LESSON_1_COMMUNICATIONS THE MARRIAGE PREPARATION COURSE

[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] hello and welcome to the marriage preparation course I want to add my welcome to Nikki's and say it's great you're doing this course and we hope you really enjoy having five sessions together to focus on your relationship we understand that engagement can be a frantic time and organizing a wedding can start to take up every waking moment I expect most of you found that your wedding is costing a bit more than you'd thought but probably not as much as the recent wedding of the two sons of an Indian billionaire the 10,000 guests were flown in on 27 charter jets and a fleet of 200 limousines took them to the venue they dined on a lavish banquet which included Italian Chinese Mexican Lebanese Mongolian and Indian food the exact cost of the wedding is unknown but was estimated to be around 75 million dollars we hope that that makes yours seem a lot more reasonable we also looked up the longest engagement in the Guinness Book of Records which was between Octavia Gillen and Adriana Martinez they got engaged in 1902 and finally took the plunge in Mexico City 67 years later by then they were both aged 82 and they probably thought they didn't have much to lose so whether you're in your 20s or your 80s whether you've been engaged for a short time or a long time we hope that these five sessions will be a bit like an oasis for you both to think about the journey of marriage that you're about to embark on our experience is that marriage is the most exciting and the most challenging adventure that we can undertake we be married for 28 years when we first got married we were both students then I became a teacher while Silla was still at our College we've now got four children a girl and three boys age 24 22 19 and 17 and our daughter has recently got married so we've now got a new son-in-law as well so we know something of what you're going through with all the organizing the whole thing's still very fresh in our minds we've been doing this marriage preparation course since 1985 and we absolutely love running it what we've discovered from talking to a lot of married couples and from our own experience is that strong marriages don't develop automatically we hope that over this course you'll discover the attitudes and values the tools and habits needed to build a healthy marriage that lasts a lifetime if you start building good patterns in your relationship today you'll be reaping the effects of those choices in five 10 20 years time we asked reporter Brenda amana's to take a look at why marriage preparation is so important in today's society everything you could possibly need for your big debut chocolate fountain - diamante tiaras did you know that in the last six years the cost of the average wedding in the UK has increased by 50 percent looking at all the things that you have to make decisions on from your cakes your invitation your dress it's no surprise to realize that the average wear then takes 250 hours to organize but how much planning do a bride and groom important to making sure that their marriage will last really seeing the need to yeah we spent today with the church thinking about what marriage meant to us and what we meant to each other Family Values that type of thing we did go and see the vicar yeah I did speaks the vicar that's for sure he sort of gave us the what to do and what not to do is type type of thing I think it just took away it took us outside of all the arranging for the marriage itself made us think about what we were actually doing being together in the UK 40 percent of first-time marriages break down that means for every three couples one will end in divorce a certain thought but not one that these couples will be thinking about [Music] if you want to learn to play a musical instrument you take lessons you want to learn to dry then you take blessings sadly when it comes to marriage we do so little at learning how to create a healthy marriage and make it last well we got married about nine years ago and before we got married we were handed a form we had to fill in great detail about our finances and what we'd expect to spend on things and answering simple questions like what do you expect to pay for a family birthday present then we were able to have conversations we might never have had and really helped us prepare for married life together it was very positive trying to spend some time together doing magic operation but since then obviously during nine years things have come up but at times not - sideways and we've had to deal with those things and sit down and talk and work through them together and we recently done a cause there's been it's made us talk about things that we wouldn't think to talk about or not necessarily it still allows and we've got to work through things together it's been very beneficial for us I guess we remain lifelong learners we've never arrived in this kind of thing we're always there and so if a couple wants to ensure their marriage not just the wedding day it seems the answer is to keep investing in their relationship good marriages generally don't just happen they take time and effort and that doesn't mean it's hard work but it just means that you have to keep trying and you must prioritize your relationship it's all about having a positive attitude which allows you to communicate really well and if you do that if you choose us as a priority if you take time for us and if you think in terms of the longer term if you talk about your future and you always see arguments smaller than the marriage that's what makes a great marriage dedication we're going to be looking at what dedication means in practice this course is very practical over the five sessions Nikki and I will talk about different issues and then get you as a couple to discuss them amongst other things we'll be talking about how to communicate effectively how to resolve conflict how to meet each other's emotional needs how to build a friendship how to develop our sexual relationship and how to decide who does what for example who takes on the different roles one of the benefits of this course will be discovering whether you're coming into marriage with different expectations these might be the result of your upbringing sometimes it's only when we get married that we realize some of our deeply held assumptions about life are not universally shared we'll give you two very trivial examples from our own marriage it took our several years to realize where these different expectations came from the first difference is to do with the car when we got married I expected that Nikki would want to keep the car filled up with fuel I suppose that's because my father hardly ever lets the fuel gauge in their car go below halfway my father on the other hand would only fill up if he really had to think he thought it was a waste of time and was quite prepared to take the risk of running out I do also remember him explaining to me that it's cheaper to run a car on the second half of the tank as then the cars lighter so I find I'm quite happy driving around with the warning light indicating we're nearly empty anyway I think it makes the journey a bit more exciting well it makes it more exciting for him but it's a nightmare for me the second difference is to do with this cling film or food wrap and the second is to do with this kitchen paper I found it very difficult to come to terms with how much of these Scylla used and actually still uses because my mother never used them she always regarded them as incredibly extravagant and if she wanted to keep leftovers she put them in a plastic container and if she wouldn't needed to wipe something up she'd use a cloth that she could wash and use again I think she has some cling film and kitchen paper at home but a roll of either would certainly last her at least five years my mother on the other hand must have used several miles of both and I suppose I take after her when we first got married if we went into overdraft I was convinced it was because Scylla had used too much cling film and kitchen paper we didn't realise for some time why these issues caused friction between us until we reflected on the expectations we'd inherited from our upbringing of course there are likely to be much more serious differences to deal with especially if you come from different cultures and it's a great help to recognize and to discuss these each session we'll be hearing from a selection of other married couples talking about their experiences we called these our sofa couples [Music] if you've seen the film When Harry Met Sally you'll understand where we got our inspiration for the sofa and we'll also have a studio interview with a married couple and later on in this program we'll be hearing from Paul and Jules who've been married for two years and he'll be talking about their own experience of married life and we'll give you lots of opportunities as a couple during the sessions to discuss together what we've been talking about you'll also see we've recommended some books on relationships in the back of the manual including our own the marriage book which covers a lot more than we can fit in to the course if at any time during the course you get stuck and feel you'd want extra help please ask your course leaders who'll be happy to find someone that you can talk to we want to start the course by talking about communication because this really is a vital aspect of any healthy relationship we've traveled the country to find out what people believe about relationships and this is what people in Wales said about the importance of communication [Music] why skipping fix is so important marriage gives it much better relationship in a marriage relationship [Music] and telling you each other you love each other on a regular basis helps as well what causes communication breakdown another communicating jealousy secrecy misunderstanding jealousy is usually the breakdown to most relationships all over the world you keep secrets exhibit from one another it will be a breakdown you've just got to work around these things so we can't take communication in marriage for granted communication involves both talking effectively and listening effectively we have to learn and go on learning how to be good communicators an orig is probably the best training ground not least because it's the most challenging it's helpful to recognize that the outset that we're all different in the way we communicate our communication is affected by several factors we want to look at three in particular our personality our background and our circumstances let's start with the first thing our personality we're all very different some people are extroverts they tend to think out loud other people are introverts they like to organize their thoughts in their heads first before they speak if I'm going to say something I usually think things through so if I make a suggestion it's usually actually pretty much decided in my head I've been through several arguments and I have come to a conclusion even if it's just about what to have for breakfast whereas Richard will throw out suggestions well he knew I wouldn't say it's really nearly I mean this is this is where our differences the suggestions that I throw out will be will be suggestions they'll be completely lateral suggestions maybe no the suggestions that I would come up with my brain works differently whereas whereas proof will speak very concretely about what she has already decided I like to talk through my suggestions and bring them out into the open and discuss them so we both have a very different approach but I think we've really both learnt about each other that those those approaches are just different ways of doing things and we're starting to learn to tolerate each other but it's taken time and it still takes us time to get used to you know make sure do all often say oh let's have pancakes for breakfast but when you've counted eggs and I will only suggest pancakes if I know there's eggs flour bicarb and maple syrup in the fridge but when we get the pancakes they're worth waiting for another way that we're different is that some people are more logical they work things out methodically sometimes very slowly other people are more intuitive they act on hunches and they jump to conclusions during the course you'll find out quite a lot about Niki and myself you'll probably realize that I'm more of an intuitive extrovert while Niki is more of a logical introvert and that's about as different as you can get if I'm worried about something I need to talk it out as soon as possible she often says something to me with great passion and conviction and then changes her mind five minutes later so I discovered over the years that it's better not to react too quickly meanwhile I need time and space to sort out an issue in my head first on my own and then tell Scylla what I think but for me that's not a discussion just his conclusion so as you can see before we've even started to express our own points of view our ways of communicating our very different because of our personalities there was an example of that the other day when we were in the car and I was chatting to Nicky about a big party that my parents were planning and all the different relations who were coming I wanted him to help me work out the dynamics of who should sit next to WHO and so on and he seemed a little bit distracted when I asked him what he was thinking about he hesitated for a moment and then admitted with slight embarrassment that he had been trying to work out in his head how much it was going to cost to get up to Scotland for the party and whether it was cheaper to drive or go on the train well in the end we didn't do either actually we found a cheap flight ok time for your first discussion we've told you about ourselves but how do you differ in the way that you communicate please turn in your manuals to the first exercise in session one and it's called how we communicate and we'd like you to take a few minutes to tell your fiancee how you think their personality affects the way that they communicate and we're going to give you five minutes the second thing that affects our communication is our family background that will be different for every couple and it's well worth trying to recognize what the differences are once we recognize them then we can learn to work with them in terms of communication in our families we've we've taken a lot of what we do now from our background so jason has grown up in a family where there are many many men so apart from his mum and his one sister he's got like four brothers and I guess in their family they don't like to talk things through as much so they're my lighter do activities I might like to play table tennis and so on whereas in my family it's more female dominated and so we like to talk as talking is a good thing as Beatty will tell you and again we've had to learn to to talk more but also have times and we can just do stuff and not necessarily have to be speaking mm that's true spontaneous we're not we're not planners which which is the way now I approach things and I don't tend to plan things as closely as mu does and yeah we we generally don't talk things through things just tend to happen in our family and you know and then it's news to all of us and that's kind of how we've we've always lived and that's kind of how we are when we get together whereas it's very different Amy's family with Amy's family that they tend to talk things through and discuss things months in advance no two families are the same some families air their differences immediately others delay or avoid talking about their differences at all some families are quiet other families are much louder some are more volatile others are karma some take it in turns to talk others frequently interrupt Nicki and my families in contrast to our personalities are very similar in many respects but their styles of communication are very different my family was definitely of the loud variety well mine was rather quieter and at mealtimes that difference was very obvious I remember vividly the first time I met sellers family I went to stay with them and I arrived just as they were sitting down to eat my family attend a talk at the top of their voices all at once while eating at great speed Nicki on the other hand listened intently to everyone always put his knife and fork down while he talked and never talked with his mouth full well as I was the new boyfriend her family were asking me loads of questions so by the time they'd all finished I was only on my second mouthful then after we sat and waited for him to finish my mother offered him a second helping I think Nicky wanted to make a good impression and to show that he liked my mother's cooking so he accepted at which point I inwardly groaned another difference between many couples is that in some families where they take it in turns to talk interrupting is seen as rude whereas it another family interrupting is a sign of interest and not to interrupt is seen as boring or being unconcerned we're going to give you a chance now to think about the way your own family communicated as you were growing up then you'll be able to look at whether this is different to your fiance's experience we want you to turn in your manuals now to the next exercise there's called Family styles of communication first mark with an X where you think your own family comes on the lines between the two extremes each of you do this on your own and then discuss with your fiancee what you've each put and we're going to give you 10 minutes to do this the third thing that will affect our communication is our circumstances for example our jobs are working patterns may well be very different from one another one of you may be a nurse doing shift work marrying someone with more regular working hours or you may have to travel a lot or you may be going through a stressful period such as changing jobs or moving house in these circumstances finding time when you're both relaxed and feel like communicating can be quite a challenge yeah we've come across particular circumstances that have made communication difficult and I think the thing that that's happening even still now is just the fact we've been moving house for such a long time it's been I don't know 18 months or something we've been trying to move house 4 and it just dominates our conversation it can do and we found it's actually good to just not talk about it and to put it to one side but that can also be frustrating because then you're not communicating about the thing that you're feeling really upset about or you know is draining you so that's been kinda yeah and I find that I have to I'm a sort of person that Heather needs to have this very good at drawing me out to talk about what is really going on what am I really feeling about it because my tendency will just be to to avoid it and yet they'll be lots going on under the surface which is affecting us and you know we're getting tired or grouchy with each other so about the flat move for example it's like you know Heather's very helpful drawing me out and saying what are you really feeling about it at the moment you know what's really going on for you and that's that's been helpful but it's not something I'll naturally do our communication will also be affected by children if and when we have them they alter our lives radically the effect of broken night's tiredness and not having so much time together can stop us having any proper conversations the circumstances that put pressure on us may come from outside our relationship such as unemployment financial struggles bereavement or we may face pressure from circumstances within our marriage such as miscarriage the inability to have children or a major illness I think one of the most difficult circumstances in our marriage has been when about 20 years ago I had a breakdown and the communication there just broken that was it you know we weren't communicating at all and after being in a hospital for a few weeks you realized you had to start talking to me and we suddenly got communicating with each other and talking about lots of different issues over a period of time and it was it was quite interesting because when before it all happened I thought everything was okay and then when when Christine had a breakdown and she came out of hospital we realized and it just we just used to walk and walk for miles and miles and talk until well Christine used to talk and talk most of the time and we just used to walk everywhere I didn't wait for hours and then and it was just it was just nice actually also being able to spend the time together we just learnt a lot about each of them were what we were really thinking when were under pressure for whatever reason most of us revert to the behavior we learned when we were growing up that could be shutting down getting irritable or really heated hiding emotionally all going on the attack so as we can see these different dimensions of personality background and circumstances all contribute to the way that we communicate with one another sometimes these will be positive and will actually help our communication but other things will be negative and they will act like barriers to effective communication we want to look now at four common barriers and how we can get round these the first is insufficient time we have to set aside time for meaningful conversation on a regular basis time that works and is good for both of us that is perhaps the best investment we can make for our relationship and we have to plan this sort of time into our lives it doesn't just happen planned time together prevents a backlog of non communication or miscommunication we're going to be talking in the next session about how to make sure we plant sufficient time for effective communication between us there are some moments however that can't be planned when we have to drop everything and listen to our partner failing to make time to talk together is the first barrier to good communication the second barrier is failing to talk about our feelings there's a danger in marriage of communicating only about the practical things or talking only at the most superficial level oh no it's raining again or the train seemed to get less and less reliable or would you like me to go to the shops or shall we go together being open with each other and sharing our innermost thoughts is essential if we're to build a strong marriage I definitely found it difficult to express my feelings especially early on in marriage I realized that my parents have not been a good sort of example of it they don't express their feelings very well and it took me a while to actually even understand what I was feeling and then to have the time and the opportunity to talk to Jules about about it and I suppose what we've done and Jules has been brilliant in asking me questions to enable me to speak about my feelings and I've had to sort of be bold and brave to actually say this is what I feel Jules and so we're learning but I think we're getting a lot better there are a number of different reasons why we may find it difficult to communicate at the level of our feelings perhaps we feel inadequate and think to ourselves if you knew what I was really like you might not like me or we feel vulnerable and think if I told you my real feelings I'm afraid you might laugh at me or reject me or we're fearful and think if I told you why I'm worried or why I feel hurt you'd get angry in the marriage book we tell the story of James and Anna who rescued their marriage from the brink of divorce the main reason they gave for their problems was ineffective communication this is what James wrote to us effective communication must mean revealing all parts of our lives in my case the parts which I'm well practiced at keeping hidden for me at least it requires more than time it requires courage if you're like James and find talking about your feelings difficult we want to encourage you to dare to trust your fiance and to start disclosing your feelings to him or her we'll only do that even to our husband or wife if we feel accepted so if you know that your partner struggles to express their feelings be sure to listen to them without judging or criticizing because it may well have taken great courage for them to disclose personal things we want to introduce you now to Paul and Jules they met as students when they were both in the College Boat Club but admit they haven't been in a boat together since they got married well Paul and Jules welcome it's great to see you thank you so much for coming but tell us first of all other big differences in the way in which you communicate I think the definite answer to that is yes I'm I'm a talker and Julia whether through choice for necessity is listening that's not something that's necessarily the case all the time right a lot to my friends and in big groups I'm quite a talkative person but just the dynamic between us tends to be more that Paul is talking and I'm listening and do you think that your family backgrounds have affected the way that you communicate yeah so definitely my family is very quiet quite Placid very relaxed and they take things very gently and if we're having a discussion around the table everyone will take their turn pause think about what people have said it's all very sedate whereas the first time I met Paul's family i sat around the table for dinner with them and I just couldn't get a word in edgewise I found it quite scary because they really go for their conversations they get very passionate and very fired up so it we're quite different in that and all those differences exaggerated by your personality would you say Paul and I think so I take your personality from your family to a large extent I think so and I used to get very frustrated with Julia when we were trying to have a conversation and I would ask to ask her a direct question and there'd be a huge long pause afterwards which I used to think she was doing deliberately and my family you're lucky to get to the end of the question so what have you had to learn to communicate effectively do you think I think I've had to learn that so that Paul doesn't get frustrated with me and so that we have a very balanced conversation that it's important for me to be able to articulate my feelings and a little bit quicker to express them and support them in the conversation when they occur and I think you've had to learn to listen a bit more haven't you but that's been very challenging for me because I used to go I get very excited when we're having a debate anyway but nothing's coming back I get even more well agitated really and so it has been very challenging but I've had to really learn just to shut up and listen I mean we'd have to bite my lip sometimes it's not so bad now but at the start it was a big challenge right have you found that there are really good times for communicating or sort of times that you have to avoid for communicating the definite times to avoid yeah I think we talked about we're very open and honest with each other we don't have any sort of problems talking three things but for some reason that I can get very comfortable just with talking about things as we're going to sleep and very sort of laid back I'm very happy I feel very much in love very secure and I suddenly say just was about stuff off to sleep well what do you think about this and he was oh so bad time that time disgusting - sighs stop recording though because I usually end up having a big debate when we're driving and when dude is trying to navigate us through central London I'm kind of dealing with major issues and I'm trying to read them up at the same time so I think it's good - we're just have a set aside time so that those are bad times and what are the sort of times you set aside what are the good times I think when we when we come home in the evening it's really nice to spend some time time together while we can just like focus on each other and put the day aside and see what we've both been up to you and before we have our dinner or over dinner that's that's a nice time for us yeah over meal okay now if there was one tip you would want to pass on to the engaged couples what would that be I think that if and one thing that I was thinking about when we were engaged is that when you get married you you become almost like one person if you think you become like a united front then if that one person is going to be almost created between you then it's a good idea to to put the best parts of yourself into the half of that person that you're creating and not to put the cantankerous or argumentative sides of yourself into that person I think that's a good idea and Jules what about you um somebody gave us this piece of advice before we got married and we found it very important is never to let the Sun go down on your wrath and just always to put things aside and not to let them drag on or caused any problems and so there's never any tarnishing on our relationship we always start and finish every day very much in love and not not with any sort of bad feeling between us well poor Jules thank you so much for joining us and for passing on that wisdom we want you to turn to the next exercise in your manual called effective talking we're going to give you an opportunity to ask your fiancee how difficult or easy it is for them to talk about their inner thoughts attitudes and emotions find out if they were encouraged to talk about their feelings during their upbringing and we're going to give you ten minutes to do this we want to go on now to look at a third barrier to effective communication which is holding on to hurt and resentment resentment is a negative emotion which can be stored up and left to fester for hours days or even over years and if this becomes a habit it can lead to a complete breakdown in communication when we first got married my way of dealing with being misunderstood or hurt was to shout at Nicki and then go into a sulk and I can tell you they were quite bad sulks it wasn't very nice for Nicki and our communication really suffered my mood affected everything sometimes Cilla's mood will last for a day sometimes for 48 hours or even longer and there was nothing I could do to make things better I learned that I had to deal with this way of behaving and instead of secretly sulking I realized I had to be open with Nicki and tell him why I was feeling so resentful knowing why sila was upset really helped me we could then discuss the issue and I could apologize if I'd hurt her without realizing it once I knew that Nicki would listen and try to understand why I was feeling upset I found that my resentment went away and I didn't need to sulk anymore and this made a big difference we were going to be looking more at the importance of talking about her and the whole process of forgiveness in session 3 but now we want to move on and look at the fourth and final barrier to effective communication which is failing to listen to each other listening is of huge importance as we heard from Paul and Jules earlier not only if we're to communicate actively but also in building a foundation of understanding and intimacy in our marriage a relationship counselor Gerard Hughes said this the gift of being a good listener a gift which requires constant practice is perhaps the most healing gift anyone can possess it doesn't judge or advise the other but communicate support at a level deeper than words just think for a moment what it feels like when you're listened to for me I feel valued understood loved supported nothing what does it feel like when you're not listened to it makes me feel frustrated ignored taken for granted or even rejected not being listened to is highly damaging to a relationship but equally being a good listener is very difficult because it's costly it demands our time and our patience Steven Covey author of 7 habits of highly effective people once said this means not just listening with your ears but also more importantly listening with your eyes and your heart listening for feeling for meaning most of us have some bad listening habits to overcome such as interrupting our partner when they're in full flow or maybe going off at a tangent with a story of our own or giving advice instead of empathy as someone who is not naturally a good listener I am quite likely to do all three and probably some others as well but I don't think I'm the only one to do more talking than listening I have quite a few bad habits in communicating I think my probably my classic worst one is trying to say something important whilst being in a completely different room or washing up or cooking and I realized early on in marriage that if something was worth saying it was worth stopping sitting down and speaking properly to Eric my other classic bad habit is interrupting I get a little over-enthusiastic and start putting words in Eric's mouth that's mine I think my bad habits are just that it's just really listening actually being able to listen to what Jules is trying to say and not trying to problem-solve you know I'll solve the problem straight away rather than letting Jules just say what she's feeling I'll get in there sort it out and it'll be over don't worry about it whatever are bad habits they will have a negative impact on our relationship but the good news is effective listening is something we can all learn and practice it means putting aside our own agenda and seeing the world through our fiance's eyes and making the effort to understand them when they think or feel differently to us even the worst listeners among us can change I'm a terrible listener I give advice I interrupt I have patients for about 14 seconds but I actually learned how to listen to that I love just listen I don't say anything don't give her any advice and she works it all out for yourself it's amazing and I think I think the big thing is that we we do tell each other when we want the other one to listen to us because you know you're busy all the time you're rushing around and I so sometimes I just say miles I just want to sit down and I want you to listen to me and you do and it really works yep and you listen to me very well fantastically you have to a lot yes in a moment we're going to get you to practice listening to each other but first Nikki and I are going to have a conversation in front of you to try to demonstrate what effective listening looks like and sounds like I'm going to tell Scylla something that's bothering me and we are going to use a technique that will help to show me she's listening seeking to understand me and to emphasize with me of course that can be hard for any of us to do if I'm telling her something about her own behavior we all desperately want to justify ourselves rather than try to see it from our partners point of view and we don't learn this kind of listening overnight it takes a lot of practice I have absolutely no idea what Nikki's going to talk to me about this is not rehearsed when he's told me I'm going to try to reflect back what he said that is repeat back to him what he's told me particularly any feelings that he's expressed if I haven't understood properly he'll tell me again then I'm going to ask him what's concerning you most about what you've just told me then I'll listen and repeat back to him again then I'm going to ask him is there anything that you could do or if it's appropriate you like me or us to do about what you've just said then I'll listen and reflect back again and finally I'm going to ask him is there anything else that you'd like to say so Nicky what's the issue that you'd like to talk about well I wanted to talk about times when we're driving in the car actually more specifically when I'm driving and I suppose over the years we probably had our most futile arguments in the car and I know that there are times when I don't know the way and I have to ask you for directions and that's great but there are other times when I think I do know the way and when you sort of tell me that you think your way is better I feel well I sort of feel rather undermined and actually upset I mean I don't think I express it really very much but actually it makes me feel you don't trust the way that I want to go and I think I think over the years actually when we've had people in the car when our children were younger when they were with us I felt rather undermined by you're never sort of trusting that I might my way might perhaps better okay so the issue is about when we're in the car and when we're going somewhere in the car and you think that over the years we've probably had some of our most futile arguments in the car and it's usually about the sort of me giving you directions obviously sometimes you don't know the way you need me to give you directions but sometimes you know the way and you don't want me telling you how to go and it's when I give you those directions when you do actually know the way that it makes you feel kind of quite undermined it's as if I don't trust you and and particularly when there are the people in the car like when you know our children were younger and it was in front of them and I'd be going on and and you felt particularly undermined and you know what was the other thing you said undermined and well and and upset I don't think that I don't Express usually when I'm upset but it does upset me that you know you don't trust that I and I might know the best way to go so what was its the upset you get upset really it's that I might not trust you knowing the right way to go and and out of all of that what's concerning you most about what you've said really what's at the heart of it I think it's that I feel you don't give me credit the fact I might sometimes no better way so I I think what's most important is that you know you you don't sort of allow me sometimes to to go the way that I want to get what if I do go the way I want to go that you attack me so you you feel that I don't give you credit for knowing the way that we're going and even if I do or sort of if if I tell you which way to go you just feel that I'm attacking you is that right yeah yeah I think does that and so what do you think that you could do about this situation or perhaps it's more like what could I do about this situation well I I was thinking about it I wonder if we could have an agreement that whoever of us is driving has the is the final arbiter makes the final decision and certainly I'm sure I will ask you for advice as to which way to go but when I'm driving I'd love to have the final decision and when you're driving then you have the phone decision okay so you feel it'd be really good if we made a kind of agreement that whoever's driving has the final decision about which way we're going so if you're driving you can make the final decision and go your way and if I'm driving then I can do the same yeah yeah okay so is there anything else that you want to say well I suppose I do feel it's a bit silly waiting 28 years to talk to you about this but probably well we could work on it for the for the coming years anyway okay so you think it was a pity we waited 28 years to talk about it like this and for you to tell me what you feel about it but we can work on it from now on yeah exactly well I love doing this exercise because I know that still is going to have to listen to me but don't worry I will give seller a chance to have her say later now it's your turn and you'll see the instructions in your manual for the exercise that's called effective listening and what we want you to do is to take this time to listen to each other about something that's clearly important for your fiance but it may not be for you and this is a good opportunity to practice expressing your feelings if you're not used to doing so it could be to do with the arrangements for your wedding or something else that you're worried about and we're going to give you 15 minutes make sure you both have an opportunity to talk and to listen you'll see that we put some homework in the manual after each session but don't worry it's not the sort that's taken in marked it's designed to help you to follow up the topic of each session and we'll finish each session by hearing one of the passages suggested in the back of the manual as a possible reading for your marriage service this session we're going to hear Colossians chapter three verses 12 to 17 therefore as God's chosen people holy and dearly loved clothe yourselves with compassion kindness humility gentleness and patience bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another forgive as the Lord forgave you and over all these virtues put on love which binds them all together in perfect unity let the Peace of Christ rule in your hearts since as members of one body you were called to peace and be thankful let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom and as you sing psalms hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God and whatever you do whether in word or deed do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus giving thanks to God the Father through him finally I'd like to close this session with a short prayer Lord thank you that you're the God of love we thank you that you're always listening to us please help us to put on love and to be good at listening to each other and we ask this in Jesus name Amen that's all for this session and we look forward to seeing you next time until then goodbye goodbye [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause]

Channel: Waiseng & Sheryl

Views: 10,924

Rating: 4.9574466 out of 5

Keywords: ALPHA

Id: IH8ijoVnQcg

Length: 48min 56sec (2936 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 12 2019