Speaking About You

One of my favorite movies is “Shall We Dance,staring Richard Gere, Jennifer Lopez and Susan Sarandon. For those of you who have never seen the movie, the plot goes like this: Mr. Smith (Richard Gere) is an unhappy and bored lawyer with a wife and two teenage children. He ends up signing up for ballroom dance lessons to be near Jennifer Lopez a dance instructor that he continues to see on his way home from work. Eventually he realizes that it was not Jennifer that kept him coming back to Miss Mitsies dance studio but the love he has developed for dancing. Unfortunately Richard is unable to communicate to his wife the feelings of unhappiness he had and now the joy he derives from dancing.

Richard’s wife (Susan Sarandon) seeing the changes in him believes he is having an affair and hires a private investigator to find out what he is up to. When Susan learns the truth: that her husband (Richard) is not having an affair but instead taking dance lessons she and her daughter attend the dance competition that her husband has been entered in. Susan sees that her husband has this whole other world that she has not been privy to and becomes extremely angry with her husband. She cannot understand why he felt he could not tell her about this and why it had to be a secret.

Statistics show that about 50% of all marriages end in failure in our generation. Why? Because we do not know how to properly communicate to our mate what we want or need from them. A recent survey stated that among men the number two reason for breaking up was changes in his partner, and for women it was listed as the number three reason for breaking up. But communication is not just being able to express yourself to your partner, it also includes being able to truly listen to them as they express themselves to you.

Most people believe that “if he or she loved me they would know what it is that I needed or wanted, and also that “they should know when I am not happy. Since when did a wedding ring become a crystal ball or a marriage certificate a deck of tarot cards? And in all honesty how many psychics have you known in your life, that are, dead on accurate, all the time. I personally believe that there are a few out there, but very few. So now I guess I have just met another one “YOUR SPOUSE, right! Because, if you hold to this belief, then you are saying that your spouse must be a psychic. If he or she is not this great psychic then how can we hold to the belief that they should know what we need or want without us telling them what it is that will make us happy?

Trust me on this fact because for most of my life, I held to this very belief too: that if any guy I dated loved me enough then he should know what it was that I needed to be happy. All these men, (just because they dated me) were now entrusted with this magical ability of being a psychic. That was really a hard thing for these guys to be entrusted with because in fact I didn’t even know what it was that I wanted or needed to make me happy.

Communication is for me as well as many others, one of the most difficult parts of a relationship. Having to ask for what I want or need to make me feel loved, always made me feel like I was asking for too much, that maybe they couldn’t give it to me or that I was being selfish. So I didn’t ask at all and after awhile I would end up being very unhappy and leave the relationship or they would leave because they knew I was unhappy and could not figure out why. Eventually I learned that if I was able to communicate even the smallest want or need to my partner, that in it self, made me feel happy. And usually if you are in a loving relationship and if you are able to communicate this want or need in a loving manner your partner will try to move heaven and earth to see that you get whatever it is (within their capabilities, of course). Love means doing these things, but we need to know what these things are first.

Without communication nothing exists. Without communicating our feelings, we have just set our partners and ourselves up for certain failure. And without setting up boundaries as to what is expectable or not expectable from our partners, again we sabotage our relationship.

Wow… it becomes a revolving circle. Meet – date – fall in love- (maybe marriage) – become unhappy – fight – breakup. Then someone new comes along and we start the cycle all over again. Those couples that marry, end up staying in the “become unhappy – fight, part of the cycle until much later when they decide to break up. When it gets to the point of fighting all the time over silly things no one really hears the underlying truth. That is, that one or both are not having those needs or wants met or even just heard. When people fight it is usually about unrelated issues and we really stop listening to the other person. So if you do say what it is that is really at the root of these feelings of being unloved, the other person usually does not hear it.

If we do not have good communication in our relationships, a lot of people will give up on the inner working of that relationship and look elsewhere. They look for someone else, whom they believe will listen to them and who will understand the feelings that they have deep inside. If and when the affair becomes known, instead of accepting that they made a mistake, they place the blame on the innocent partner by saying “You made me do this. You don’t love me enough or you weren’t interested in giving me the things I needed. But with good communication this would not likely happen because we would have already talked to our partner in a loving manner about getting our needs met and vise versa.

Have you ever hear the story about the couple that went to see a therapist because they were on the brink of divorce?

The therapist asked the wife, “Does your husband beat you up?
She answered, “No I beat him up by several hours every morning.

Then the therapist asked the husband, “Do you have a grudge?

The husband responded, “No we have a carport.

The therapist, getting a little exasperated, asked the couple, “What grounds do you have for your problem?

The wife answered, “We have about four acres.

Finally, the therapist said, “Why did you come here today?

Together they said, “We can’t seem to communicate with each other.

Communication is not something that usually just happens; it’s not something that we are born with. It is something we learn as a child from our families and the people around us and if our families were sorely lacking in these skills then we too usually grow up lacking in these skills. We get scared that we may never be able to communicate our needs properly but, if we ever intend to have a healthy, loving, strong relationship, good communication is at the heart of that development.

Men and women have different ways of communicating. Men generally start conversations to solve a problem that they feel needs to be addressed. Women on the other hand talk to connect with others. Instead of taking turns listening to each other most couples spend their time trying to change each other. To them they really are trying to understand each other and what the others’ needs are but in fact all they are doing is confusing each other.

By using a relationship coach you can learn to communicate in ways that will help you to be heard and in turn teach you how to listen too. With good communication almost any problem that arises in a relationship can be worked out in a truly loving way.

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