Immediately communicate better with your partner using some of the techniques below. I know what you are thinking, another post about communication. But, communication is just that important to a relationship. As men, it’s important that we pay attention to the way our partners communicate with us. And how we communicate with them as well.
Communication is a two way street. We have to pay attention to our ladies, and how they communicate with us. Some of the people in my life communicate through words. Others through actions. I’m sure you realize, most people are a combination of the two. But they will prefer one method over the other. As my SO can attest to, I am a talker. She is not. If your SO doesn’t communicate the way you do, that’s OK. You just need to keep that in mind as you listen or watch them.
With someone that isn’t a talker, you are going to need to pay attention when she does start talking. When the conversation starts, you will need to really listen, because she doesn’t just talk to talk. Listening is a skill, just like talking is. Being a good, attentive listener is difficult. You need to be listening to comprehend, not listening to reply. What I mean by that is that you need to listen to understand what she’s saying. Not listening and thinking about how you can reply to her words. Even if it means there’s silence when she’s done talking, that’s OK. Saying nothing is much better than saying the wrong thing.
Listening. It’s something some would say is a lost art. Good Choices Good Life has a good article on this. In their article, they discuss how we filter, how we handle being hurt in conversation, and listening techniques. Being able to communicate effectively means being able to see these biases. Once you see them in yourself, you can correct them.
Their article (which you should read) explains that we filter sometimes based on our past. When we do that we are not listening to the words anymore, we are emotionally reaction to the past. Another example is being per-occupied with your reply, distracting your from listening. When conversation gets emotional, it’s difficult not falling into that trap. This segues to emotions and excitement in conversations. It’s difficult to have every conversation not have some element of emotion. Handling your emotions during a conversation is important. It’s important to getting to a resolution in the conversation.
Listening is only one component of effective communication. You have to learn to communicate your thoughts effectively as well. You need to be non-confrontational about it. Saying things like “you need to” is confrontational. Rephrase to say things like “I would prefer it if you” or simply “I prefer”. It doesn’t have to be complicated. Small changes like these are easy to make, and can make a big difference how your conversations go.
You want your conversations, especially ones about sex, to not have negative connotations. In the next post, again about communicating, we’ll talk about some things that you can do to make it go easier.
As always, if you have questions, check out our Contact Page and shoot us a message. We’d love to hear from you!
Leave a Reply