My husband and I have always been a little hot headed. We both understand the importance of summarizing, paraphrasing, validating, and clarifying during our arguments (Strong & Cohen, 2011, page 246), but we often find ourselves arguing with little purpose and achieving nothing. This is the reason I chose this topic. My goal was to become more aware of these tendencies within myself. The moment I tried this experiment my husband new exactly what I was up to, though he was not able to identify it as a class assignment. Unfortunately, this reaction made me wonder and reflect on our past exchanges. How often have I been negative around my husband? What are my negative comments about? What themes are present? My husband was adamant that I am never negative, but this was not good enough for me. I recalled a brief conversation my husband and I had about two weeks prior to this experiment. We had gone off with his family for most of the day and had made it home well after lunch time. With both of us starving we hurriedly prepared a lunch and sat down to eat together. We exchanged words, though nothing was of importance, until I told him I needed to fill my car up at the gas station. Suddenly he pointed out that he wanted to talk about something, and I asked him to go on. He began to explain that if I were to be a more conservative driver I would not need to fill my gas tank quite as often. Immediately I was retaliating, raising my voice, telling him I did not tell him how to drive. As quickly as the topic had been brought up he stated he would talk to me about it later. Realizing how reactive and volatile my words were I asked him to talk to me, but he insisted. We still have not brought this topic up. Recalling this and that “some topics are more difficult to discuss than others” which leads to couple being more “likely to display poorer communication (Strong & Cohen, 2011, page 233)” I chose to continue on with my experiment, paying special attention to those topics that tend to be most difficult for myself. The other night my husband brought up our need to budget his most recent paycheck. My initial reaction was to beg to have the discussion later, when I was more rested and more open to his suggestions regarding our finances. Throughout the discussion I found that I was more focused on giving positive comments and avoiding negative comments altogether. Despite failing to give five positive comments after a negative comment, I succeeded in becoming aware of the things I say to and around my husband. The off-handed comments about how difficult my day at work was, the mention that he did not finish the laundry as I had asked, the tone in my voice as I told him he was acting like a bully to his younger brother—none of these things needed to be handled or addressed in a condescending tone. In fact, as I noticed more instances like these I tried to change my approach to conversations. I have learned that where communication is vital to a relationship, goodcommunication is vital to a marriage.
References
Strong, Bryan, Christine DeVault, and Theodore Cohen. "The Meaning of Marriage and the Family." The Marriage and Family Experience: Intimate Relationships in a Changing Society. 11th ed. Wadsworth: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2011. 615. Print.