Friday, May 3, 2013

Marriage 3


Types of communication – 5 levels of communication
1-    clichés -  superficial communication things you would say to a store clerk 
      “How are you?” “How was your day?” “Fine” “What’s up?”  safe level of communication avoids  conflict
       2 -  sharing of facts – shallow communication, just information “It’s raining outside”  “Gas went up again”  “I’ll be home by 6:00” “What time is the kids event?”
still relatively safe level of communication if you are starting arguments at this level you are a pretty miserable person
      3 -   state our opinions – potential conflict begins here. This is where you make yourself vulnerable to rejection and criticism.  If you feel insecure about your marriage you will not move into this realm.  “I can’t believe anyone would vote for that idiot, He has no experience at all”  “I can’t believe they would say that they are absolutely wrong” Most couples make it to this level but rarely go beyond
      4 – say what we are feeling – we place ourselves at risk of having our feeling misunderstood.  But we can only reach deeper levels of loving and being loved by taking risk. The best question at this level is “what are you feeling right now?”
      5 – Reveal our needs – what I need right now is for you to hold me? For you to listen t me for to just give me a few moments. To risk revealing your needs you have to feel secure in this relationship

Three styles
1)   Drive through talking or “active listening
2)   Make your spouse thirsty Cartwright story 1800’s circuit rider
3)   Word pictures effective especially with men – you are treating me just  my father  or scale from 1-10
Test it out

“How can two walk together unless they agree.” Amos 3:3  BLIS can’t happen with unresolved conflict
Conflict resolution
Why do we have conflict in a marriage?
1)    Power and Control
Mutual submission
2)    Insecurity
Create and environment where you spouse feels free to express themselves and they feel safe

3)    Differences in Values
He thinks its OK to go hunting she is against killing anything
He thinks its OK to watch violence on TV she can’t take it
She thinks it is fine to compliment someone (lie) he thinks it is hypocritical
Sometimes you have to agree to disagree
4)    Competition
Some people can’t stand to lose at anything (don’t play monopoly with them)
Sometimes a husband will feel jealous over the money, promotion, or advancement the wife makes
Wives who have had unbelieving husbands once husband gets saved
If both trying to lose weight, get into shape, learn something new and one is better than the other
5)    Personal differences
Men and women are just different
Introvert verses extrovert
Personality differences
Love language differences
Warning!!!!! Generalizations are about to be expressed!
 Child rearing men push the children women nurture the children
Men generally think I’ll have some buddies over women think what condition is the house in?
Men share facts women express feelings (levels of communication)
Men are independent women are interdependent (community related)
Men connect by doing things women connect by talking
Men tend to compete women tend to cooperate
Men tend to be controlling women tend to remain agreeable
6)    Misunderstood feelings and unmet needs
What do you think your spouse should be doing (roles and goals), unrealized expectations. We often expect others to meet our needs or goals when we haven’t even expressed them
Generally this is where most conflicts originate.  If I am in conflict with someone generally one of two things are occurring 1) someone’s feelings aren’t being valued or understood 2) Someone’s needs aren’t being valued or met.

What doesn’t resolve conflict?
1)    Withdrawing – burying you head in the sand and saying, “if I ignore it or just don’t deal with it, it will go away.”
2)    Yielding - giving in – It seems like you gain peace but it is only for a season one person always loses
3)    Compromise – sounds right but again someone loses you both settle for half of a loaf rather than the whole things
How can everyone win?
Focus on resolving the conflict not on picking on each other or demanding your rights you keep at it patiently until both.  Putting into place all those levels of communication clichés, facts, opinions, feelings needs.
Understand each other’s gifts or personality types and love languages


What do you do if the hurt has been too bad
1)    Define the offense – it is too easy to simply say that person hurt (offended me) you must clearly understand yourself what they did to hurt you.
-write it down discuss it with a neutral party (close friend)
2)    Allow yourself to grieve – don’t minimize it recognize that you have been hurt, if you don’t grieve you don’t own it if you don’t own it the you are in denial.  Blessed are they that mourn for they will be comforted this allows you to focus the attention on the real problem
3)    Try to understand your offender – why did they commit this against me what is going on in their life what kind of pain, sin, confusion, loss of dream are they living with that allows them to do this
4)    Release your offender – the definition of forgiveness is to untie or release someone. This is not about feelings it is about making a decision. A long as you do not forgive someone.  The person that offended you may be unable to deal with the offense but that should not continue to bind you.
5)    Look for the gems in the offense -  all things work together for good for them that love God and are called according to his purposes. If we trust God He can show us how we an take a bad thing and learn from it that will make us stronger “that which does not kill us only makes us stronger”
6)    Put your feelings in writing – clarify what you have lost or been denied
7)    Reach out to your offender – Find some way t help in healing your offender this is very tough but at a minimum it is raying for that person