Short of buying a megaphone or hiring a brass band, how to you ensure that your partner listens to you?
I know the opening statement is a little ridiculous, but communicating with your partner shouldn’t be that difficult. Intra-relationship communications is a critical issue in maintaining your relationship and must not be take lightly. If your partner doesn’t listen to you, how can you communicate your wishes, your plans and your feelings?
So why is communicating with your partner such a challenge? First of all, understand that men and women communicate differently. When women are talking with their mother, sister or female friends, they are almost intuitive. They all know where the conversation is going as soon as it starts.
It is the same with men. Their minds are operating on the same level and in the same manner. It is probably because of common interests that men and women communicate better with the same gender. So, when communicating with your partner, mate or significant other you must do so with some understanding of how they think and how they feel about the topic of conversation.
One of the biggest complaints against partners, as evidenced by comments made on advice-to-the-lovelorn websites, is “my partner doesn’t listen to me.” Most of the complaints involve simple day-to-day issues, not momentous events.
The vast majority of the complaints are against men . . . or at least the majority of the complainants are women. The feeling is that their partners don’t want to talk about even the most trivial of matters. So, if you cannot have even mundane conversations with your sweet, how do you talk about important things like the lack of communications between the two of you? How do you ensure that your partner will listen?
Communicating with your partner is the same as having a conversation with anyone, you first have to get their attention. Then you have to hold their attention so they understand what you are saying. Sometimes that takes something drastic, other times it may be that all you have to do is to appeal to them with a simple, “I have to talk to you and it’s important that you listen.”
A famous evangelistic pastor in the Southern USA was known for his fiery rhetoric. He was the guest preacher at a Church on a warm summer day (long before the advent of air-conditioning). He could see that the congregation was lulled by the warm, humid weather and some of them were even dozing. He also knew that he had to wake them up before he could get his message across.
“It’s a God-Damned hot day today!” he began. The parishioners sat bolt-upright in shock. “That’s what I overheard one man say to another before this service began”, he continued. He then launched into his message, a fiery condemnation of blasphemy. How you get the attention of your mate is left to your own imagination, but it probably should begin by involving something of intense interest to them. Begin the conversation by asking them a question that would evoke a response from even the most uncommunicative partner.
Communicating With Your Partner Doesn’t Have to be difficult.
When you have their attention, you may segue into what you really want to talk about. If their attention begins to drift, you can abruptly bring up the topic that caught their attention in the first place. If subtlety doesn’t work with your partner, more drastic measures may be necessary. Hide the television remote (women) or remove the toilet seat (men). Seriously, if your partner has a communications problem a third party intervention may help. Sometimes when the message comes from a friend, pastor or a professional counselor, it will get the intended message across.
If your significant other still doesn’t get the message that they must communicate, you may be beating a dead horse. If all their attributes outweigh their lack of communications, then live with it and find your communication outlet elsewhere; family, friends, co-workers and the like. Before I go, I just want to let you in on a great system that I believe could save your relationship once and for all. It’s called Save My Marriage Today and it has a proven formula for reuniting couples, even when they think that all is lost.
Check it out here:
http://www.saveyourmarriage.ws/go/savemarriage
Subject: Communicating with your partner
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