How To Keep Communication From Ruining Your Marriage

there are five things that impact a marriage in a negative way and many of us are familiar with what those are number one money number two sex number three in-laws number four parenting and number five communication communication is one of the things that constantly gets us in trouble all the time because there's so much miscommunication misunderstanding cross signals that take place between couples that land us in trouble you know as they say sticks and stones may break your bones but words will never harm you is a lie sticks and stones can break your bones but words can kill you words can do what sticks and stones cannot in fact the Bible even says that life and death are in the power of the tongue and those that love it eat the fruit thereof so in essence you can speak life to your life or you can speak death to your life likewise you can speak life to your marriage or you can speak death to your marriage now been married for 16 years and one of the biggest struggles that we faced was in the area of communication because I was for quite some time what I refer to as a verbal assassin and so my wife and I wrote a book called the audacity of marriage and second chapter in the book is entitled help my mouth is killing my marriage and in here I kind of explain what a verbal assassin is and how it negatively impacts the marriage and read one paragraph to you it says verbal assassins are mean belittling critical sarcastic nagging disrespectful fault-finding intimidating sharp tongue disrespectful lawless offensive cynical poisonous and harsh people they specialize in tearing others down in order to build themselves up they're always on the defense ready to fight and argue with anyone who challenges their own self-absorbed egotistical worldview they love to play devil's advocate even when they agree with you they possess a fervor for debating it is the life blood running through their whatever you say they will say the opposite if you say what a beautiful day it is they will look for a cloud in the sky just a forecast rain they don't believe that they are always right but they certainly believe that you are always wrong verbal assassins are critical judgmental people they often ignore and degrade others opinions advice and belief and these are the things that I did that ultimately destroyed my marriage who could think that these inanimate inanimate objects these intangible objects could literally destroy a relationship but the result of my words resulted in what I'm about to show you in this short video I really used to hate his presence like there he is again documentary will bring things out of you and thanks Blake once the romance is gone it's dead and gone no there's no reading it that's a phase this is the real deal get used to it this is reality grow up I was very frustrated I became very disconnected very jaded and and cold sexually emotionally because as long as we were trying to fix the relationship it got worse or as long as you were trying to fix me right I was trying to fix you yeah it wasn't until we both decided to fix ourselves that things started to change I believe God spoke to him or sent a message because I have been saying you're critical your this don't touch my it was just so bad we were just done so he started bringing tapes home and he wanted me to watch them with him and he would say let's watch these videos together I'd be laying on the couch with my do-rag on in my muumuu ah nope I'm good and he kept doing it he would just put them on sit next to me and watch them he was being tender he was being nice he kept doing this and I wasn't interested and he and then one day I remember I sat up with him and I was thinking whatever you still not getting in tonight let's watch it you know but he was persistent and he didn't give up and I saw changes in him I became a believer but when I believed he was sincere my heart opened up and I was willing to try so one of the things that I had to learn is how to communicate all over again because I realized that my word were causing me more harm in my marriage than they were benefiting me and I want to share with you some of the lessons that I learned that may be able to make an impact in your relationship as well so number one the most important thing that I realized regarding communication is that there are three components to effective communication component number one is what we will call words right the second component would be tonality and the third component would be facial expressions in body language now your words are what you say that represents 7% of your communication your tonality how you say what you say represents 23% of your communication but your facial expressions and body language that represents 70% of our communication and what I did not realize is that oftentimes each one of the forms of these components deliver very different messaging so oftentimes you can say something but the messaging comes across very different than what you're trying to say it would be equivalent to me if I were to look you in the eye say you're my spouse and I would be like I love you now the words indicated that I love you but what did my facial expression my body language and my tonality indicate that I really didn't love you that I felt frustrated in having to even tell you and oftentimes when we're communicating there are cross signals and mixed messages because we haven't effectively learned how to blend these three components together to resolve issues and so one of the challenges is that we haven't learned how to effectively communicate so a lot of people say well we have a sex problem or we have a financial problem well we have a parenting problem or we have an in-law problem but what you have is an inability to effectively communicate and as a result of that areas begin to pop up all throughout your marriage that present problems but if you could learn how to effectively communicate you can resolve probably 90% of all the challenges that you face the second thing I had to learn was this there's a difference between compromise and negotiation now many of us been taught that the key to a successful relationship is to learn how to just compromise have anybody been told that before just three people in the room compromises the key to a successful relationship the reality is compromise is a curse word and compromises a word that you should not use why because they compromise is a win-lose scenario it means that someone wins and someone loses and oftentimes in a relationship we find ourselves compromising for our partner always accommodating our partner all right bait whatever you say if that's the way it has to be and oftentimes we do that to keep the peace and while that may solve an immediate situation today over the course of months and over the course of years if we find ourselves constantly compromising where we lose and our partner wins it creates an imbalance or an inequality in the relationship and so better than compromise something that we believe in is called marital negotiation now a negotiation is a win-win scenario think about if you've ever purchased a home before the day you get to the closing typically there's a negotiation back and forth between the buyer and the seller and so they come up with something that's mutually beneficial and at the end of that transaction the seller walks away with what a check the buyer walks away with what keys they both win so there was an agenda that they both brought to the table and learned how to negotiate until they came up with something that worked for both partners involved and so this is where we learn how to effectively communicate in the area of resolving conflicts in our relationships and so negotiation always beats out compromise every single time the third thing that I have to learn about communication is that men and women are just different we're why you're different we think different we process different we react different we communicate different in fact there have been statistics that have suggested that men generally speaking now this is general when you're dealing with relationships you have to speak in generalities but it's suggested that men for eunuch eight by using 10,000 words per day nothing if a man is working a full-time job and he's at work for eight to ten hours a day he's communicating with his boss he's communicating with clients he's competing he's communicating with customers whomever it may be but time he's gotten home he's used up almost all of 10,000 of his words meanwhile the wife has a job she works 10 hours a day and she's used those same 10,000 words but by time she gets home she's got 15,000 more words to use now she's got 15,000 and he's run out now we wonder why there's so much conflict in male-female gender relationships because we want the men to talk more the men want the women to stop talking because of this there's a disparity in terms of the words and what we've realized is that we're wired differently for instance women love to connect men love to bond connecting requires talking we're connecting requires getting to know developing a level of intimacy having heart-to-heart conversations men love to bond when men get together with other men they don't necessarily have to talk because the experience that they're enjoying together doesn't always require communication but yet they bonded and so our natural inclination is to bond with our wives and to connect with our husbands and sometimes that creates a disconnect because we're wired differently one of the other challenges that we've realized is that often times men are very literal in their communication and women are feeling oriented in their communication so when a woman is sharing with you how she how she feels she's telling you how she may feel in the moment and so in the midst of an argument or something she may say something based upon how she feels at that moment but that man hears it and takes it literally and will hold on to it for years and so sometimes we build up all of this resentment and there's bitterness and this frustration about something that somebody said in 1952 that we've still held on to because we were very literal and we heard our partners say but if we realize that we just communicate differently it'll help us to effectively engage in conversation that makes sense and so another challenge that is important for us to be aware of is that men are fixtures we love to solve problems and sometimes when women communicate they're not looking to have an issue fixed they just want to be heard they just want to be understood they just want to have someone to share their thoughts in their day and their expressions with and if we show up to a communication with different agendas and a different focus and a different interest it can cause gridlock in the relationship and keep us from effectively communicating so one of the things that we had to learn in our relationship is that we had to become students of one another and so one of the principles we teach is become a student of your partner or get your PhD in your partner see the more began to learn her her wiring her emotions her feeling the way she thinks the way she communicates the more effective our relationship was and so what I got was a book called the book of Danielle and she got a journal called the book of Hasani and everything we learned about each other we placed it in the book so in essence what she likes I would write in the book what she dislikes I wrote in the book what turns her on I wrote in the book what turns our off I wrote in the book when is the affective most what is the most effective time to communicate with her when is the the least effective time to communicate with it what are the areas that I should engage in what area should I not and the more I began to learn her and peel back the layers in essence I got an eye shot into who she really is and how to effectively deal with her and if we take the time to become students of our partner it will enhance our ability to effectively communicate when issues arise in relationships one of the other lessons that I had to learn in my relationship was this and this is a powerful one the importance of openness and honesty see the reality as many of us put on false faces many of us we even deceive or leave a false impression or even lie to our part for a multitude of reasons and openness and honesty allows you to establish intimacy within your relationship that's where oneness comes from but if we don't have effective conversations with one another and only have internal conversations within ourselves that we don't share with our partner we're not being open and honest and some of the reasons why we are not honest in our relationships in fact the reasons why we may be dishonest while we may deceive why we may lie or give a false impression is number one because we want to avoid the pain that it may cause if the truth comes out so in essence what we're trying to do is to protect our partner from further hurt and pain so if I tell you how I really feel if I truly give you my opinion if I truly tell you how I think about this situation it may cause more hurt and I want to avoid any future hurt that it may cause you so I rather hold on to the truth and not share it at all sometimes we're not honest with our partner because we're trying to avoid the consequences of what may happen if the truth comes out see because if I tell the truth there may be a consequence that I may lose you that we may lose our connection that everything that we built may be over and so I can't tell you the truth the third reason why we may not be honest until the truth is because some of us are just compulsive lies and we lie about everything but the reality is most people don't fit into that third category they fit into it into the first two either they're lying to protect you from further hurt and pain or they're lying or deceiving to avoid consequences that may come but what we've realized is that when you stand on truth and share truth statistics have suggest surveys have suggested that no matter what it is no matter how painful that truth may be spouses appreciate the fact that you've shared that truth because the fact is the truth hurts but the truth also heals and many people have said as bad as what it was that you denied me the truth of what hurt more was the fact that you didn't tell me so not only did you tell a lie but you lived a lie and so one of the things that we've embraced was something called the policy of radical and the policy of radical honesty has four components to it there is what we call historical honesty where you're honest about the past now the past maybe your childhood upbringing the past may be past relationships the past may be the beginning of your relationship the past may be last night anything before now represents the past then the second part is what we will call current honesty when you're honest about your current situation and that means that you're living a life of transparency and so oftentimes there's challenges between relationships because we're not living transparent lives like I've been calling you for three hours you haven't picked up your phone where are you I've been texting you and you haven't responded it keeps going to voicemail I keep getting blocked where are you you're not living transparent and when you don't live a transparent life it creates insecurities in your partner the third type of honesty is what we will call emotional honesty will you truly share what's on your heart and in your mind with your spouse and then the fourth part of honesty is what we will call future honesty and that is when you're honest about your future plans or intentions now what keeps us from being honest about future plans and intentions is when we operate in independent thinking which results in independent decisions have you ever made a decision without consulting your spouse and the consequences of that decision were so drastic that your partner no longer could trust your decision-making they no longer could trust your ability to do what's best for the marriage because you made a decision independent of them but one thing we've learned about the wirings of men and women we need both to come together to make a comprehensive decision that works for the family because in terms of how we are shaped and wired oftentimes men are very what we would call farsighted in their thinking so they're looking at the big picture they're looking at the end result they're looking at the goal or as women are more nearsighted in meaning they're looking at all the details that surrounds what leads to the goal so if I'm making a decision independent of my spouse then there's a lot of things that I'm not considering and those things that I'm not considering could have a negative impact on what happens for the family and so when you operate together as one you're building a level of intimacy you're building a level of trust that can engage in all of the decisions that you have to make but when you don't do that you're robbing yourself of what we will call future honesty so historical honesty current honesty emotional honesty and future honesty all of those things represent the policy of radical honesty and when you're operating in true honesty that is when you begin to develop true intimacy in your relationship the next point the next point you have to embrace the willingness to be wrong see oftentimes when we enter into conflict we're fighting to be right and our number-one objective is to prove our partners wrong but when you're willing to be wrong it means that you're teachable it means that you're teach ability index has risen to such a degree that you're not holding on to a false concept or a false belief that does not work and so in my relationship both of us had an agenda and conflict is nothing more than two people in the same place at the same time with two different agendas to win each other over and so now we become competitors of one another now we become adversaries of one another and rather than working together we're working against each other and so we had to realize that in order for our relationship to work both of us had to be willing to be wrong because as long as I'm committed to being right by default you are automatically wrong and that never works in the relationship and even when I prove myself to be right and I've proven you to be wrong it still creates a lose-lose situation in terms of the connection the intimacy the way that you feel towards one another because anyone who gets beat up and beat down and has to walk away defeat it doesn't feel warm to the person who just defeated them does that make sense all of these are different components that will help you in having effective communication the last point that I want to share with you is it in order for you to have effective communication and win in all areas of your marriage you have to establish what we will call rules of engagement for effective communication because many of the challenges that we face is that we bring our personalities into the way in which we communicate and generally speaking we have known that there are two types of personalities that cause conflict in relationships you have what is called peacekeepers and you have what is called peace makers now the peacekeepers are the ones who just want to keep the peace they don't want to fight they don't want to argue they just want to keep the peace and so they may even avoid a conversation for the sake of peace now in his or her extreme they become issue avoiders but what happens is when you become an issue avoider those issues get swept under the carpet and that carpet begins to get bigger and bigger and it rises and Rises until it consumes the entire room because now you have a whole bunch of unresolved issues that have negatively impacted the relationship but the goal was peace but you also have the peacemaker and the peacemaker also wants peace but the peacemaker is willing to get the peace at all costs a peacemaker in fact will go to war to get the peace that they want they'll fight you in a minute to get peace no matter where you are no matter what you're doing you could be in the supermarket in Aisle three if an issue happens and these if yours are right here right now before we get into all four we need to result I don't care who's around I don't care who hears me they need to resolve it now and so in his or her extreme bickering begins to take place and bickering in a relationship represents low-intensity warfare and oftentimes that's what we're engaged in in our relationships low intensity warfare and we feel like we're always on the defense if we feel like we always have our weapons we feel like we're always on the battlefield and there is no peace so the very thing that we're both searching for we never get because we're so committed to our position that we haven't learned how to negotiate through the situation meet in the middle so if the peacekeeper could move to the middle if the peacemaker could move to the middle and they could step outside of their wiring to do what is beneficial for their union both can win these are some of the simple techniques that we can begin to do to save our relationships and take our relationships to the next level now how many of you by show of hands are interested in having effective communication in your marriage let me see your hands if you're serious so what I want to do because there's not enough time to unpack everything that I would have to give you but I wanted to give you a free gift if you're willing to receive it I created a 30-day communication challenge for couples that will enhance your communication if you take the techniques and apply them to your marriage how many people are interested in receiving that okay so grab your phones take out your phones okay and I want to I want you to text the word Hasani to a number that I'm gonna give you so hasani's my name it is H a s a ni Hasani so text the number three three four four four the word Hasani it's going to ask you for your email and in your inbox for the next 30 days you and your partner could sit down together in front of a computer and learn how to effectively communicate so you're texting the number three three four four four the word Hasani which is H a s a in I we have seen so many couples relationships transform just by learning how to communicate with the right words in the right tone and in the right disposition that took their relationship to the next level and so the Bible is crystal clear the Bible from Genesis to revelations has given us so many scriptures that teach us how to have a healthy productive mutually beneficial relationship if we understand the laws that govern relationships and there are countless scriptures that we can unpack on communication and that will come in the email as well so hope that something that you heard here today will be pivotal for your relationship to take it to the next level let's pray father God I thank you for every individual in this room many of us have come here tonight because of challenges that we face in our relationship in the area of our communication I just prayed that you will open up our eyes and open up our ears and open up our hearts to one another and to you to learn the laws that govern an effective relationship we know that your word the Bible our basic instructions before leaving Earth and if we can embrace these laws and apply them to our marriage then we can begin to experience the fullness that you've called us into in this relationship yes there are benefits to our union but there's a purpose for it as well and when we make your word final authority in our lives and in our marriages all of us win so we thank you for healing we thank you for transformation we thank you for restoration of each and every couple in this place tonight and we thank you for the Rick TV that will come from their relationships in Jesus name we pray amen

Channel: Couples Academy

Views: 49,517

Rating: 4.9252095 out of 5

Keywords: hasani, pettiford, couples, academy, marriage, relationship, love, advice, counseling, recover, rebuild, betrayal, emotional affair, trust, infidelity recovery specialist, divorce prevent, derrick jaxn, stephan labossiere, esther perel, ted talk, How To Keep Communication From Ruining Your Marriage, communication

Id: zeGTk3WLvlk

Length: 25min 20sec (1520 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 26 2019