How to Fix a Failure to Communicate in Your Relationship

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How to Fix a Failure to Communicate in Your Relationship

Strong communication is key in a dream marriage. Yet many relationships have a failure to communicate.

My husband and I didn’t always communicate perfectly in our marriage; but we learned from our mistakes early.

We spent most of our 10-year-marriage communicating openly, avoiding angry outbursts, and listening to understand the other person’s perspective.

Communicating effectively with my husband is easy because we built our relationship on a strong communication foundation.

We just had to eliminate bad communication habits and introduce positive communication habits early in our relationship before things festered.

If your relationship has already festered to a bad place, I still believe strengthening communication skills with your partner will turn things around.

To help you, I describe 5 bad communication habits to avoid and 5 positive communication habits to adopt to have a strong relationship with your partner.

How to Fix a Failure to Communicate in Your Relationship

5 Bad Communication Habits to Avoid to Fix a Failure to Communicate

1. Giving the silent treatment

When I was upset about something my husband did, I would give him the silent treatment. I would purposely not talk to him.

I thought it would make him feel bad about whatever he did and never do it again. It was passive aggressive and it didn’t work.

It would have been better if I just told him what bothered me. Being passive aggressive actually caused a bigger division in the relationship.

Thankfully, I only did it a few times before I realized it was an ineffective way of communicating.

2. Expecting mind reading

Along the same lines of giving the silent treatment, I thought my husband knew how I was feeling without telling him. I didn’t verbally communicate to him. I basically thought he should know what I was feeling or read my mind.

In my book, When You Meet Your Match (paid link), I tell the story how I left the dishes for him several days thinking he would know to do them.

I had to realize that we were two different people. We grew up in two parts of the country. We had different upbringings. He’s a male and I am a female. We think differently about most things.

In order for him to know how I was feeling, I had to tell him. Otherwise, I was contributing to a failure to communicate. It didn’t matter how many hints I dropped. He wasn’t going to know what was on my mind unless I told him.

3. Jumping to conclusions

I had a bad habit of assuming I knew what my husband’s actions meant. It’s something you may do all the time without realizing it. Jumping to conclusions also contributes to a failure to communicate.

For example, if your spouse doesn’t like an outfit you are wearing, you could jump to the conclusion that your spouse isn’t attracted to you.

Another example, is if your spouse is talking to a co-worker, you might jump to the conclusion that the spouse is cheating on you.

If your spouse asked you not to give your child so much screen time, you might jump to the conclusion that your spouse thought you were a bad parent.

Most of the time your assumptions are not true. However, you react angrily to your spouse based on an assumption.

I found it best to ask my spouse about my assumptions. He usually has a logical explanation that has nothing to do with the conclusion I jumped to in my mind.

I Iearned not to jump to conclusions with my other relationships too, including with co-workers, bosses, family members and friends. When I do jump to conclusions, I am always surprised how wrong I am.

4. Yelling

You may think that yelling is a normal part of a relationship. It’s not. It’s actually very toxic to a relationship.

I grew up in a family of strong women who usually yelled when they got angry. It took a lot of self-control not to resort to those natural tendencies and not to mirror what I saw while growing up.

I learned that yelling is unacceptable in a relationship. Unless I’m yelling, “Fire!” or there’s an emergency, there’s no reason to yell at your partner.

You have to learn not to let your emotions get to you. Yelling causes a failure to communicate.

When my husband and I have a disagreement, we talk peacefully to each other until the situation is resolved.

Yelling doesn’t accomplish anything productive. It only makes things worse.

5. Name-calling

Name-calling is something else you may do when you’re angry. This can cause a rift in the relationship long after you’re no longer angry. It also causes a failure to communicate.

Examples of name-calling is saying things like your spouse is lazy, selfish, mean or stupid.

When you label your spouse, it can affect how you see your spouse and how the spouse sees themself. The spouse might start to behave by the name you call them. You could start to unconsciously treat your spouse like the negative name you called them.

The spouse might sometimes exhibit behaviors by the name you called them. However, the spouse may not behave that way all the time.

By giving the spouse that label, you ignore all the times when the spouse doesn’t behave that way. You start to act ungrateful towards them because you start to think of them as the negative name.

Realize that people are complicated. They don’t act one way all the time.

Instead, recognize that your spouse acts that way sometimes and is capable of having the positive character traits that you desire.

You know what bad communication habits to avoid. Now try adopting these positive communication methods:

5 Positive Communication Habits to Adopt to Fix a Failure to Communicate

1. Communicating feelings regularly

Some marriages have no communication. That makes it hard to build a strong relationship.

Either there were communication problems in the past or something happened to diminish the trust in the relationship.

I found that it is better to communicate with your spouse. Otherwise, your spouse won’t know how you are feeling.

More communication is better than holding everything in and not talking to your partner.

In leadership classes, we learned that the best way to communicate negative feelings is using “I-statements.”

For example, say something like “I feel lonely when you stay out all night” or “I worry when you don’t tell me you’re coming home late.”

When you’re using “I-statements” it’s best to describe the behavior you don’t like. You should not use it as an opportunity for name-calling.

Instead of saying something like, “I feel like you’re lazy,” describe the behavior. “I feel overwhelmed when I am cleaning up the house and you’re watching television.”

Using “I-statements” is better because it doesn’t sound like you are attacking or blaming your spouse for your feelings. You are taking ownership of your feelings.

Your relationship will grow stronger when you can regularly communicate your feelings in a non-confrontational way.

2. Remaining Calm

In the same way you take ownership of your feelings, you need to take ownership of your actions. If you get upset about something your spouse does, you control how you react.

I had to learn this lesson at work. No matter how many times my co-workers or employees made me upset, I had to remain calm.

My executive coach was grooming me for senior leadership. She pointed out how the senior leaders remained calm under pressure too.

When you remain calm, instead of reacting out of anger, it de-escalates the situation. This especially works in a marriage.

When I was upset about a situation, my husband remained calm and it helped me to calm down.

You can be the one that reacts calmly when your spouse is angry or upset. It will diffuse the situation.

When you both react angrily, you can both say or do something you don’t mean. If it continues to happen, it will slowly start to destroy your marriage.

When you can’t remain calm, it’s ok to tell your spouse you need to walk away until you can calm down. That is better than reacting out of anger and doing or saying something you regret.

Then you both can come back together and have a discussion to resolve the issue. Be careful not to force communication before you are both ready to talk.

Learn how to remain calm when your spouse upsets you. You can control how you react to a situation.

3. Listening to understand

One way to remain calm when you’re having a disagreement is to listen to understand your spouse’s perspective.

Normally in a disagreement, your goal might be to argue your side.

When your goal is to understand your spouse’s perspective, you’re not so defensive. It helps you to remain calm.

It also helps you to come to a consensus on the issue and move forward together.

One of my mentors at work had similar advice. He said to be curious for as long as possible.

I followed his advice with one of my co-workers. I continued to ask questions until I understood her side. Then I told her how I was feeling. She was more willing to listen to me because I listened first.

It improved our relationship because I was willing to listen to understand or “be curious.”

The next time you and your spouse have a disagreement, try to listen to understand the spouse’s side. It will do wonders for your relationship.

4. Acknowledging feelings

Not only should you listen to understand your spouse, you should also acknowledge your spouse’s feelings.

Although you may not agree with the feelings, you can acknowledge how your spouse is feeling.

Using an earlier example, you can say, “So, you’re overwhelmed and you want me to help out more around the house?”

You don’t repeat verbatim what the spouse said. It won’t show that you really understand them. Paraphrase your spouse’s words to acknowledge their feelings.

I recently read the classic parenting book, How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk (paid link). It had a lot of excellent communication advice in it that is not only for children.

The authors, Adele Faber & Elaine Mazlish, discussed the effectiveness of acknowledging feelings.

“…Let someone acknowledge my inner pain and give me a chance to talk more about what’s troubling me, and I begin to feel less upset, less confused, more able to cope with my feelings and my problem.”

I used this advice with my daughter who is often scared at night. Normally, I deny her feelings or dismiss them without realizing it. I’d say:

“There’s no reason to be scared” or “It’s going to be ok.”

It seemed to calm her down more when I validated her feelings and said things like:

“I used to be scared at night too” or “It’s ok to be scared.”

You should do this with your spouse too. Instead of denying your spouse’s feelings, accept their feelings. It’s their feelings. You can’t disagree with how they are feeling.

Once you start to acknowledge or accept your spouse’s feelings, you will see how powerful it is at opening the lines of communication with you and your spouse.

5. Checking on your spouse

Another way to open the lines of communication with your spouse, is to check on how your spouse is feeling.

When I get home from work, I like that my husband asks me about my day and then listens and asks questions about my response.

My husband had a recent tragedy in his family. I can tell when he is thinking about it and I ask him how he is feeling so he can talk about it.

In the same way, if you notice your spouse is sad or you can tell something is wrong, ask your spouse how they are feeling.

Sometimes I ask my spouse if he is mad at me for something. No matter what the answer is, it gets him talking about what is bothering him.

If you had a disagreement with your spouse and there is tension, it’s good to initiate a conversation with your spouse to clear the air.

If you do have a conversation, remember to listen to understand and acknowledge your spouse’s feelings.

Check in on your spouse to find out how they are feeling about the relationship. If your spouse is unhappy, find out what they want to change.

Don’t let your relationship crumble because you are not paying attention to your spouse.

Final Thoughts

In order to fix a failure to communicate, you need to focus on what you can control.

You can control how you react to a situation. You can remain calm during a disagreement instead of expressing anger, name-calling, and giving the silent treatment.

Practice positive communication habits with your spouse. Instead of being defensive, listen to your spouse’s perspective and acknowledge your spouse’s feelings.

If there is little to no communication with your spouse, initiate conversation and find out how your spouse is feeling. Keep the communication lines open.

It may be awkward to have some of these conversations. It will become natural the more you do it and you will be in a strong communication relationship in no time.

How We Avoid Money Problems in our Dream Marriage

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How We Avoid Money Problems in our Dream Marriage

Money problems can really break a marriage.

Money can be a source of contention or a source of contentment.

My husband and I built our marriage on a solid financial foundation. It has strengthened our dream marriage.

Since we’ve been married, we have doubled our household income and I have tripled my own income. We have also avoided having arguments about money.

I wanted to share with you what we did to avoid having money problems in our marriage.

If you’re having money problems with your spouse, maybe some of the things we did can help you improve your finances and then lead to a dream marriage.

If you are about to get marry, this may help you start your marriage on a strong financial foundation.

Here are 10 things we do or did to avoid money problems:

1. Discussed money goals

Before my husband and I got married, we discussed our money goals.

We both had aspirations to be financially secure and had a certain income we wanted to achieve.

If our aspirations were not aligned, we would have come to an agreement on the direction we wanted to go or reconsider if we were right for each other.

Thank goodness that was not an issue. We both were very ambitious and had the same financial goals for our marriage.

In a counter example, I discussed finances with one of my old boyfriends. He was much older than me. He talked about having a “lucrative” job and was not interested in furthering his career.

I later found out that he made $10 (USD) an hour. I realized then that we had different standards. A marriage wouldn’t have worked for us. We weren’t aligned in our aspirations.

Handling finances with my husband was pretty smooth since we had the same financial goals and the motivation to go after them.

2. Put money together

Whenever I discussed finances with my married co-workers, most of them kept their accounts separate from their spouse.

They gave a certain amount of money for the bills or divided up the bills and decided who pays each bill.

While couples can decide how they want to do things, we found that putting our money in a joint account worked best for us.

We didn’t get a joint account until after we were married.

When we got paid, we direct deposited our money into the joint account. Then we paid our bills out of that account.

My husband and I make around the same amount so it’s advantageous for us to put our money together.

We don’t worry about who pays what bill since all of the money is coming from one account.

It’s also easy for us to pay for unexpected expenses and anything dealing with the children.

With putting our finances together, we have more than enough money to cover our bills.

3. Distributed an equal amount to our personal accounts

Besides having a joint account, we also have personal accounts. With each direct deposit into the joint account, a small portion goes to each of our personal accounts.

The amount we send to our personal accounts is the same. We don’t give someone a higher amount because they make a little more.

We treat it as a no-questions-asked account where we can spend money any way we like.

With the credit union we use, we can see the money in the joint accounts and our own personal accounts. We can’t see what’s in the spouse’s personal accounts.

I mostly spend the money in my personal account for buying clothes for myself, gifts for friends, and getting my hair done.

I also dedicate some of the money to a personal savings account and save for big purchases.

There are times when big purchases are too expensive to come out of my personal account. I just ask my husband if it can come out of the joint. Most of the time he agrees with the request.

We purchased my Dell laptop from the joint account and we purchased his iPad from the joint account.

So, yes, we have personal accounts. However, mostly everything we buy comes from our joint account.

4. Paid off debt together

We got lucky and found a great minister for our premarital counseling. One of our assignments was to make a list of all of our debt and the interest owed.

Once we had the list, we decided to tackle our debt immediately after we got married.

Some people focus on debts with the highest interest rates. We decided to focus on the amount of the debts owed.

We first paid off my husband’s car loan. The amount owed was lower than my debt.

Once we paid off that car loan, we used the extra money to pay off his personal loan. Some people may refer to it as the snowball effect.

We kept throwing all of our extra money onto each of our debts until we were debt-free in 18 months.

We spent the rest of our 10-year marriage debt-free except for the mortgage on our new house.

The nice thing about paying off debt is you have extra money after your bills are paid even if your salary does not increase.

5. Built savings together

With having no debt besides the mortgage, we were able to build up our savings account.

The savings account grew fast since we had so much extra money.

In the beginning of our marriage, we put money in our savings account when we got paid.

We were able to pay cash for big things, such as our minivan, smart phones, finishing our basement, and big screen TVs.

Now we don’t put much in our savings accounts. We keep a 3-month emergency fund. In earlier years we were keeping an 8-month emergency fund. Since interest rates are so low, it doesn’t make sense to do that anymore.

We’re focused on paying off our mortgage fast and then we are going to work on increasing our money to our retirement accounts and the children’s college fund.

We are following Dave Ramsey’s 7 Baby Steps. We’re on Baby Step 6 – Pay off your home early.

We’re able to do all of this because we built our savings together.

6. Consult with each other on big purchases

Before we make a big purchase out of the joint account, we consult each other. We make sure the other spouse is good with the purchase.

It forces us to make the smartest, most financially-wise decision. We like to buy items with the best quality for the best price.

We usually don’t buy the cheapest items because we’re afraid that the quality isn’t strong.

When we needed to replace one of our toilets recently, my husband approached me about buying four new toilets for all of our bathrooms.

We discussed the type of toilets we wanted to buy and the amount we wanted to spend on them.

I was fine with it. We could easily afford them and we have had the same toilets since we bought the house 8 years ago.

Our biggest purchase we had to agree on was the house. My husband was definitely pickier than I was on the house.

I grew up in a condominium so I was impressed with most single-family homes we saw.

My husband wanted a house with a certain square footage. I was more interested in being able to easily afford the house.

We kept house shopping until we both agreed on the house we were buying.

In the end, we found a house that was big enough to meet my husband’s needs and affordable enough to meet my needs.

I read on social media where a woman bought a house without consulting with her significant other. She wanted to know if she was wrong.

I vote yes. I can’t imagine not consulting with my husband before making a big purchase.

We both have to be happy with the purchase.

It strengthens our communication skills with each other. It eliminates any resentment for anything we buy from our joint account.

It works well for us to consult each other first.

7. Give to the church

My husband and I got married four months after he proposed to me. I panicked at the wedding prices when we were preparing for the wedding.

We didn’t have any money saved at the time so I decided to use the money that I was giving to the church to pay for some of the wedding costs.

After I did that during the first month, my water heater broke, I had a water main break outside my house, and my dish washer stopped working.

I don’t know if those extra expenses had anything to do with me not giving money to the church, but I learned my lesson.

Ever since then, I make sure we always give at least 10 percent to the church every time we get paid. I learned not to mess with God’s money.

One of my favorite giving scriptures is Luke 6:38.

Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

Since we always give to the church first, we’ve been very blessed financially. We don’t deal with a lot of money problems.

8. Support Pay Increases

My husband and I both support each other’s career success.

When we met, I was unhappy with my job. My husband started sending me jobs to apply to.

He sent me jobs that were way above my current salary. I didn’t think it was possible that I would get those types of jobs.

He told me he believed I could get one. I applied to the jobs anyway and got a job that was a 63 percent increase of what I was making.

In the same way, I also supported him getting a promotion. Since I’m a writer, I strengthened his resume and it helped him get an interview for a job.

After he had a strong interview, he got the job and the big promotion.

My husband also agreed to let me work a shift work position for 17 months. The position required me to work nights, weekends, and holidays.

Not only did I get extra pay while working that job, I also got a promotion when I completed the position.

We supported each other’s career success because if one of us is successful, we’re both successful.

9. Put extra money into the joint account

When some spouses make extra money, they put the money in their personal account.

We used to do that too. Then we realized it was hurting us.

One of us made a little more income than the other every month and the money went to the joint account.

The other one was getting overtime and bonuses and the money went to their personal account.

We realized that allowing one spouse to keep the extra money was unfair and caused division.

When we decided to send all extra money to the joint account, it worked much better for us.

It was easier to support the other partner when they made bonuses or brought in extra money.

It allowed us to pay off our debt faster, build up our savings quickly, and we were better able to make big purchases with cash.

We were working more like a team.

10. Do what’s best for the family

In general, our focus is what’s best for our family. We do not focus on personal gain first.

We found that when we put the family first, it’s better for the individual and the family.

If I lose my job, I would find a way to make money immediately for my family.

I wouldn’t sit home not working. I would find an immediate job, while still seeking my dream job during my free time.

One of my aspirations is to write from home full time. I won’t make a move in that direction until I am able to fully replace my part of our income.

Doing what’s best for the family also means that I have work-life balance.

I don’t stay late at work every day of the week. I used to. I don’t make a habit of it anymore.

I would rather spend quality time with my husband and children.

Putting family first has really helped us avoid money problems in our marriage.

Conclusion

My husband and I have done well financially in our marriage.

One thing that has really helped us is tackling our finances together.

We put our money together, paid off our debt together, and built our savings together.

We recommend that other couples work as a team too.

As the saying goes, “teamwork makes the dream work.”

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15 Dating Lessons Learned After I Met My Husband

When I opened my email on the morning of my 10th wedding anniversary, I saw an email from my husband titled, “Happy Anniversary to the love of my life.”
Then I read through the email about what I meant to my husband. I read the email slowly to soak in every word.
One of my favorite lines was, “To be able to come home to you every day makes me feel like the luckiest man in the world.”
I felt loved, cherished, and like I was exactly where I was supposed to be. It was not easy getting to that place. Dating was hard. With marriage being my main goal, it was even harder.

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7 Dating Mistakes That Could Have Kept Me From Meeting My Dream Guy

It’s embarrassing, but I didn’t really start dating until I was in my 20’s. I only started dating after college.
I grew up in a church-going household so dating was out of the question.
In college, I didn’t really date. No one had money to spend on dates and I thought that there were way too many options around for a serious relationship to work.
So, when I started dating after college, I made a lot of mistakes. These mistakes could have kept me from meeting my dream guy. Luckily, I made changes and adjusted before I met my husband.

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7 Ways You Know You Found the One to Marry

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When I was single, I used to google all the time some version of “How to know if he’s the one?” I googled it when I was dating to see if the person I was with was the one I should marry or when I was not dating, I googled it to prepare for when I was in a relationship.

I received a lot of different answers. Now that I have been happily married for 10 years, I wanted to do my own version of “How to know if he’s the one” or “How do you know you found the one?”

The list includes seven definite ways you know you found your spouse. It does not include things that could match anyone like “you find them attractive” because you probably wouldn’t be dating someone unless you’re attracted to them and there are many people you are attracted to who are not the one you should marry.

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