The (SECRET) Hidden Part Of Communication

Being able to communicate with your spouse is a key component of a healthy marriage. But what if you don't know how to communicate? Is there really a secret to it?

Find out on today's episode of Relationship Radio, hosted by CEO of Marriage Helper, Kimberly Beam Holmes, and founder of Marriage Helper, Dr. Joe Beam.

Regardless of your situation, what we teach will not only make your relationships better, but will also help you to become the best version of yourself along the way.

Relationship Radio is released every Wednesday and is an extension of Marriage Helper.

Be sure to subscribe to the podcast and leave a review. We love hearing from you!

For more resources about your specific situation, visit marriagehelper.com.

We have a new website for the It Starts With Attraction podcast!

Visit www.itstartswithattraction.com to check it out!

Transcript

0:37

In our last episode, we talked about the reason if a marriage fails, what probably was the cause. And we gave the most common reasons that people went out of a marriage. According to research, we talked about not feeling loved, not feeling like not feeling respected. And at the end of that program, we said, we want to talk about communication in a way to help you understand that some people aren't feeling like loved and respected, and the other person has no clue. We can actually call this maybe the unknown part are the secret about communication, that if you get it, then people can really understand you. I mean, each other husband, wife, if you don't get it, nothing else works. And that's what we're going to talk about on this episode. Kimberly is our CEO Kimberly Holmes, welcome to the program. Thank you for having me. Actually, it's your program. Well, it actually started as your program way back to Dr. Joe show back in the day, the Dr. Joe Show, which I thought was a cool name that everybody laughed at. It was a cool name. I don't know who laughed at it. All right. People around the country laughing at it, Dr. Joe Show. Now, when it wasn't about to change my name to Phil, that would have been a different thing altogether. So Kimberly, even in the last couple of weeks, I've talked to two different couples, whose were the husband was a very successful professional. What I mean is, I'm trying to say this is a person who obviously has a good brain obviously has abilities and talents, because he both of these husbands actually had done extremely well in their chosen professions. In both situations, when I started talking about how can you lead your spouse to feel loved, liked and respected? They looked to me like I was speaking clinging on, like, What do you mean? And it really came down to the art of being able to accept what the other person feels thinks believes, without necessarily agreeing with it. Now, can you help our audience understand more about what we mean when we say that? Sure, I can do I can do my best. There is? Well, right now in society, we're seeing the opposite of this. It seems like if you agree with someone, then ever, ever, you have to agree with every single thing. You have to accept them and agree with them. But to accept them without agreeing with them is that's hate. Because you can't like you can't, there's no way to agree about something or disagree about something, but also accept the person for who they are, according to society, where people are saying that, hey, we're not saying that, hey, we are not saying no, no, we are not saying was a little confused. I wondered the look on your face. But you know, you hear a lot of words intolerance, hate bigotry, but in reality, there is not space anymore, to be able to have these intellectual difficult conversations about hard topics, but still love and accept the person for who they are. And so how does this apply in marriage? I mean, in marriage, this, this applies even if there's not political division, right? There's still can I love this person, even when they are doing things that I don't agree with? Even if they think things I don't agree with? Even if they say things that are hurtful? Can I still love and accept them? Or do I need to immediately instill boundaries? Do I immediately need to address their behavior and how they need to fix it? Right? This is how a lot of relationship gurus even talk about handling issues within your marriage, which we know. Not the best way to go forward with see I think most people when they hear the word acceptance, read, or think agreement. Okay? If I accept the fact that you feel that way, then I'm in some fashion agreeing with that emotion. And what we're trying to help people understand is no, no, no, we are talking about it more in the sense of reality. And so if Alice, my wife were to say to me, I feel alone. With her, I like hearing that she feels alone dislike the fact that she feels alone. She's getting me reality, from her perspective, I feel alone. And if I tried to correct her great if you're surrounded by your children, you're surrounded by your grandchildren, you have me you have life, all those kinds of things, then what she's hearing is, you can't accept what I feel. And you're going to try to convince me that I feel something different than what I actually feel. And so acceptance, which I just said people can have a hard time with, is basically saying I will accept things as they really are for the other person, whenever he thinks would have received fields etc. Now, when it comes to actions, we'll talk more about this before we end. Sometimes you will not accept actions and we'll get to that in a few minutes. But understand that accepting that you feel this way accepting that you think that way, does not endorse your motion, and it doesn't endorse you doing whatever you're going to do next. Let me say it this way. I was talking to this couple the other day, and she was trying to explain to me how she felt, and he started jumping in correcting her. No, no, no, you feel that because you think I did this, and you feel that? And I said, Wait a minute, wait a minute. Do you accept the fact that she feels that way? No, no, why not? Because the facts don't fit. The facts don't fit for you. But he feels that way. And as long as you deny that she feels that way, then you're denying reality. And I looked at her and said, which leads you to feel what she said misunderstood and accepted and alone? Absolutely. Would you agree that acceptance has more to do with understanding another person's feelings, their experiences their past? Whereas agreement has more to do with actions or beliefs? Typically, yeah, I kind of divide it this way. There's a difference between accepting, endorsing and encouraging. endorsing says, not only do I accept the fact that that's what you feel, but but endorsing says, I think that's quite alright. Encouraging is, I'll even help you do that, as well egged you on. And there's a great difference between accepting now and our culture now, where people are arguing over sexual identities and all kinds of other things. A parent might say, My child feels this way, I can't accept that. What we're saying is, if that's how the child feels, then that's the reality you need to accept. It does not mean you have to endorse it, which is like, okay, good, let's go that way, or even encourage it. Okay, let's go do this. Accepting where a person is, we both quote Carl Rogers, some great philosophers, last psychologist did for some time now. And he said, When I accept myself as I am, I change. And when I accept others as they are, they change, which means this. If I feel I have to change for you to accept me to accept the reality, then I'm looking at being conditionally loved. But if you can accept me as I am, now, I'm free to change because of that feel like I have to change, to get you to accept me, which is the heart of love. If I feel I have to change to get you to accept me, either, I'm going to reject the change. I'm going to do it and resent the fact that I did it. And so can you accept me as I am now, if you can, now I have the freedom to change because it's not to earn your lawn, although it may be in response to your love. Am I making that sound too philosophical? Now? No, but let's give some examples. And also, I want to make sure that the listeners caught you said this super quick. Acceptance is the heart of love. Intimacy, intimacy says into me, see, I can trust you by telling you what I feel what I think what I believe, I can even trust you by telling you what I do. Even if I know you're not going to like any of those things, I know that you're not going to throw me out the door, I know that you're going to accept the fact that who I am right now, it may not make you happy. As a matter of fact, you may hope that I change, because it's in such contradiction to you. But you can accept it. That's where I am. Now. My friend, Danny did his funeral a couple of years ago, when it came to political things he and our polar opposites. We used to have those fun arguments with each other, and loved each other dearly. I officiated at his funeral, because of the fact that I accepted that was Danny what he thought and felt he accepted this as Joe. That's what he thought and felt, we did not endorse each other's beliefs. We certainly didn't encourage them. But we accepted each other. And that made for a very powerful friendship. So how did you communicate with each other in those conversations? You could disagree? As long as you made it clear that you weren't rejecting them. Like, okay, if we can take this thing, this idea, this concept, and put it out here on the table, and discuss it rationally, then I don't feel rejected, and you don't feel rejected, because we're dealing with that a specific thing out there. But if it becomes, hey, how could you be so dumb or how you not know any better or et cetera, et cetera word now, it's not just this this objective thing out here we're talking about, but it's an emotional thing where that I feel attack feel put down, feel rejected? That's when it changes. If and this is Dr. Beeman giving the answer to all the world's problems right here. But if in our country, the the two major parties in politics, the Democrats and Republicans, if they could put the issues not and make America not personal between them where they're attacking each other and calling each other names. But to put the issues out on a table where they can talk about it objectively, it could be more like it was when I was a boy. Now, it wasn't perfect. But at least then, like Ronald Reagan, and Tip O'Neill would argue all day long and then have a cigar and a cocktail at night. Yeah. Because for us, we can talk about this issue without making it personal. No, how does this apply to marriage? Well, it's that same concept. It's, there's going to be things that you disagree with. And maybe it's things like, different political or spiritual beliefs or whatever. But maybe it's just different actions. I don't like that you're not home in time for dinner. Right. So when talking about that problem, when talking about that issue, are you going to address it in a way that is that is blaming that is condoning, or that is blaming that is condemning, you know, all of those things, which is only going to make everything worse? Exactly? Or can you as a lot of the research says, Be curious what's going on? Why is it that you feel like you need to be at work that late is because you're working so much? Or is it something you're avoiding by coming home, if you can be curious, then you can better understand what the other person is thinking feeling going through. And then you're able to better talk about the issue separately from the person. Just this week, I gave homework to a couple for next week. And the homework was this, you can't talk about anything you disagree with with each other. Here's the only thing you can do. You can say what you feel, and in response to what the other person feels, you can ask for more information. But you can't do anything other than just understand it. And they looked at me and said, Wow, where did this come from? I mean, what a revolutionary. If you really want to communicate, I have to be able to feel safe, that you're not going to reject me. You may not right, you may not like what I do, but you're not going to reject me, if I'm open and honest with you. Now, when you get to that level, interestingly, people start changing. Yeah. And change typically, for the better. Yeah, well, but also, I think, it's not just so in this scenario, it's not just my spouse that would change if I do this, but I think I will begin to change, I know I will begin to change, which therefore just kind of has this upward spiral effect of communication continuing to get better and better and better. Because the more you do this, the better your relationship will be, the more you'll want to do this, and it will continue to go. It works, particularly a marriage that also works with children. If your five year old says I want to grow up and be the frog cook at Wendy's is say, I bet you'd be the best there would be, I don't want him to be the frat cook, I want him to be a doctor and support me my old age. Look, if that's what he thinks and feels right now, accept. That's what he thinks or feels right now. It doesn't mean you endorse it. It doesn't mean you encourage it. But the kid feels I can tell you the truth. And I'm not going to be rejected. And that's the secret to true deep communication. That's good. So let's talk about the key takeaways from this episode. I will repeat it again, I love the quote, acceptance is the heart of communication, no heart of love. That's what it was. Acceptance is actually both. It's both it's the key to a lot of things. Acceptance is the heart of love. And acceptance is the heart of communication. And so the way that we show that we accept the other person is by being curious, by taking issues away from being a a problem with the person personal attack. And instead, I mean, I even love the visual, take it away from them, put it at the center of the table as something that you're objectively looking at, and not tying to the other person's character. And when you do disagree, be sure that you make it clear that you're not rejecting them that it's that objective thought that you may not necessarily agree with but you still love and accept them for who they are and how they feel and what they need. And you can be best friends or till death. Like with Danny and me. It actually can work that way. Yeah, Dr. Beam thank you for being with me. Thank you for allowing me to be on the program and to start at like us my program. Thank you anytime. See you next week.