My wife and I are opposite in so many ways. How about you and your spouse? I’m an extrovert and my wife is an introvert. I’m an early bird and my wife is a night owl. She enjoys writing while I enjoy training and teaching. I’m a nerd and she is a free spirit. She’s a saver while I’m a spender. She likes a lot of peanut butter and jelly and I like very little jelly and just enough peanut butter. We are coming up on our 15 year anniversary on December 25th. Over the past 15 years, we have learned to appreciate our differences and make the most of them.
We used to have our biggest disputes over leaving the house in time to get to our destination early or on time. Or when we were trying to figure out who’s family to visit for the holidays. Or when we talked about how to spend our time together over the weekend. I love to stay active and my wife enjoyed lounging and watching movies. Having disputes was not a big concern for us...the big concern is when we got tired of arguing about it and got silent.
When we got silent about a topic it was our way of informing our spouse that we don’t want to hear what they thought and we didn’t want to waste our breath sharing how we felt. Have you ever been there? Where you felt like it was better to live in silence than in a constant battle. I’m sure many couples come to this point about one issue or another at some point in the marriage. This can be a very dangerous place for a couple. It makes you vulnerable to your own “rightness.”
When you choose to not communicate with your spouse about a topic you are left with your own thoughts that you think are right. Or worse yet, the thoughts of your friends who cosign everything you say and think. The silent treatment or stone-walling can make room for a lot of negative energy in your marriage. As time allows a plant to grow so it does for an unresolved problem.
So what do you do when you get to this point in your marriage? In the past, I used to fester on everything I thought my wife was doing wrong. Now I’ve learned to do my best to consider her perspective and identify what’s wrong with my own. Nine times out of ten when we begin discussing the situation it was caused by a misunderstanding.
How can you begin a discussion when you’re not talking though? Here are a few tips. When you find yourself too uncomfortable to have a conversation with your spouse try writing them a letter, preferably a love letter. You can voice your perspective and ask them for theirs but most importantly let them know that you want to move past this disagreement and that you are open to discuss. You can also write a list to yourself of all the things that you think about your spouse at the moment on one side then counter that list with the “better” reality of things most often outside of this situation. This helps put things in perspective and allows you to appreciate and value your spouse.
I started this article talking about differences. Differences are important because from my experience every misunderstanding has started because of different perspectives of the same situation. My wife, the saver, sees a financial situation and thinks we need to save money while I, the spender, look at the same situation and think we need to spend money to resolve it. All in all, we both have valid ideas but our differences make us think that each other is wrong.
I’ve learned that both of us being wrong doesn’t solve anything well. But when we start dissecting and appreciating the ways in which we are right and focus on those we become a better team and start to communicate better. How do you and your spouse overcome differences? Has your communication gotten better in your marriage or has it suffered because of your differences?
Check out our free eCourse called Effective Communication In Marriage. Garry and Chavos have a new communication tool called Get Vision Now - A Communication Tool for Couples which makes a great anniversary gift for any couple.