Healthy or not?

So you feel like you are the one member of the couple who is trying to work on communication.  Does it feel like you are the only one who is working on the rest of the relationship, too?  Does it seem like you are pulling all of the weight in the relationship?  Does it seem like he (or she) is only in it for what they can get? 
If your answer to those questions was YES!!, let’s consider something else before we go on.  When we’ve dealt with reoccurring frustrations for a long time they can begin to color all of our thoughts.  So in order to effectively evaluate if this is what is happening in your relationship, let’s look at a description of a healthy relationship.  Leslie Vernick (http://www.leslievernick.com/) has developed this one:

A healthy adult relationship is one where both people in the relationship give and both receive.  There is a safe and open exchange of ideas, feelings and thoughts and all perspectives are considered and valued.  There is also the freedom to respectfully challenge, confront and strengthen one another.

Does that sound like the relationship you have with your spouse? 

If you would say it’s generally true, but there are some things that frustrate you, it’s possible you just need to give your spouse permission to be human. 

If you’d say it doesn’t describe your relationship at all, here are a couple of ideas.  If the word “safe” caught your attention - you are being abused - get to a place of safety.  If you feel that it might be a good idea to talk to someone who can give you an outside perspective on your relationship.  If your relationship isn’t like this, you might still want to think about establishing some boundaries.  More on that in another post, but let’s think about communication that is mostly one-way.

If you think your spouse isn’t listening, the best thing to do is ask if they are.  It may be they are not aware of some of the non-verbals that tell you they are listening.  A good acronym that describes the actions that tell someone “I’m listening” is SOLER:

• Sit squarely
• Open posture
• Lean toward the speaker
• Eye contact
• Relax

You could tell your spouse that you saw a blog that told you about some ways they can communicate to their interest to you while you talk to them.  You could also model these behaviors yourself.  Your spouse might begin to notice how nice it is when she (or he) knows you’re listening.  And to quote Dr. James Dobson, “Women tend to give sex to get (emotional) intimacy, while men tend to give (emotional) intimacy to get sex”.

If your spouse isn’t willing to put forth some effort in this area, it may be necessary to establish some boundaries.  More on that next time.