EP 72. Marriage Quickie (2 of 4); Communication in Marriage

Welcome to the Married in Love it podcast.

We're Greg and Linda Smith, your hosts from Raleigh, North Carolina.

It's great that you're taking time to invest into your marriage by listening to your weekly dose of marriage insights.

We'll discuss all aspects of marriage, including the hot topics of sex, love, communication, and more.

Our insights and lessons are based on Christian principles plus over 48 years of marriage and ministry experience.

Our goal is to help you make your marriage great by equipping you to be married and love it.

It's an honor and privilege to have you join us.

Hey, thanks for joining us today to get your weekly dose of married and love it at your booster shop for the week.

And today we are going to be doing our second marriage quickie because we're out of town at a minister's conference in Dallas, Texas.

So as you're tuning into these marriage quickies, enjoy.

All right.

Excited to be doing this.

I like quickies.

Lots of different meanings of cookies.

They can all be good.

Yes.

Now, last week or the last the episode, we talked about the God factor.

So now once you get the God factor in place, communication is vital, all right, because if you're not communicating, you've got problems going on.

Remember when they were building the Tower of Babel back in the Old Testament, God said, if they're speaking one language and and nothing shall be impossible to them.

So in your marriage, you need to be on the same page, speaking the same language and communicating and sharing.

So that's what we're going to talk about for a few moments on this marriage quickie.

So communication is the lifeline of your marriage.

And you know the quality of your communication because, you know, so many times here, people, we just don't communicate.

We're not on the same page.

We can't talk without arguing.

And the list of things can go on which show how important communication is to your marriage.

So again, the quality of communication, can that determine the success or even the defeat of your marriage?

Well, what's the definition of communication?

Okay, come into that.

Definition of communication is the sharing of information that can be your feeling.

Also includes your feelings, ideas, desires, your calendars, your dreams, events.

Notice we put dreams in there because that is just as important as knowing who's taking the kids to volleyball practice the next day.

Your hurts, frustrations, conflicts, all of that is the sharing of information.

That's what communication is that you and your spouse talking about.

All these issues, which we're going to get into a little bit more on practically how to do that here In a few moments.

But here's some food for thought.

Ideas on what topics of communication would include.

Well, such of these are like victories and defeats that you might have along the way.

Household projects.

Are you renovating?

Are you tearing down a bathroom and changing that all up.

How about your kids, your grandkids?

Like Greg said, goals and dreams, things going on at your church.

How about your extended family?

Work budgets, money.

Ooh, ouch.

Unresolved issues, health issues, sex, hobbies, interests, challenges you might be facing within your family or personally, things that you might be facing at work, Maybe discussing your marriage, relationship, your pets, anything really that's going to impact your marriage.

That the kind of communication.

Communication you should be having, right?

Yes.

All these areas and even more require communication, discussion.

Because if you're not talking about your health, you could have problems come up and that makes you serious.

Your goals, your dreams.

Because if you're not communicating, what happens?

Frustrations come, misunderstandings.

Yeah.

That causes disappointments, it causes bitterness to develop.

It causes and more can go on.

And even the roommate syndrome, because you usually roommates aren't talking about much other than the weather.

And maybe who's supposed to take out the garbage.

And the sports.

What's going on with sports, right?

Yes.

So basically, if you're not sharing your hearts, your desires, your plans, your goals, your frustrations and everything we just talked about, you're basically coexisting with one another and setting yourself up for failure.

Well, communication is going to take two people, right?

Yep.

Yep.

So it's going to take a talker and a listener.

It's going to take eye to eye.

It's going to take heart to heart, right?

That's right.

Number one, how about a talker?

You want to give your spouse practical information along with sharing your heart, right?

In a successful marriage, that heart and the feelings should be openly shared.

Feelings are feelings.

They're not right and they're not wrong.

They're just feelings.

So we need to try to understand them, validate them, and not judge or criticize them, right?

That's right.

Those are good points.

You know, and a lot of times people talk about how men don't share their feelings or women can share too many feelings and just blow their husband out.

But the point being is you need to learn how to communicate.

And guys, even though you don't say, I don't share feelings, we didn't do that when I was growing up.

You know what?

It doesn't matter whether you like it or not.

You need to be sharing your feelings with Your spouse.

Now this.

This is a quickie.

So we're not going to be talking about all of those how to's in this episode.

Just this is mainly to get you thinking about it and saying, yes.

We need to work on these things.

Oh, hey, we're doing pretty good.

So that's why it's called a marriage quickie tonight.

But we've got other episodes.

We'll share about that a little bit later, where it teaches you how to do this.

Okay, so you're.

You got to talk, guys and ladies, but then you gotta listen.

And what's that?

The saying?

It says it's, you need to listen to understand and not to be heard.

Is that right?

Is that what it is?

Listen to understand, Right?

Yes.

So a listener.

Everybody's a talker and everybody's a listener, but you may not be a good talker and you may not be a good listener.

Listening shows that you think why the other person says is important.

Excuse me.

Your body language will reveal the intention that you're given to the person who's talking.

What does your body language say?

Does your body.

Are you leaning into.

Are you looking in your spouse's eyes when you're talking?

Are you depend on the topic?

Are you holding their hand or touching them?

Are you busy looking at other things?

Are you putting your device down?

Yes.

Yes.

That's the biggie.

Yep.

You know, do you put the.

The book down?

You're reading?

Do you pause the TV set for a few minutes?

Does your body language say, you're important to me?

You know what?

Yes.

I want to know when your doctor's appointments are so I can be praying for you.

You got it?

Yep.

I want to hear what you're saying.

Or does it say, hurry up, I've got other things to do.

So be a talker properly and be a listener.

You can do it.

Even if you say, you know what?

I can't do that.

Yes, you can, because in God you can do all things.

That's right.

We talked about that earlier.

All right, let's look at the next section called.

We call it the H3 communication factor.

All right.

Ephesians 4, 29 through 32, and first Peter 3, 8, 11 talks about that.

That's scripture references for that.

But the first one of the three is called a hider.

This is like three types of talkers right here.

Yes.

Or communicators.

Yes.

Yeah.

So the first one is a hider.

They do not share feelings or their ideas or their frustrations.

They kind of avoid all conflict.

They Live in a shell like a turtle.

They hold on to hurts and problems.

They give the silent treatment, treatment.

They do not like to rock the boat.

Sometimes they're even going to tell lies in order to not rock the boat.

They hold stuff in, you know, and they're very private.

They withdraw.

And sometimes they just leave the room.

Just leave the room?

Yeah, just leave the room.

And the being a hider shows up just in their normal conversations.

It doesn't even have to be conflict.

It's just they don't share, they don't like to share, and they won't share.

Or in conflict, like Linda said, the big thing, sometimes they'll just get up and leave the room.

Now, the opposite of a hider, and a lot of us are good at this.

Some of us are both.

Is a hurler.

That's the person who blamed shifts in a conversation, especially in conflict.

They're sarcastic, they got insults, they ridicule, they love to get the last word in.

Now, I know the majority of our audience doesn't do any of this stuff.

How many of y', all, you're in a conflict, you're having a little discussion with your spouse and you get that perfect one liner to put them in their place.

That's being a hurler.

They love to argue.

They can't say, I'm sorry.

You know what they do?

Oh, when the.

When the writer goes into the other room to get away from.

No, not.

We're not talking about improper communication.

When you say, you know what, dear, I need to take a time out, because I need five minutes or 10 minutes, whatever, to regroup and just get my head together.

We're not talking about that type of hider.

We're talking about the person just goes.

And they just walk out of the.

Room, go outside, even like a little temper transfer.

But what the hurler does, the hurler is going to follow him into the other room or go outside and track them down because they're ready to argue.

They want to get this thing taken care of.

But you know what?

There's a third one.

Well, I gotta say right here that the different personalities can actually have an impact on how these people respond in all these.

In the area of communication.

But on top of that, doesn't matter what your personality is.

God gives all of us the ability to put on love and be this number three.

That's right.

You know, but I just.

I just have to laugh because I think about our little dog.

When it's time for him to have his meal, it's usually about 4:30.

His little treat meal.

His little treat meal that he takes his medicine with and everything.

It's usually about 4:30.

Well, he.

If you go past that 4:30 mark, he follows us all around.

That's right.

I mean, he hones in on us.

Like, he grabs us and he's like, I'm ready for my meal.

That's when you say follows.

When.

When the hurler follows the hider.

That's.

They are locked in.

So.

Well, number three is a healer, and that's what we all want to be.

Yes, we.

That the healer encourages and brings peace and harmony and resolutions in a calm environment.

And they promote conversations to be able to communicate information, insight and concerns without putting on shame, without blaming or degrading the person that they're communicating with.

They is.

A lot of times they step out of their comfort zone.

But this should be the ultimate goal for all of our marriages, right, dear?

That's right.

Yes.

To be a healer, that takes practice.

It does.

Communication takes practice.

It's.

It's developing a spiritual maturity, becoming mature.

That when your flesh says, oh, I got this one liner, or you want to start blame shifting.

But when we put on love, we say, I want to be a peacemaker.

Yes.

I'm going to not go.

Just.

That's another topic, another time.

So we're not going in the in depth on that here.

But recognize, are you a hider or a hurler?

Don't make excuses.

How can you become a healer?

It takes practice.

It doesn't.

Most people don't change overnight.

Now, as we close down this little quickie here, the last part we want to cover is make time for communication.

We're all busy, too busy.

But you got to make time to communicate, because when you don't communicate, problems arise.

Ephesians 5:16 says, make the most of your time because the days are evil.

Well, yeah, they're evil.

They're busy.

There's distractions coming at us.

We're too tired.

The kids need this.

We.

We want to do this.

We're not.

We don't have time.

But you know what you need to have as a couple undistracted times to communicate with each other on a daily basis.

Sometimes it may be five minutes or it could be an hour time you set aside.

But when you do that, it's going to bring oneness.

It's going to bring unity and intimacy into your marriage, and it helps create that bond when you're staying together.

So set a time for that.

Yeah, it helps that Couple to reconnect.

Yes.

You know, it's like I. I love it.

Greg will come up to me and you say, we just need to regroup right now.

And that's sort of a connecting, a reconnecting.

But when communicating, you want to sit down together.

Sometimes you may just need to go for a walk and talk.

Walk and talk.

Or sit outside or have a cup of coffee or tea at the table, or you can even lay in bed to communicate.

Take that time after all the kids are in bed and things are quiet in your house.

Or sometimes you may need to just get away from the house, maybe go to the park or go out to eat or just escape for the night.

Right?

That's right.

So what, my grandkids and our.

And.

And their uncle, our son.

I mean, yeah.

They went on to an escape room.

And a lot of you may have heard about what an escape room is.

Well, that may be something that we need to do.

Is an escape room in our.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

In our home.

Right.

Okay.

Well, so what else would you think about being.

Sitting down to reconnect, share the events of the day.

Just take time.

A lot of times Linda, I'll come home, or she'll come home from being out.

We'll just sit down and take five or ten minutes.

Hey, what's going on?

How did your day go?

Talk about your accomplishments.

Sometimes before you go to bed at night, whatever your routines are, talk about your frustrations.

Now, sometimes you got to work on your timing.

When you start talking about frustrations, you know, share your feelings, deal with issues, dream together.

Sometimes you need to have a business meeting.

What's on the schedule for this week?

That's important because what happens when you.

When I know, when I get real busy and I don't write stuff down or plan things, things get forgotten, overlooked.

It causes delays, which can cause time and money and frustrations.

So make time to do that.

Yeah.

Like Greg said, if there's distractions going on all around you, if you got chaos going all around you, a set time for communication is vital.

That is really necessary.

So.

Well, be flexible, though.

You want to be spontaneous and enjoy each other.

You know, when you take time to communicate, realize it's going to be to your benefit that you're doing that.

Yeah.

And, you know, everybody.

People say, you, we make time for what's important.

That's true.

There's a lot of times people say, I don't have time for nothing.

Then all of a sudden they made time for something, and you go, well, how'd they make time because it was important to them.

Right?

Your marriage needs to be important to you.

Bringing the God factor in and then communicating properly needs to be a priority.

So you say, you know what, we're going to make time for this.

Just like we talk about a lot of people when they're teaching, talking about marriage and sex.

They say you gotta, sometimes you gotta make a date just to have sex, to make love.

You say, Friday night at 10 o', clock, the kids are in bed, we're gonna make love that night.

What did you do?

You set a time and you anticipate it.

Same thing with talking.

Get a routine going in your marriage so you can be a healer in your conversations and you can share your goals, dreams, frustrations and your calendars.

Now we go into more detail on how to do this and the how to put together your conversations and how to put on love.

We got episodes 29 through 30, episodes 47 through 50 and 56 through 60.

I didn't realize we did this that much, but that's how important communication is and we'll put that in the show notes.

That's great.

Very good.

Well, we do have some honeydews.

Evaluate what you are at this point in time.

Are you a hider, a harder or a healer?

And number two, how can you improve on being a better healer?

Ask yourself that question.

You know what?

Also on this, nobody's going to get a hundred percent.

That's true.

You're going to have that one liner that slips out.

But you know what?

That's when we, because we're getting stronger and more mature, we can say, you know what, dear, I'm sorry I said that.

Right, that's it.

And so what is the next honey do?

Oh, you know what, if you're doing this, you can't, you can't be, you're.

Not going to be a healer or a hurler, that's for sure.

You're not going to be okay.

Hey dear, come on over here.

I don't want to argue no more and say we're going to do our 10 second kiss.

That's right.

You can't walk away because you're grabbed onto each other.

Right?

Hey Siri, set my timer for 10 seconds and you give your, your spouse a good old 10 second kiss.

Do that before you go to work in the mornings or you start your day or do it when you come.

Do it all day long.

But the 10 second kiss can really change things around for you.

That's right.

Well, we'd love to hear comments and if you have any questions or topics you'd like us to cover in our podcast.

And you know you can text us, voicemail or email us and the phone number and email address is going to be in our show notes.

But if you have a specific prayer request, feel free to contact as well.

And thanks for joining us today.

It's it's been fun to do the marriage quickies right?

We have a couple more to go.

As quick as we like, but we're working on it.

We hope that you got inspired by today's message and we're going to see you next time.

And until then, remember this.

You can be Married and Love it on purpose.

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And remember with God that you have a future and a hope and you can be married and love it on purpose.