3 Warning Signs of Bad Communication in Your Marriage

3 Warning Signs of Bad Communication in Your Marriage

by | May 2, 2022 | Articles

How is communication going in your marriage?
Are you finding yourselves frequently going round and round and never arriving at a point of resolution?
Do you keep getting caught up in the same arguments over and over?
How about this one—you just can’t seem to have a discussion that doesn’t involve elevated emotions or things rapidly getting escalated…

The bad news is that you’re likely stuck in a rut, BUT, the good news is, you can get out! 

The truth is, there actually might be good reasons why you’re getting stuck. You might be simply missing these 3 big warning signs in your communication pattern. (For more on this topic, check out the Expedition Marriage podcast series on Communication Killers and their Kryptonite).

3 Warning Signs of Bad Communication

Harsh startups—You may not even know it, but you might be creating a bad outcome within the first few minutes of your conversation. It will serve you well to pay attention to how you might be initiating when you’re trying to communicate things to your spouse. How is your tone? Are your words accusatory? Are you complaining or blaming right out of the gate? 

If so, these are sure fire ways to position your spouse on the defense instead of positioning them to listen and receive. Be sure that when you start a conversation you pause beforehand long enough to gather your thoughts and be intentional. Speak with kindness and purpose from a non-accusatory place. This will help make it much easier for your spouse to listen to whatever it is you have to say.

Making Assumptions—This one is easy to fall prey to. You may not even realize how much you might be labeling your spouse’s intentions, motives, and actions. You might assume without any confirmation that they’re doing or saying things to intentionally upset you, or perhaps because they don’t care.
When assumptions enter in it becomes very easy to switch over to a harsh set up instead of a soft one. “You never help around the house. You could care less how tired I am!”, “I’m tired of your work being more important than me. Your job is all you care about.” 
Instead of assuming things about your spouse, which by the way, assumptions are often negative, why not try clarifying with them. “I’m frustrated that you don’t help around the house. It feels like you don’t care about how tired I am. Is that true?”, “It upsets me how much time you spend working. It’s beginning to feel like your job is more important than your family. Is that what’s happening?”

Ask a clarifying question and put assumptions to rest. Those negative assumptions will otherwise always lead you in a communication ditch.

Emotional reactivity—Emotions can get the best of you, and me, if we’re not careful. They will lead us to react instead of respond. The second you get emotionally elevated is the same second you stop being productive in communication. Emotional reactivity shuts down your problem-solving skills, your empathy, and your ability to move towards listening and resolving. 

Before you initiate communication, take all the time you need to gather yourself and regroup. Being upset is ok and often necessary, but communicating while being emotionally elevated is just not productive and often will encourage your spouse to back away from you more than it will encourage them to move towards you.

 

Good communication in marriage is a must. It’s a big component to keeping you connected and secure as a couple. If you’re interested in learning more on how to have healthy communication and how to reconnect as a couple, be sure to check out our Restoring Connection Plan, a 4 week communication journey to deeper and richer connection between you and your spouse. For a 15% discount use code SUBSCRIBER15.

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How to Avoid Conflict in Your Marriage in 3 Minutes

How to Avoid Conflict in Your Marriage in 3 Minutes

by | Apr 18, 2022 | Articles

Did you know that the first 3 minutes of a disagreement determines how that conversation will end? It’s true, 96% of the time it’s what takes place in those minutes that will dictate whether resolution is found, or conflict is started. 
Think about it; with 55% of communication being your body language, 38% of it being your tone, and only 7% of it your words, that gives you a lot of likely unused potential to have more healthy communication.

It is clear that the “how” of your argument is more powerful than the “what” of it. So, any of that “right fighting” you may have been doing, isn’t your friend if resolution is your goal. Which btw, if you find yourself falling into the trap of right fighting, you need to check out Episode 59 of the podcast, The Problem with Right Fighting.
With all that being said, let’s make this practical. If getting to resolution is your desired outcome, here are some ways to help you achieve that goal, especially if you incorporate them within that 3-minute time zone.

How to set up a disagreement for success:

  • Watch your body language. Relax your arms, face forward, don’t roll those eyes around, and make eye contact.
  • Control your tone. Speak to one another as if someone you greatly respect was listening to this interaction. As Christians, this is always how we should respond because we do have someone very important always watching us. 
  • Don’t interrupt. That includes not interrupting with body language and tone too. Huffing and puffing, turning away, picking up your phone, or walking away to give your attention elsewhere. These will all indicate that you don’t care how your spouse feels.
  • Lean in and listen. If you start these 3-minutes well, there will be time to share your side and your thoughts too. No need to rush to get your point across first.
  • Stick to the topic at hand. Don’t get derailed into what’s happened before or how things used to be, or what your spouse has done in the past.

Your goal in your marriage shouldn’t be just to prove your points or have your side of the story heard, it should be about trying to achieve a win for both of you. You’re going to be different, you’re going to have different thoughts, ideas, and opinions, and that’s entirely okay, its actually good. Two whole individuals will always make the healthiest of marriages.

If you’ve been struggling with communication in your marriage or just feel disconnected from your spouse, be sure to check out the Restoring Connection Plan, a 4 week strategy to enjoying deeper and richer connection in your marriage. Find out more below.

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3 Habits to Start for a Healthy and Happy Marriage

3 Habits to Start for a Healthy and Happy Marriage

by | Mar 31, 2022 | Articles

3 Habits to Start for a Healthy and Happy Marriage

Healthy marriages don’t just happen by chance. That may be one of the biggest blindsides you learned after getting married. You, like me, probably fell prey to thinking that this wonderful love connection you have as a couple will carry you through to your happily ever after, only to find out that your Mr. Wonderful isn’t always so wonderful, and this marriage thing is going to require patience and some work.
But no worries, that’s where the incredibly beautiful things happen in marriage. Love will require work, but it’s that work that changes you and that often changes them. 

To have a healthy and successful marriage, you’re going to need more than just a wish and some goals. It’s going to require instilling some good habits into your daily married life. There are things you can do every day that will set your marriage up to be one of the most thriving and connected relationships you’ll have. 

3 Habits for a Healthy Marriage

Daily communication—Relationships aren’t silent. Life can get mundane, busy, and put on auto pilot. You must make the daily habit of coming together and talking face to face without distraction. You can do this in the morning with your coffee, over a lunch break or when you put the kids down in the evening. Just pause long enough to give one another undivided attention.

Honesty and vulnerability—Every day you must choose to be honest with one another with how you’re feeling, what’s bothering you, and what your real needs are. Don’t withhold or hide things going on in your life, invite your spouse in on these things. Be honest with them if they’re doing something that is bothering you. If you withhold these things, you will only be allowing bitterness and resentment an open invitation in your marriage.

Active listening—If you want connection in your marriage, you will need a lot of intentional listening. This one seems simple, but really, none of us are truly naturally good at it. Listening is a practiced skill, but it can be a game changer in your marriage.

 

These three habits for a healthy marriage are foundational, but above them all, keeping Christ in the center of your marriage is most important. Two individuals who invest in personal one on one time with the Lord will always make for the best marriages. As for executing these daily habits into your marriage, if you’d love some specific and intentional focus on these areas that will keep you connected as a couple, be sure to check out the Restoring Connection Plan, a 4 week daily plan to re-igniting your connection through intentional communication. It might be just what your marriage needs!

Check it out!

Deconstructing Marriage Myths for the Christian Couple

Deconstructing Marriage Myths for the Christian Couple

by | Mar 28, 2022 | Articles

If you’re a Christian married couple, it might be difficult for you to discern what is good advice or what is bad advice for your marriage. There’s a lot of advice out there that seems sound or makes a little sense, especially when it sometimes comes from a pulpit, but some of these messages can be very destructive to your marriage.

Wrong Marriage Advice

We’ve probably all been told at one point that marriage is 50/50. If you each put in your share things will work out. Division of labor, division of love, and boom, you get that 100% happy marriage. However, this is not how Jesus operates or how He calls us to operate. If fairness were His goal, His death on the cross for our sins would not have ever been a thing. Thank God that life isn’t fair because we’d all be in trouble. 

What Jesus tells us is to shoot for that 100/100. To give, to love, to serve sacrificially. Are you going to hit that mark? Nope, probably not, but the attitude of serving over fairness is what will make your marriage good, especially when you both give that same effort.  With messages like “die to self”, “submit to one another”, and “go the extra mile” it’s hard to believe fairness was what He had in mind for us in life, much less marriage.

Speaking of fairness, husbands and wives are equal. The husband is made to be the leader of the home, not the dictator of it. Leadership does not mean the wife stays home and is at the beck and call of her husband all the time doing all that he says. It does not mean he has been given full authority over her. It means that he is to give himself up for her (Eph 5:22 & 25) just as Jesus did for us. He is to always keep in mind what is best for her and make decisions accordingly. He is to lead his family in protection, in security and in love. Both husbands and wives are called to mutually submit to one another, but the husband is the one whose leadership will be taken into account. That is a high calling and responsibility, not a governing over a wife. A husband who leads should be a husband who looks and acts a lot like Jesus.

 Another myth is that of not going to bed angry. This one comes from Eph. 4:26 that says, “In your anger, do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger.” This verse is not telling you to not go to bed angry, what it is saying is don’t let anger cause you to sin or rule in your heart. Deal with it promptly, within a 24 hour window. Any longer than that it will get more difficult to deal with.  

If you need time to calm, to process, or to do some work with the Holy Spirit’s help, take it. Ponder it after a night’s rest so you can come back and resolve it the next day. Do not let anger take up residence in your heart and deal with it as soon as possible and you’ll be just fine.

Lastly, and one of the more common myths is have more sex with your husband to keep him from using pornography or having an affair. It is NOT a wife’s job to be responsible for her husband’s self- control or mind. Pornography is not a sex less problem, and more sex is not the answer. In fact, that belief is incredibly destructive to a wife. A wife should not be subject to providing sex for a husband who is actively engaged in adultery through pornography—Jesus’ words, not mine, Matthew 5:28. God designed sex to be fulfilling and pleasurable for both husbands and wives. Limiting it to a duty a wife must perform is destructive to its design.

If you found these deconstructed marriage myths helpful, be sure to check out the Expedition Marriage podcast, episodes 49 & 50 for more on Bad Marriage Advice.

xoxo, Chris & Jamie

4 Things You’re Missing While Trying to be Right in Your Marriage

4 Things You’re Missing While Trying to be Right in Your Marriage

by | Feb 23, 2022 | Articles

Are you missing out?
Are you a right fighter? Are you married to one?
Not sure? Here are some clues: 
A right fighter will…

  • Place higher value on being right than anything else
  • Will stand their ground no matter what
  • Will argue over minor details and nit-picky things
  • Won’t stop arguing until they get the win
  • Usually gets overly emotional or amped up

While sports are a great place to fight for your win, your marriage is not. Once you got married you went from being 2 to becoming 1. The day you walked down the aisle was the last day you should be fighting for your own win. From there on out, you need to be looking for marriage wins.
If you get caught up in right fighting, there is a lot you’re missing out on. Hopefully once you see these things, you’ll realize how what you’ve been fighting for really wasn’t a win at all.

While you’re trying to be right, you’re actively teaching your spouse to pull away from you. No one wants to move close to someone that they must always defend themselves against. 

You also miss out on any personal growth. If you’re always right, why improve? If that’s not enough, there’s this; “When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom.” Proverbs 11:2

Right fighting also consists of only thinking about what is best for you, not your spouse or your marriage. What God calls you to is to “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather in humility, value others above yourself.” Philippians 2:3 You totally miss an opportunity to obey God, and to get a win for your spouse and your marriage.

Lastly, what you’re missing may be the most hurtful one of all. You’re missing the pain of your spouse. You’re taking a win at their expense and forcing them to take the loss. This can be hurtful and can cause your spouse to give up and shut down, which is hardly a win at all.

A win in football may get you a ring or a trophy, but a win for your marriage will have everlasting rewards. Aren’t you really wanting a win for your marriage instead?

If you want some more info on how to have conflict in a healthy way, check out the Expedition Marriage podcast series, beginning with episode 18 on How to L.O.V.E. Your Way Through Conflict. 

Enjoying the Journey is always better than being right!

 

Chris & Jamie