Marriage Counseling - The Importance of Communication

What kind of communication do you and your spouse practice? How would you rate it on a scale of one to ten?

Do you feel completely understood by your spouse? Does your spouse feel completely understood by you?

When we feel understood, we feel loved? Does your spouse feel loved by you?

In our Marriage Counseling practice, over 95% of the couples who come to us practice poor communication skills. As a result, neither spouse feels understood and loved.
What are some of the “poor” communication practices?

Here are a few:
1. Interrupting
2. Stealing the topic away and making it about you
3. Improper nonverbal communication (93% of all communication is nonverbal)
4. Mindreading
5. Not listening
6. Speaking in attacking manner (not remaining neutral)
7. Speaking too long without giving your spouse a chance to respond

There are many others, but these are very common. If you want to make your spouse feel loved, Marriage Counseling thinks that it is important to replace these negative practices with positive practices.

A few of these are:
1. Using neutral statements and questions
2. Being concise when you speak
3. Check it out if you don’t understand
4. Be a great Listener
5. Show interest in what your spouse is saying
6. Never interrupt

Couples who have practiced poor listening often find it hard to turn it around to become good listeners. If you really want to make your spouse feel loved, Marriage Counseling encourages you to learn how to be a good listener.

In our Marriage Counseling practice, we work with couples and teach them to become really good listeners. They not only learn how to be good listeners, they also practice those skills while they are here.

Whatever condition your Marriage or family is in, you can make it better by learning to become good listeners.

If your marriage only needs some tweaking, you may be able to learn from good books on the subject. If your marriage in crisis, we would suggest you get help from a skilled Marriage Counselor.