COMMUNICATION TAKES EFFORT

One of the craziest things about being married is finding out that Daryl and I don't speak the same language. We went along for about 18 years without even realizing this was part of our problem. Then one day I was reading the book "Love and Respect" by Emerson Eggerich and it all became too clear! In his book Eggerich talks about the guy wearing blue hearing aids and the woman wearing pink ones or having blue and pink glasses. The day after I read this section on language barriers was my birthday. Daryl, who always works hard to provide for us, was debating on going to work (on a Saturday). I wanted him to go with the girls and I - we were just going to go to Longhorn's for a chocolate stampede.

This happened to be my all-time favorite dessert (still would be if I could eat it!) Anyway, on my insistence Daryl relented about going to work and reluctantly joined us for our trip to Longhorn. In the car we were both pretty sullen. I attempted to diffuse the situation using my newly acquired communication tactics. SO...I began to try to explain to Daryl about blue and pink hearing aids. I suggested his blue hearing aids were interpreting my request as "I want to go SPEND money and eat some cake at an expensive restaurant" while in the back of his mind he is thinking, "that means I need to go work a couple extra hours to cover the cost of this outing." And that in my mind I was thinking, "I want to spend time as a family and celebrate my birthday but I'm going to compromise eating an entire meal out and just go share this dessert and experience the fun we have while devouring something delectable."

I can't say that my attempts at communication were successful and it has taken a great deal of practice since that time to get to where we actually are communicating on the same "plane" and this doesn't always happen now - 4 years later. BUT - it definitely diffused the situation and we were able to go and enjoy the outing together with our children.

I think the greatest lesson I learned was that we really CANNOT read each others minds! I don't know why we even think we can. I have had many opportunities where I've had to call a "time out" and we have had to hash out our communications and line of thinking in order to get to the root of why a discussion was causing conflict. The amazing thing is now we are willing to discuss it, work through it and actually come to an understanding, whereas before, we would just clam up and stew about it and let it brood. This caused so much pain in our marriage! I highly recommend the book Love and Respect as an excellent tool for building a solid foundation of communication between a husband and wife. If you haven't read it - it's worth the resources of time and money to do so - TOGETHER!

Communication truly does take a TON of effort - but in the end it plays a key role in the strength of a marriage that is going to last!