Key 2 - Communicate openly, directly and honestly
I name this key “The Solution” solution for what? It’s the solution for any single problem can face married couples. I know it’s easy to say but in real life it need some effort, practice and enforcement to really apply this key effectively. I believe deserve to pay the price to build this habit and have this key in your life. Just imagine how this key can really change your marriage relation and make it go very smooth and positive with real clear love.
Let me ask you some questions
Do you –sometime- hold conversation in your mind about your spouse but at the end you forget to tell him/her in real life?
Did you ever felt nice about something your spouse did for you but you forgot to tell him/her how you felt or delayed this?
Did you ever felt bad from something but was afraid to tell your spouse to not hurt him/her?
Do you feel that your spouse do not understand you or he/she accuse you with the same?
Did you experienced that the nice time and mood with your spouse spoiled suddenly cause of conflict?
Do you feel distanced from your spouse without specific reason?
The KEY question
Do you want to have happiness, love, and solve all challenges with positive attitude in your marriage?
Do not expect that I’ll give you magic stick that will solve all your problems and make you happy. You can have all the positive results from applying this key and it is proven in real-life experiences which can be considered matter of fact. All what you need is to spend effort and pay the price to build this very powerful habit in your marriage.
Before I start I want to tell you what is exactly my scope and what are the issues that you should NOT apply this key on:
1. Past experiences or relations that you already disconnected from and were replaced by your current marriage.
2. Temporal thoughts that come to your mind and you do not keep thinking about. For example if you felt something temporally toward someone else and he realized quickly that it is not correct or did not pay more attention.
3. If you want to surprise your spouse with something.
4. If you want to advice or guide your spouse in nice way and you know that he/she will appreciate and receive it more if it was indirect.
Well let’s start. I’ll take about 2 main points:
Time Bomb
Big mistake some people do when they hide something and say that time will solve or they escape from it or hang it on weak reasons or leave it to Allah. We talked before about the black dot in the post “Power of Forgiveness” and how it increase by time until it make all the heart black and not able to send or receive any emotions. You can find and discover yourself that escape from problems and negative feelings, try to hide and ignore it is NOT a solution at all.
What you do is to put a BOMB that will explode in the future and you try to close your eyes as if it does not exist. Imagine that you went with your family or friends in a park to have nice time what will you do if you know that there’s a BOMB in that place that can explode and you cannot get out from this place at all. Will you say: “I want to enjoy my current moment and not spoil the nice time by thinking about the bomb!?” or you will rush to remove it and then really enjoy your time without any worry? You choose.
You cheat yourself by leave problems to not spoil the current moment or leave it to Allah and time Allah said in Quran that he will NOT change people until they change themselves. The BEST way to beat fears and problems is to FACE and see it as challenge that will take you to better state Insha’Allah. Take immediate action to STOP the BOMP to really enjoy and have more real long last nice time Insha’Allah.
Another example assume that you have small just born wild animal like crocodile that you kept with you in secret and ignored all the warnings that people give to you. You just say it’s small and I don’t believe it will cause any future troubles. Day after day it was grow slowly and you still keep your eyes closed from the real danger you can have by leave it. This how people do by leave the small and give excuses and close their eyes from the danger of ignoring small problems. Take immediate action to KILL the GIANT while it’s young to save yourself from the future pain.
Seek to understand befor to be understood
My objective from the above section is to really realized the importance of communication and the dangerous risk for hide feelings for any reason (usually it’s with good intention
) . After you realize the Why to communication in this section I want to share with you the habit of How to communicate.
Be the way this habit taken from Islamic source, I heard Dr. Steven Covey admit that Islam and Quran was one of his main sources for his famous book and he mentioned some Ayas and Hadiths as evidence for the habits he mentioned in the book.
One of the very important habits that people need to have smooth communication is the habit of listening. After I learned about this habit I start to pay attention in my daily life conversation and watch how people behave. I was surprised because it’s true that most of people seek first to talk and make the other person understand them.
The funny thing that in many conversations after long time of talk they discover that either they forgot the start point of conflict or the solution was mentioned in the beginning of the conversation and there’s no conflict at all.
Let’s divide listening into 4 levels
1. Ignoring listening: In which people just hear words by your ears but do not pass them cross your mind at all just throw them away.
2. Selective listening: In which people just pay attention to some parts of the conversation that they interest in or when the speaker ask them to pay attention.
3. Active listening: In which you pay attention to all what speaker says and give back acknowledgment.
Before we mention the 4th type we need to know what is the problem of these type of listening and why it lead to misunderstanding and negative feelings.
Imagine that you was feels upset and was talking with your friend about your problem. How will you feel if your friend was not look at you, or do something else while listening, or keep asking you to repeat what you said because he lost concentration and did not hear, or his face and body language was cold and did not get affected by what you said, etc…
I think you wish that your friend give full attention to what you say from his/her heart and deeply understand your feeling. Well this is the 4th type of listening which called
4. Empathic listening: In which you listen with deep connection to the speakers with all your senses. It’s not like active listening in which you pay full attention to speakers words or make it in professional way. Empathic listening is more intimate listening in which you really feel the other person needs first and seek to fully understand how he/she feel then you can present yours .After that, work together to find a solution.
As I said before the benefit from building this habit in your life can be definitely the solution for all communication challenges with your spouse. It can increase your emotional connection and keep it healthy and clear forever Insha’Allah. You need to pay the price to have thin habit in terms of effort and practice. I’ll give you some ideas that can help you to build this habit in your marriage relation:
Avoid
1. Do not listen with intend to reply.
2. Do not take things personally or feel accused.
3. Do not use empathic listening as technique.
Practice
1. Maintain sincere intimate emotional connection.
2. Listen to emotions and content.
3. Have a sincere desire to understand.
At the end of this key I decided from now to seek to understand first before to be understood, and enjoy the sharing of all feelings and thoughts with spouse.
