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A Note from the Universe
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How To Get Your Spouse To Hear You
Recently I had a series of private phone sessions with a person who was very frustrated. Listen to how this person described their situation. I bet you’ll be able to relate to it.<
This person said they felt trapped in their basement trying to communicate with their spouse via Morse Code. They said they were banging on the pipes trying desperately to be heard. They would bang on the pipes and wait for a response. Bang and wait…bang and wait…bang and wait. But each time they finished banging, there was silence. No matter how hard they banged and no matter how long they waited; their spouse never heard them.
Hi. My name is Mort Fertel, author of Marriage Fitness.
Are you trying to get heard? Do you feel ignored? Is your spouse not responding to your communication?
We live in an interesting time. With one click, you can communicate with anyone in the world. It’s easy, quick, and free. You even have options. If you don’t want to click, you could dial, beep, page, instant-message, or Fed Ex. It’s true. Your ability to communicate with the outside world has become increasingly easy. But my guess is that your ability to communicate with your spouse has become increasingly difficult.
The reason for this is that most people confuse INFORMATION communication with PERSONAL communication. Technological advancements give us all sorts of options to communicate information. But how do you feel the pulse of someone’s soul? How do you communicate the subtleties in your heart? You can’t text message that. You can have the latest and greatest in communication gadgets, but it won’t matter. PERSONAL communication is a whole different ball game. And it’s PERSONAL communication that determines the success or failure of your marriage.
I’m reminded of a scene from a Broadway play. A man and woman happen to meet on a train and engage in polite conversation. They were both headed home to New York after a day in New Haven, CT. After further discussion, they learned that they were going to the same building on Fifth Avenue. Lo and behold they discovered that they had the same daughter and lived in the same apartment. They finally discovered that they were husband and wife.
You know what’s killing marriages these days? EMAIL! More and more I’m seeing husbands and wives resort to email to communicate with each other. You want to do something tangible TODAY to improve your marriage? STOP EMAILING YOUR SPOUSE! Email is for INFORMATION. But in a marriage you’ve got to HEAR each other. And I don’t mean hear the sounds of each other’s words. You’ve got to be able to hear the silence between the sounds and interpret the unspoken meaning of a pressed lips or teary eyes. You’ve got to be able to hear the shapes and sounds in each other’s heart. You can NOT accomplish this via email.
And let me be clear about something; you can’t do it with communication techniques either. There’s no clinical communication therapy that can help you and your spouse think each other’s thoughts, feel each other joy, and cringe from each other’s pain. My 1-on-1 phone session schedule and the Marriage Fitness Tele Boot Camp are filled with casualties from traditional communication strategies and the usual marriage counseling approach. If you’re like most people with marriage trouble, you’ve been down that path and you know that it does NOT work.
Today my 4-year-old son came to me with a bruise on his leg. He was crying and I could see that it was black and blue. He said, “Daddy, I need a band-aide.”
I responded, “But it’s not bleeding.”
He said again, “Daddy, can you put a band-aide on it?”
I realized that my son’s perspective was that when something hurts a band-aide makes it better…even if it’s a bruise and not a cut.
So what does this have to do with communication in a marriage? Because most people think that if spouses aren’t hearing each other that communication techniques will solve the problem. But that’s like putting a band-aide on a bruise. It’s the wrong solution.
Communication techniques can help colleagues transmit INFORMATION clearly. Communication techniques belong in seminars that teach negotiation and sales. But you’re not trying to complete a transaction with your spouse; you’re trying to renew a relationship. I can almost guarantee you that your problem is not clarity; it’s concern. Ironically, communication techniques sometimes give people clarity that they don’t care what their spouse thinks or feels. They “got it,” but “it” doesn’t matter to them anymore.
How do you get back to the place where you and your spouse care again?
This is one of the things that’s unique about the Marriage Fitness approach to repairing a relationship versus traditional counseling. Most approaches to marriage success preach communication skills. But communicating effectively will NOT create love in your marriage. In fact, the correlation is the opposite. Creating love in your marriage paves the way for effective communication. I’ll prove it to you.
Think about when you fell in love. How was your communication? Good, right? In fact, when you’re in love, you communicate with the wink of an eye and you can finish each other’s sentences. And yet you haven’t known each other that long and you haven’t learned any communication techniques.
Then, years later, after getting to know each other inside and out, employing psychologically tested and proven communication strategies, and taking into account all the differences between Mars and Venus, you can’t get through to each other.
Listen carefully: Communication has very little to do with techniques or knowledge of each other. It has everything to do with the depth of connection between the communicators.
The question you should be asking is NOT, “How do I communicate effectively with my spouse.” The question you should be asking is, “How do I connect with my spouse again?” Once you reconnect, you won’t be sitting in silence in the basement. You’ll hear the sound of the pipes from above. It’ll be your spouse. You were heard.
If you want to learn how to connect with your spouse again, subscribe to my FREE report, “7 Secrets for a Stronger Marriage” and get my FREE marriage assessment. To subscribe, CLICK HERE. It’s FREE.
Warm regards,
Mort Fertel
Author of Marriage Fitness
Marriage Coach
Save Your Marriage Secrets
One of the greatest lessons in life is the realization that the limit to your learning is endless. Old, young, wise, not so wise, all people have the opportunity to learn something new every day. You may or may not be aware of it, but over the course of a lifetime you learn more about how life works, how other people work, and even about yourself and how you interact with others. Life is continually calling us into learning, and this is especially applicable when it comes to human relationships.
One of the greatest relationships we are called into over the course of our life is marriage. This does not necessarily mean that it is the most important life relationship, but it is one whose success or failure has the greatest impact on your adult life. And in looking at marriage, there are a number of key skills that are crucial to navigating your way through marriage.
There will always be couples who live in apparent wedded bliss, and those that will tell you that they never fight or disagree. That simply isn't true. As each of us grow and evolve, we are called to learn different lessons in different ways, and one of the exciting things about marriages is the way we interact and negotiate our way around issues when we look at things from different perspectives. Those who tell you they have never been challenged in this way have never really lived. But what determines whether this challenge is a positive or negative experience for your marriage is how both of you choose to react to your differences and work around them.
When faced with a disagreement there are a range of choices. The first is to back down, allowing the other to make their point and express it. Another is to challenge their point and ascertain whether it is correct. Another choice is to discuss both options and see if there is room for flexibility. Are both of you correct, or is one of you incorrect in your viewpoint? How much is one person's viewpoint inhibiting the beliefs, values, or morals of the other?
The most important point here however, is introspection. Evaluate your actions and reactions.
The key is to understand the issues and to find small ways to move forward. You can call them goals. Make them achievable, and make them measurable. How often are you coming back and seeing if you have reached your goals? Are you making progress or are you at a stalemate?
The important thing to realize is that you are always learning, and finding new ways of understanding and loving each other as well as yourselves. Think of your marriage issues as an opportunity for growth and understanding.
The next step is to identify the lessons that you both must learn. In marriage we are called into a constant evolution, a journey of loving. The challenge to all marriages, good and bad, is to find new ways of loving each other. If you have been married one year, ten years or forty years, the challenge is still the same. Grow in love together.
What can you learn from your partner and your marriage today? What do you know today that you didn't know yesterday. The secret is to never stop learning. And when you do stop learning, that's where we can help.
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