Communication may be a skill of thinking, speaking, and listening, but what happens when someone listens but cannot hear?
James and Ashley had a rough first year of marriage, to say the least. They had met during the fall of their senior year of college. Marriage plans progressed quickly after Christmas, and they were married by the beginning of August. In college, they had both excelled as Communications majors. Now in the world of work, both delivered eloquent and impressive presentations regularly. In fact, James stood in front of large audiences with a job in marketing. Colleagues joked that Apple should hire him to be their keynote speaker. Ashley taught AP History and Public Speaking at a college prep school. If one needed any advice on effective communication, they went no further than James or Ashley.
Naturally this would be the strength of their marriage, they assumed. It did not take them long to discover otherwise. A movie depicting their first year could steal the title The Great Debaters. Countless times tension was left unresolved as communication broke down. It was not that neither could speak, nor that either stopped listening. Words just never seemed to find a home with one another. Conversations sputtered like a propeller plane running out of gas. Three tools eventually gave James and Ashley the fuel they needed to keep their marriage from crashing.
Head and Heart
James and Ashley had each mastered effective communication. They were intelligent, articulate, attentive to nonverbal cues, and they knew when it was time to listen. Their problems occurred when they listened but could not hear. For example, when James discussed money, Ashley saw his lips moving but missed the meaning entirely. It was as if the thundering of 747 overhead drowned out his words. When Ashley brought up sex, it was James’ turn to disappear. The biggest problem was that neither knew when they could not hear. Neither James nor Ashley was aware of his or her heart when it came to certain subjects. Marriage was the first time they learned that they were at times deaf. Step one became developing an awareness of what emotions occurred in them when a subject came up. That led them to look at their interpretation.
When you say…
James and Ashley began to change their pattern of communication with a simple phrase, “When you say ___, I hear ___.” James often worked on the budget a couple of evenings per month. He would throw out phrases like, “We don’t have any money left” and “So much for the vacation fund”. Ashley, who did most of the shopping, would immediately recoil. When she chose to fight James, she responded in defense of her grocery, home decor, and clothing purchases. Her response confused James, but rather than be curious, he retaliated.
The process began to slow down when Ashley yielded to her growing awareness of how James’ comments affected her. She learned to respond with, “James, when you make comments about money like that, I hear that you are blaming me for my financial choices. I hear that I am untrustworthy and careless with our checkbook.” James was shocked. His comments spoke more to his own fear of security than anything to do with Ashley.
Practicing “When you say ___, I hear ___” slows the process down and often transforms a couple’s communication cycle. Many marital disagreements can be saved before they get hijacked by misinterpretations. By choosing to respond in a new way, Ashley cared for the heart of their connection. By recognizing her interpretations and bringing them into the light, she created a new pattern for their future discourses.
Dig Deeper
When Ashley started to expose her internal process, she and James began to see within her significant insecurities regarding money. There was more to the story. There always is. Ashley created space for herself to process and investigate where her feelings about money originated. Ashley’s search into her own childhood revealed a father that denied her mother access to the bank account with the exception of a weekly allowance. Ashley’s subconscious vow had been to avoid her mother’s shame by earning James’ trust, evidenced by his approval of her purchases. Ashley’s uncovering of her story freed her to trust James, and it allowed him to know better how to love his wife. Ashley’s personal work also became a catalyst for James to do his own.
One of the greatest things you can offer your spouse is doing your own personal story excavation. Your story molds the filter by which you interpret words, people, and life. Sadly you do not know your filter exists until someone tells you otherwise. Let marriage be a mirror that shows you where to dig.
If you have moments when you cannot hear your spouse despite his or her repeated attempts to articulate, you may want to create space to explore yourself. If you are the one that is not being heard, consider how you could introduce these principles into your communication cycle. Good communication does not always lead to connection. Political orators excel with calculated planning, articulate words, and careful listening. But debaters rarely leave as pals. Good marital communication is more about aligning hearts than mastering dialogue.
