My Wedding – July 2019

COMMUNICATING IN MARRIAGE:

NON-VERBAL HACKS

by Amy McLaren

My husband Josh used to tell me to stop using “that tone” when we were having certain “discussions”.

But try as I might, I could not tell when I was using the “tone” and when I wasn’t. Once or twice

he actually left the room because it was so hard for him to experience my unwitting, non-verbal

communication. So I set about solving the mystery. Sometimes I would ask him if our conversation

became tense, “am I using that tone?”. Or he would tell me “You’re using that tone!” and I’d reply

“No I’m not! I’m so not!”.

We’ve all probably heard the advice: “to make a marriage work, you have to communicate”. Sure,

that sounds logical. But what on earth does it mean?

Apparently we women say 20,000 words per day no problem! Communicating is not the problem.

Even 7,000 words (the average for men) is plenty enough to speak out whenever necessary.

Needless to say, I’ve spent some time looking into it. I don’t think it’s even as simple as saying “it’s not

about communicating, but how you communicate”. Certainly our non-verbal cues like body language

and tone come into it, but none of us are perfect and immune to these expressions of frustration

when holding hard conversations. It always comes out somehow. Just look at the example above; I

didn’t even know I was doing it! So if someone tells me I’m all wrong and it’s all my fault our marriage

is not 100% flowers because I stuff up with how I’m communicating, that’s not helping.

I’m not the only one who has been confused by this advice. We’ve met couple after couple who could

communicate plenty, but were still butting heads regularly about particular things. There were still

some pretty scary arguments happening.

And please don’t get the idea that arguments are bad. They’re totally necessary! It’s when we keep

having the same arguments and getting the same result (hurt, disappointment, and no resolution)

that we have to look a bit further into this communication thing. After all, that’s a formula for insanity

and, you guessed it, when it goes on long enough, unsuccessful marriages.

But if you can figure it out before you even get married, you’ll be on the front foot. No ambiguous

“communicate for a good marriage” advice for you; here’s some real advice that can help you, before

you even need to face it.

/Cont...

172 PLANNING 6 http://www.myweddingmag.co.nz 6 JULY 2019