Marriage and Communication~

Communicating with Your Spouse;

If you respond to stress or conflict with an ingrained pattern that includes avoidance, anger, denial, etc., it can get in the way of effective communication, distancing you even further from your spouse.

Give or receive input;

Be open to receiving input from your spouse. You have to be willing to test and be tested. You don't have to say everything you're thinking, but everything you do say has to be accurate. If your spouse asks you if you're upset, and you are, you have to be willing to say, "Yes." It's important that both of you know they are going to be told the truth.

Reflect on words and feelings;

After receiving input from your spouse, verify that what you are hearing is what your spouse is actually saying. You've got to say, "What I hear from you content-wise is..." Then, to make sure you understand what she is feeling, you can say something like, "The feeling I'm getting from you is resentment/anger/hurt, etc. "Accept feedback and respond. If you are the person who is giving the input, you have to clarify things if your spouse isn't hearing what you are honestly trying to say. If you are the person receiving the input, you can respond once you know what you are responding to. Now that you are clear on what your spouse is really saying, you can accept the feedback.

• Stay in the moment.
• Stay with the issues at hand.
• Do not discuss past history at any timeduring this process.
• Do not leave.
• Do not leave the discussion until it is completed.

To keep it from dragging on, you can negotiate a time limit before hand so that both of you know how long the conversation will last.

Stop Excusing Inexcusable Behavior;

You can't sustain a relationship that is based on deception. If lies,infidelity, or other deal-breaking behaviors are threatening your marriage or partnership, remember that you teach people how to treat you. Your spouse is doing what he/she is doing because they can. If you're allowing the behavior to continue by making excuses for your spouse and blaming yourself, stop. If you want to be treated with dignity and respect, stand up and require it. You can't change what you don't acknowledge. First, acknowledge that there is something wrong. If what is happening isn't normal, admit it. You need to set some new standards of acceptable behavior and your spouse needs to know what those standards are. If you truly want the relationship to work, be real with yourself and yourspouse. Be completely honest and truthful with your spouse about your wants and needs. People who have nothing to hide, hide nothing. You should be an open book to your mate.If you are the person who has damaged the relationship, make sure that you hear your spouse. He needs to know that you have listened and understand the full gravity of your actions and how they have affected him. Acknowledge the damage your behavior has caused to your spouse's self-esteem, mental state and emotions. Understand that any time you turn away from your spouse to fill your needs instead of toward him, it's a betrayal. It's not just what you do it's what you don't do. You can violate someone by withholding affection.What is the payoff for hanging onto the guilt? Listen to the messages you tell yourself. Are they keeping you on the right path or are they keeping you from actively participating in your life? If you feel better when you are punished, punishment has become a reward. Do you pull back from hope and optimism? Do you secretly believe, "If I get too happy, something bad is going to happen to me or my family"?

You aren't protecting anyone by withholding who you are. Get back in the game and contribute rather than hide.

Marriage Tips~ Desperate to save your marriage

One day you come to a realization that your marriage is headed to divorce. Where do you go, what do you do, where do you turn?

If I can offer you anything, it is this: You cannot repair your marriage ALONE!! One of you may want to save your marriage more than the other, and you can work with that. But it will take both of you to successfully save your marriage.

When I found myself going through a difficult time in my marriage, I was at a loss. I had no idea what I was doing day to day. I look back now and I cannot tell you what I did during those two months that my husband was confidently telling me he wanted a divorce. I remember feeling as though my life was falling apart and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.

All I knew is that the man that I was completely head over heels in love with, was not for whatever reason able to stand by me when I had a problem. He was not able to offer me the strength and guidance that I could come to him about absolutely anything. I was suppose to be able to "walk on water" and never make a mistake. Not very realistic.

When I was searching out for guidance the best information I found was on the Internet. When you are going through a difficult time, you are looking for that one answer. The perfect answer that will just tell you what to do, to be able to fix everything.

After all my searches day after day I found several great sites with information that did in fact help save my marriage. Now that I am starting to repair my life, I feel the desire to help other women that may be in similar situation.

Copy and past this link http://marriage.about.com into the google address bar in the right top corner... this site is what honestly helped me save my marriage. I cannot say enough good things... about.com is an information site that can guide you, help you, teach you, and offer you help when you need it the most.


Please check out these links that I am supplying, if you can take the time to read the information you will get some great guidance.

GO HERE for save my marriage guidance

Tips to save your marriage

50 Tips to a better marriage

Put trust back in your marriage

Please leave me your comments and feedback~

Communication is the core to a healthy marriage

Good "Communication" involves listening, assertiveness, and responsibility.

Communication is about getting our needs met through and with others. A primary problem in our society is people don't understand each other, here are a few prime examples:

• We do not communicate our personal needs and dislikes in an assertive way.
• We do not understand what someone else is trying to convey to us.

When you sit down and actually think about communication in your marriage, it takes more work to NOT communicate than it does TO communicate. Communication is just expressing our needs, our dislikes being empathetic and a good listener.

As women we need to get our feelings out, we tell our friends, our sisters, our mothers, whomever we have a relationship with that has been built with communication. The first person we should be communicating with oddly enough is the last person every time?

Understanding others is easy:

• Good listening. The importance of "just" listening
• Empathize your responses. restating what was said without solutions, embellishment, or talk about ourselves. The focus stays on the "other" person.

Communication becomes an unconscious, automatic pattern that is difficult to change and involves practice and not just learning but un-learning the old familiar ways.

Communication is the healthy way of getting our needs met and stating our dislikes. When effective communication is not used or learned, people learn unhealthy tactics to cope and meet their needs.

I am guilty and I am sure many of you can relate:

• non-verbal
• passive-aggression
• isolation
• acting out
• verbal aggression
• passive anger
• numbing - "I don't care"
• depression

When you are aware of everything that you are feeling, all the time, you are in continual communication with yourself. Learning how to listen to that communication, and act on it, is your purpose. Becoming aware of what you are feeling

The choice that confronts you is whether to ease the pain you feel by escaping from it into thoughts or activities, or to keep your attention inward in order to learn where your discomfort is coming from, and heal the source of it. A way to avoid painful emotions is to escape into an activity. It is easier to focus your thoughts elsewhere than to experience the intense physical pain of a hurtful emotion.

The first step in uncovering the origin of a compulsion is the hardest. To uncover the origin of a compulsion, you must stop doing what is compulsive, therefore you must "acknowledge" and experience what you feel when you do. If you flee back into an activity or your thoughts, be gentle with yourself. If the intensity of a painful emotion is more than you can endure without striking out at another person to to experience it for one minute without distracting yourself.

The time the pain of rage, superior, jealousy, or vengefulness comes, try experience it without distraction for two minutes. Do that consciously. Being aware of your emotions is the first step. If you are not aware of what you are feeling in your body and what you are thinking, you are not aware of the present moment. When you are not aware of your emotions, your attention is focused on the circumstances around you.

Emotional awareness is the healing remedy for a fixation on external circumstances. When you are fixated on events of your life, your attention is absorbed. When you are aware of your emotions and what is occurring around you, you step into the present "real" moment.