows me you care you're not yelling you're not ignoring me so it's like love languages and the way that people receive stuff that like layers on top of each other and you have to like know your person know how they're going to receive you and then also not hold it in but when dre said love is not honest or um communication communication isn't honest it just means like not letting all your feelings out not caring about how it could affect the other person but more so choosing your words wisely yeah and it's also it's not even about choosing it's also with choosing your words why is it wisely it's also about choosing the timing wisely as well it's like understanding that okay the best time may not be to communicate once um or when i'm really upset about something or if like bree is already frustrated about something else like me bringing up what i have a frustration about to her when she's already upset because then she's going to act frustrated about something or come or respond to me in a way that's like not really how she feels but because she um is already frustrated then she's going to respond to me in a certain way but the lovely languages thing is super important and i will say that is that like you can give me gifts ten times over but it's like that's not gonna necessarily mean anything to me like bricka tell you i don't care about birthdays i don't care about holidays i don't care about it underwhelming underwhelming so it's like i have to bring myself to that point to care about things because you know the person that would care about things but like for your for my birthday should be like what do you want i'm like nothing and that's like there's no some people say nothing but they really mean like get me something like i'm that person that's like true nothing literally like nothing like don't worry about spending the money i'm good like it's another day like that's how i feel about things um but in that i want to also talk about non-verbal communication too because i feel like that's important um in your relationship you have to understand that first of all for the women out there men are horrible mind readers right horrible we are bad at picking up like non-verbal cues so it's important to like communicate how you feel like verbally because if you're like well i you should have saw the way i was acting or you should have saw the way that i was behaving you should have knew that's how i felt it's like if that's what you're banking on embry could tell you it's not going out and what i found is when you think that your actions are showing something they'll think of every reason other than the reason that you're really upset so it's just not helpful because then it brings up other things and it's like what i wasn't even mad at that but now that you bring it up maybe i am no that's very true um but i wanna i wanna get into like how we communicate with each other and kind of where that stems from because i'm a very like to the point kind of person very much probably to a fault in the beginning of a relationship is that i didn't understand the difference between like effective communication and like honest communication i thought that oh i'm a good communicator because i'm honest but i would be choosing the wrong times to talk debris and expressing it in the wrong ways with the wrong tone and everything so it wasn't effective she could never receive it but the reason i was so open with my communication and able to express myself a lot of times was because that was my relationship with my parents growing up we always had open conversations about everything my it's funny my stepdad used to always say he told me when i was like graduating high school i think um because my mom whenever there was anything that happened in parenting she would let me like explain myself right she would let me uh stop looking at yourself no i'm looking at you why are you sitting like that because i love you um but she my mom used to always let me explain myself like she used to let me talk and air out my feelings if there was anything whether it was going to a new school whether it was um going to a new church or a new change in our life she used to let me just like talk about it and which was different from how she grew up it was like you know the older generation it was like what i say is law it's no arguing i don't want to hear nothing about it she used to let me talk about it and it's only my stepdad said like when i was like a junior senior high school he was like did you notice that your mom never changed her mind whenever you like plead your case and in my head i was like i never noticed that but it still didn't stop me from pleading my case and i think that that was the foundation for me really expressing myself and being open with my communication and honest and learning how to put my feelings into words and then i feel like i brought that to our relationship is that a lot of times i would especially in the beginning i would say that i was like very like open and like always found the words for how i felt to where you you know struggled with that a lot and do you still you feel like you still struggle with that not really i feel like i'm really great now do you yeah yeah i feel like i feel like you know yourself better to understand well i feel like it's a double thing i feel like you know yourself better and i know you better i know that when you say like just leave me alone i need some time like then i leave you alone like to where before i'd be like no we're going to talk about this and we're going to figure this out like and i would used to force you to try to say something and then you would say something that you didn't mean because i was forcing you to say something when you weren't ready to say something yeah but i feel like in the beginning you know you had trouble with that where you think that that comes from or came from um same thing as you my upbringing was the opposite whereas whenever people in my household had problems they just like acted out said things they didn't mean like would fight literally um and physically uh and no one ever really dealt with like the issues like i didn't see people around me having healthy conversations or um discussing differences in a healthy way so i knew i didn't want to be like that but i don't think at the time i had the tools to like deal with it on my own and our pre-marriage counseling really helped with that um and also learning how dre was raised to know that like at first when we were dating i kind of felt like the problem child like i was always stepping on eggshells everything i said and did was wrong um and not like oh drake doesn't care about me or love me but like i should know better than this or like he deserves better than this or like dang it i did it again like constantly feeling like i was messing up because we were coming from two different sides of um like the spectrum in a sense where it's like he just had it all figured out he was super mature he knew how to talk he knew how to stay calm even when i was mad and angry and saying things he would still be nice to me and that pissed me off even more i'm like why are you being like yo do something it like made me think that he didn't care but i had to learn and understand that being able to control your emotions and choosing your words and speaking out of love is more caring than somebody showing that they're frustrated because they're cursing you out and throwing things but it wasn't just my upbringing was also my previous relationships every relationship that i had before dre was like would get to the point of being physically violent would you say it was like a verbally abusive relationships like phys like with words that it was like verbally both like i mean that's why i said violent physically um not i mean verbally yes but well yeah yeah really really really bad actually um but that's not the part that really stuck it was like it's the physical stuff so like for me i kept feeling like i was stuck when it came to communicating because i would be so frustrated and my initial thought would be like to throw something at you but the thing is dre's never done anything to me that would make me that mad except for if i'm if we're talking about something and he's addressing something out of love i'm receiving it as i'm not good enough and like i did something wrong versus him just trying to like push me to be better like a hero again type yeah and i was just used to it but i feel like within the first year i realized like okay this is not somebody i'm gonna throw something at he would never throw something at me because i gave him plenty of chances and opportunity where it would have been a valid reason to throw me down or do something because i got i had some moments and after we got past like that first year and i realized like okay we're a team he is not here to hurt me um he's never going to get to that point and that's because he loves me not because he does not care then i was able to work out like how do i do it stuff and the first thing i asked dre i was like when i'm upset i just need you when i say leave me alone just really like leave me alone like get out don't talk to me just leave me alone and that turned into me you know coming and being like okay now i'm ready to talk and have conversations to the leave me alones they're very seldom that that happens the only time i tell you leave me alone now is if i'm literally in the middle of doing something i'm like this is not a good time like let me do this and then we can have that conversation um so it's just i mean it's growth it's hard it's like if you grew up one way and you saw people communicate one way then you're just kind of wired and it's a habit to do those things and then when someone comes along and it's totally opposite you might think that their way is wrong and vice versa they might think that your way is wrong but it's about understanding the person and finding a form of communication that works for the both of you and like that's going to take adapting because not one of the two should have to just fully change it should be you know how can we make this make sense i think what you're saying we're just saying about the family stuff and how you grow up that's so important yeah cause like even when like i remember going down to florida and meet and bree's family for the first time and just seeing the way some of them interact it's not that they're bad people at all it's just some of the things i would see and brie i'd be like oh that's where you get it from okay that's that's where that came from got it like i get it now so it's not that even this person that you're wit is like that's what they want to do or that's how they want to react it's really this environment that they grew up in and where they've come from and you know what they've seen that form their communication habits and well what i see a lot of times a lot of people aren't good at communicating and i think when most people feel challenged that that's when you like shut down because it's like you know you're used to what you're used to and for someone to tell you you're wrong or like to approach it differently it just makes you shut down because it makes you feel like you know like like you don't know any better and i know for me when i feel like i don't know something i immediately get defensive um not now but i used to i would always it's like what like a prideful thing almost and i think it's harder usually like we have a unique dynamic like dre is a unique person most men are super super prideful and i have seen in most relationships that the woman is willing to put in the work to communicate effectively but the man is the one who is like too prideful to like step outside himself and and to be a man and to go about it the right way so i just got very lucky um dre is different and it definitely at times made me feel like a prom child which i feel like a lot of people probably a lot of men in their relationships probably feel like the prom child if you know the woman is the one who's super mature and like we need to talk about it and hey i'm just being you know i want to hear you out and it's all out of love it's like the other person on the other end who's actually frustrated it's hard in that moment to be like you know what you're right and i need to calm down that's a really hard thing to do but once i did it once i was like oh it gets easier yeah i'm wrong all right yeah and i realized too that the way um there's a book i can't remember the name of it i think it's called thank you for arguing or something like that but it talks about how to win arguments um and how to win like discussions but basically one of the the i think one of the things to take away from that book is that the difference between like defensive language to where you put somebody on the defensive when you speak so it's like something as simple as like me telling brie like you didn't turn the light off in the room yesterday that's like me now attacking her and putting blame on her so i don't figure out what the name of this book is really good because it's like when you say something like that like you didn't do x y and z even if that's the truth automatically it puts somebody on a defensive because you're attacking them because you're you're focusing on them so it's going to make them defensive so they're going to react in a way like instead of being like oh my bad they're going to be like well yesterday you left the light on like you know what i'm saying it's gonna be a reaction to where they feel like they have to defend themselves versus like something like i don't know like the light was left on i don't know who it was but let's try to remember to turn it off every time we go in the room i'm gonna give an example of this because it's something that happens on a daily basis with us um that like i'm cognitive about is that so dre sleeps with the air on 66 degrees it is freezing i have him in the bed with me to keep me warm it's fine you know snuggle up next to him to the point where he's like dang you're close well it's cold um so in the morning if he wakes up before me i am frustrated when i wake up and it's still 66 degrees because i ask him you know be mindful of turning the heat on when you leave because he leaves the apartment and comes down here and works in our other apartment so it's like you're in a 72 degrees apartment while i'm still waking up at 9am freezing in 66 degrees and there's a difference like i could be like oh my god like you forgot to turn the heat on again and it's like attacking him and making him feel like almost um like i'm nagging him versus being like hey babe just a reminder because it was really cold this morning just make sure when you wake up to try to you know turn turn the heat on the exact same situation is being communicated about and dealt with the differences attacking versus like communicating and being supportive and just saying hey i'm just reminding you that this is something i would like for you to do if you are asking in this way he's more willing to ah yeah dang it i forgot i got you versus like dang this again you know i mean so um little things like that it's just it's not that what you're saying is bad it's like how to form what you're saying so it's not coming off as an attack or um accusing the person of something but more so just letting them know you know and being letting them be aware that's happening for sure i think even saying things like um i'm sure you didn't mean to do it but can you remember to x y and z or like you know things like that just soften the blow because i i doubt that anybody is like intentionally doing something in your relationship it's not like i'm walking by i see the error of 66 and it's like freeze should be alright and then like walking past like no it's like if i remember because i do do it like i do turn it off so it's like if i remember it's just sometimes i forget so it's like a friendly reminder like hey i know you didn't mean to forget but i'd be freezing in here or i'll even do a little subliminal things or i'll be like hey babe good morning like tax have good morning it's so cold in here i don't want to get out of bed and you like come downstairs and like turn the heat on yeah so it's like stuff like that is that you have to learn and this took work for us to do that like it wasn't always like this um and and i think that's a big thing too what i just said is understanding the person's intent behind things it's like if somebody says something or somebody you know does something you understand that the person that you're with means no like malice or any ill intentions towards you yeah that they're there to help you they're there to support you they're there to hold you accountable um so the things that they're saying is nothing like you know not coming from a place of malice like they're trying to do anything mean so then that should help you be able to receive because sometimes in a relationship communication is a two-way street so it's not just about how you're saying something it's also about how you're receiving things from other people and you have to understand like i said learn the language of your person to understand how to receive things from them to understand that if they're saying this this is what they really mean because that's something i had to learn with bree sometimes too is that like just because she's bad at words like she uses her words and doesn't mean what she says but she'll say a word that means something but that's not what she says you should know that this is what i mean when i say that because you know me he's like no it's not gonna cut it like if you say stupid like i'm just gonna think stupid like that's what i'm gonna think as soon as you say i was like no i just mean like it's not stupid it just doesn't make sense to me he's like well then say it doesn't make sense to you yeah so but you know it can come off a certain way so it's just understanding too when you understand your partner's language i now know what stupid means what stupid is in brie like one of those things we have the the coding where it's like green stands for happy yeah for sure and uh and i want to kind of as we draw to a close kind of end with this is that um when it comes to communication you want to try to be able to understand each other on your own when you're talking and ultimately that's what you're going to have to do in order for your relationship to work but i will encourage people to go to counseling if you're really having trouble communicating because the thing is that a lot of times things get lost in translation and what a counselor does or counseling does for you as a relationship and as a couple is that it helps interpret what the other person is trying to say or what the other person is trying to say and there's like a drill or some exercise in counseling to where somebody says something right so it's like hey bree tell jerry how you feel and then before i answer before the man answers i have to say what i heard her say yeah and then it's like then once i say what i heard her say she'll be like that's not what i meant but and it's like okay so evidently what we're doing is just lost in translation because you're saying something i'm receiving it this way but that's not actually what you're even saying to me and you say you want to piggyback off of that yeah um so when you think of communication um i think a big thing that comes into play is insecurities like if both individuals are coming to the table with insecurities which everybody has in securities it could be insecurities traumas things that they have not fully like dealt with from their past situations if the two people aren't aligned with where they want to go in their relationship and like what goals they have as individuals and when i say goals i don't mean you know how much money they want in their bank account but more so like what growth do they want to see within themselves and within their relationship like when dre and i really started to focus on communication was when we knew that we wanted the end goal for us to be marriage and we wanted to start plan you know we wanted to act accordingly and make sure that we were setting ourselves up for success so because we were on the same page and we both were aware because we had open and honest conversations about past situations our upbringing and why we are how we are why we think how we think then when we say now how are we going to communicate we ought to put boundaries in place and remind each other in moments of you know in the heat when we're mad or upset like giving the person the space because it's like well remember we're a team here and we have the same goal like we want to end this conversation with peace love and kisses and get to the next thing and if both people aren't aligned with what they want and i think sometimes what i've seen in like friends and relationships is they're having trouble communicating with a guy who is not really committed to them so the dude doesn't care that much like he just doesn't care and so if you're not on the same level and if you guys aren't working towards the same goal you might be communicating and thinking that this is important to you but if it's not important to the other person they have no real need to get to the bottom of whatever the discussion is about does that make sense i think that is like a key thing like if you're feeling that you're putting all the work in to do the communication stuff and the person's not giving you what you need to make it work like if you're not acting as a team it might be that your relationship isn't as aligned as you thought it was was or that you guys aren't on the same page with some things because the level of care to communicate properly comes from somebody wanting to be intentional with you i agree that and that word intentionality is so important when it comes to anything in a relationship that's that's the thing i feel like people lack a lot of times is intentionality and that and what intentionality is is just moving with a purpose moving with a plan and that's one of the biggest things with communication i feel like sometimes you have to understand what is my goal when i'm communicating um it's like if you are going to get a job you write a resume your resume is communicating to that employer what you bring to the table in order to get that job and you dissect and write those things so carefully and pick those words so like carefully and make sure that what you're saying is the right thing so that you can accomplish whatever goal you're trying to accomplish and you can communicate all of your skills to that employer and it's no different if you're writing an email or if you're writing a complaint you're taking your time to word things correctly so that it's received in order for you to get whatever outcome that you're trying to get i feel like a lot of times when people communicate with the goal of number one trying to embarrass the person that they're with trying to tell the person that they're with that they were wrong and you were right like trying to tell the person that you're with that they didn't know what they were talking about when you communicate with those as the goal i feel like you're never going to communicate effectively yeah it's like are you are you trying to have a conversation or are you just trying to win an argument exactly that's a big difference exactly so it's like if my bree's goal was instead of being like i just want to tell him how dumb he is or how like much it annoys me that he doesn't turn the air off then the way that she would operate would be a lot different but if her goal was just like every morning i wake up i just want to make sure that the air is off so that i wake up and it's not freezing if that's her goal then she's going to communicate a lot differently she's going to communicate in a way that's probably more effective or she's going to be more strategic and like okay how do i get this done knowing who dre is knowing how dre operates how do i get this done to make sure he does this every single time and it's like even let me bring it up on this podcast so he knows again like hey yeah do it it better be warm and toasty in the morning wait i'm gonna bring it up again this way but it's it's that that's the biggest thing when it comes to this communication that i want people to take away from this is that it's all about the communication that you're having with your partner being effective i always tell people and they laugh at me when i say this it's like the truth doesn't matter i hear people all the time but that's the truth they don't matter not when they come to like communicating with somebody because the truth who cares if you don't communicate it in the way that makes sense or if you're not revealing the truth in a way that makes sense it's like the truth is the truth but the truth don't matter if you can't communicate that effectively i can be right about something with breed but she'll argue me to the ground if i come at her wrong cause she's gonna defend herself and be like well that's not true because x y and z and it's like we've been in situations like that before to where it was like i had to look stuff up after bree said and i'm like that is so not true like i googled it and that's not a thing but she was trying to win the argument because i was coming at her in a way that pulling stuff out my butt just punched up out of butt and it's like is that even a thing like i remember but it's because whatever you're talking about i had some insecurity around it and i felt like i was being called out and it was a prideful thing and i just wanted him to shut up and i wanted to be right exactly but it just took a lot of growth from me and from her to understand like this is how we communicate this is how we receive information um even her understanding that the best way for me to receive like i don't like when i'm talking to you and you're looking at your phone and like you're doing stuff while i'm talking to you because to me that feels like you're not listening to me yeah good job now i paused the tv yeah she does my laptop i put my phone i can be talking to breto and be on my phone and she won't think nothing of it because a lot of times what she's doing is she's just talking anyways just to like get stuff off her chest like it's not yeah she's just talking um but it's just like i said communication is a two-way street number one so understanding that receiving and learning how to communicate to your partner is important number two is that effective communic good communication is effective communication and you have to learn your partner's language and understand how they communicate and number three is that if you guys are having trouble communicating just make sure that you seek help to help interpret um what your partner is saying but also that person who's counseling you should give you the tools because counseling shouldn't be a crutch it should be um an exercise used to gain the tools in order for you to apply those in your relationship and be able to apply those on your own so you have anything else that no i think that's a great ending perfect well make sure you follow us on instagram is straightsmith at briannaponte and at the relationship restore youtube page things are going up like things are going well yeah it's been a month of this channel or i would say at this point it's been three weeks of this channel really being out or four weeks i guess three or four weeks and you guys are really supporting the instagram is going up we've been trying to do a lot of engaging things and fun things we got a lot of things coming in the future um but yeah we appreciate the support guys and make sure you subscribe share with your friends and we gotta do this we gotta shout out alexis yes shout out alexis we dre hosted a happy hour right before we filmed this which is why there's makeup on his shoulder um i saw it and i was like um and alexis came to the event did not know anybody came by herself just saw that we were going to be there introduced stuff to us we invited her to our table we had a good time with her and she was so sweet and she is also on a journey of waiting so i'll be connecting with her but um i say that to say if you guys see us out in public please come up to us and say hello we are so much fun but straight's fun too but we appreciate the love and yeah it's the support has been amazing so thank you guys so so much thank you guys see you later [Music] you

Channel: Relationship Restored

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Id: 9HHxsZzR2z4

Length: 34min 42sec (2082 seconds)

Published: Wed May 25 2022