So, I think I mentioned my little blended family in my initial post. My step-daughter was a teen when we got married, and I was a childless adult who thought she had all the parenting answers and was oh so very ready to explain what every parent was doing wrong. Yep. I was “one of those” people. In my infinite wisdom, of course, I thought the struggles you have with your teen were because you did this wrong and here’s why; I thought the reason your kid had a tantrum in public was due to this parenting mistake and here’s the fix. Yep. I was ready and willing to point out the wrong and provide advice for doing it right………….unfortunately to my new husband.
Our first year of marriage was filled with stress and fighting. Neither of us were equipped with healthy communication tools, having both been in failed marriages before and raised in less than healthy families in our childhoods. To this day, I’m amazed we made it work. Thankfully, we had some amazing friends who mentored us through it, were very honest with us, and who lovingly walked us into healthy communication with each other. I had to learn that whatever he was saying to me wasn’t really his veiled attempt at telling me I’m a useless idiot. He had to learn that what I was saying wasn’t really a viscous attack of his parenting skills or his intelligence. And I had to stop attacking his parenting. His daughter, while certainly going through her tenuous teen years, was a delightful young lady with a huge heart and a deep devotion to her family and friends. I’m so glad she can laugh now at the memories of those days in the beginning. We have grown a lovely relationship that I personally treasure.
We had the opportunity to celebrate our first wedding anniversary at a marriage retreat in Colorado Springs, CO. It was so beautiful, packed with one-on-one time together, candlelit dinners, hikes into the mountains with packed lunches, and short marriage teaching groups over the weekend. We had some tender moments bearing our hearts with one another and even some emotional breakthroughs. It was perfect……….I thought.
When we got home, he admitted that he felt I had trapped him into going so that he would be forced to talk and share his feelings. He had been miserable.
In one of the teaching sessions, the husbands and wives were separated and given the chance to really talk about things apparently only women discuss and things only men discuss. I had truly assumed that the men were discussing sex and the women were discussing what the men refused to help with around the house. Well! Was I wrong! The women talked ONLY about sex and the men talked about COMMUNICATION! No wonder he was miserable! It was our main source of contention in our relationship and he had no way out. Once he was able to calm down, he admitted what had really happened with me. Here’s how it played out, according to my husband:
Leader: Let’s talk about conflict resolution.
Attendant #1: My wife yells a lot and I yell back. It gets loud. We usually say things we regret and it takes us days of silent treatment to recover.
Attendant #2: I yell. My wife cries. We have great make-up sex.
Leader to my husband: How about you, Steve?
My husband: I just refuse to participate. She gets upset and tries to fight, but I won’t do it. It’s not a fight if I don’t participate.
…………silence in the room while they all look at my husband………
Leader: Oh, you’re one of those. You’re the worst kind. You won’t even validate her feelings. You won’t even admit to a problem. By not participating, you’ve abandoned her and left her alone in the cold thinking you’re ready to leave her. You’ve left her emotionally by doing that.
(Ok, so let’s take a GIANT step back for explanation. My first marriage ended when my husband left me. I came home to an empty house following an office function. My biggest fear is being abandoned again.)
Yep. He felt trapped and as if I had cornered him on purpose. It took us a while to move past it and find a place to communicate safely, but it began there. He took a mighty look within, and I took the time to hear him tell me for the first time what he was feeling. We were beginning to learn to listen to each other, to actually HEAR each other.
Now, we have adapted a few listening techniques that really work for us. I’d like to share them:
- We DO NOT interrupt each other. Listening only begins with our mouths closed and our ears open. Yelling in anger or even venomous retorts will result in more brokenness, not healing and restoration.
- We listen with the intent to UNDERSTAND the other person. Listening isn’t just the time we don’t talk and prepare what to say (or yell) when the other stops speaking.
- We CLARIFY. One of our favorite things to say after hearing the other is, “Ok, so what I heard you say is….” This gives us the freedom to interpret what we think we have heard the other say. It is the time for PATIENCE with one another as we strive to find the communication breakdown. We each bring a lifetime of experiences, good and bad, to the marriage, which leads us to hear with our own interpretation of things. I wish I could tell you how many times I’ve heard him say specific words that meant one thing to him and a TOTALLY different thing to me.
- We give each other TIME to process information. This was the most difficult for me. I want instant results showing we’ve fixed it, that we are already past whatever the issue may be, and that I don’t have to worry that I’ll be abandoned again. My husband needs time on his own to ponder what I’ve said, how he feels, what changes may need to be made (or not), and what the Truth really is. This was all new for him to explore communication and certainly new to me to explore communication in a healthy way. I needed to learn to wait for him and not demand he close the discussion right away. How can I expect him to respond in a loving and caring way, displaying godly behavior if I’m not giving him time to reflect on God’s Truth about the situation?
- We had to learn to SET TIME to come back together after he had time to process, so we could talk again. In the beginning, we would attempt to talk, fail and argue, divide with the pretense of processing information, and never come back to resolve anything. It was avoidance and abandonment all over again. We had to decide it was necessary and commit to resolving when the time was right.
- When we finally resolve our issue(s), we always commit to praying together. We are so thankful for every step of growth we have experienced and will continue to experience. It is only with the strength God gives us that we have come this far. (I explained in my initial post that we are a Christian family, devoted to prayer and to Christ. It’s who we are and it works for us. I am always willing to discuss with anyone who disagrees or has questions, but I will limit it to polite discourse and will never respond to hateful or demeaning rebuttals.)
❤️