Alright, alright, I'll never write such a cringe-worthy sentence again (in this particular class and time frame). But in all honesty, communication is one of the most infamous issues in marriages and families. Sure you've all seen the jokes where the woman is clearly upset and the guy doesn't know why, or when the guy points out an issue and the girl freaks out about it. It's an age-old issue and honestly I frequently take up the guy's position on the argument, but neither side is correct. There are, in fact, effective ways of communicating.
First, what is communication at its core. It's encoding an idea, relaying the encoding, and decoding the idea on the other side for hopefully the same idea. However, only 14% of this is actually words. When faced with contradicting messages in words, tone, and non-verbal cues, the words themselves were only believed 14% of the time. Tone was believed 35% and non-verbal was believed 51% of the time. So why are girl always trying to read minds? Because they're trained to understand the nuances of non-verbal cues. (This is only partially gender specific, it's mostly societal.)
So if so much in non-verbal, then all you have to do is master that, right? Not at all. People are far too good at recognizing when you don't mean what you say and do. Certain ideas will get through no matter what "techniques" you use. Don't get scared yet! The issue with a lot of techniques is this facade, where people encode differently than they believe. But if you believe what you say and you say it right, that's when it works.
Let's get to the real important stuff now. David Burns, a Psychiatric professor and scholar, suggest a simple 5 step technique. Disarm, Empathy, Inquire, I-Feel, Respect.
These first three are empathy techniques. You start by focusing on where the other person is right, keeping yourself from getting defensive and thus disarming both parties. Then you establish and clarify that you understand how they feel. Make sure you are seeing the other side through empathy. Then you confirm what you learned about them and ask to learn more about their opinions. By inquiring about them, you make them feel heard.
The next step is the assertive one, where you state your opinion and perspective in a simple I feel statement. These are outlined as "when ___ I feel ___ because ___ I hope that ___." This outline probably feels forced, but the principle gets easier with practice. "when" establishes a specific scenario so that you aren't making the other person feel like they're always the villain. "I feel" allows for you to voice your opinions and emotions while disabling the other person from saying you're wrong. It's your emotions, after all. "because" helps them to step into your shoes and understand why you are saying those things. "I hope that" makes it so they can see a clear course of action and improve. Whether they do is up to them still though. It's only a hope, not a demand.
The final step is to convey respect. When you genuinely show that you appreciate and admire that other person, it can work wonders for working things out.
All 5 of these have a common thread. You're helping the other person to feel good. The biggest issue in communication is when you don't particularly care for the needs of the other person, and they can feel that. But in a family scenario, most of the time you do care about them, even if you struggle to show it.
Now some people, including myself, and probably including you, don't actually want to fix anything. There are people and times when we have no intention of making anything better, and sometimes we even want to make it worse. Sometimes you'll be working on these techniques and the other person will just not want to listen. That, sadly, cannot be fixed with any behavior, but it can start with you.
But what if you aren't fighting with someone, you just don't know how to make really hard decisions? In a marriage, this is probably true with questions like where to live, how to handle finances, and what to do about hobbies and interests. A lot of this can be solved using the above listed techniques of caring about the other person. One thing to remember. compromise may be meeting in the middle, but it's at an arms length apart. Reach consensus instead, where you hold each other tightly in a unified position.
Now here's the religion part. The leadership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints work together on hard topics, policies, and decisions all the time. If you think two is bad, try twelve. Yet, they reach consensus. How? The system they use is rather simple. They meet every Thursday in the temple to discuss an agenda. They meet a half hour before to simply express love and appreciation for each other, then they begin with a guiding prayer. They discuss the items on the agenda with equal authority, listening to the spirit for the Lord's will until they all reach an equal agreement, without argument, or voting or anything similar. Afterward, they pray again and then take time for refreshments.
If you're a member of the church, I'm sure most of this system makes sense, even if a little difficult to pull off. Even if you're not though, each of these steps makes sense. Meeting in the temple means they're in a neutral place of safety where they can speak openly and with God's help. Similarly, praying invites God to the conversation as help. This is important because the ideas of men frequently are at war with one another, but God knows the best way and thus this helps them reach only one answer instead of many. Meeting every Thursday, discussing beforehand, and sharing refreshments, all contribute to creating a unified and accepting environment. These add up during the discussion to lead to greater success than you'll ever see in the White House. (Though if the temple is white and it's the House of the Lord, does that mean it's also a White House?)
Anyhow, these methods are some simple ways to avoid major problems in a marriage or family scenario. And I've gone on for far too long (I'm a communication major, this is what I do!), so for this week, I bid you adieu.
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