Feel Ignored by Your Spouse? Use These 10 Listening Skills to Increase Your Value
How can you keep up your loving feelings for your spouse if you’re constantly being ignored? How long will you want to stay in a relationship like that?
These are the kinds of feelings that many of my clients experience before working with me. Many even wondered if it was worth trying to save their relationship at all. If you are feeling this way, then I encourage you, like my clients to find out just how good your relationship can become before deciding you have had enough.
To do that, you will need to make sure that you are using effective relationship skills. Stick with me today and I will give you ten things you can start doing immediately to improve your relationship. If you will gradually start using these methods with your spouse, you will get improvements in the way your spouse looks at you, and talks to you. They will also make your spouse want to spend more time with you rather than avoid you.
I will also tell you how you can get a free download with five lessons you can use to boost communication between you and your spouse even more.
The underlying principles of being a good listener
Improving relationships is mainly about helping your spouse to enjoy you more. The more you can do that, the more your spouse is going to want to be with you, talk with you, and be intimate with you. There are many things that you can do to become more enjoyable.
Being a good listener is one of the easiest because it is no conflict and non-pursuit. It can be used to build new relationships, starting over with relationships, or to enhance at any level of closeness.
Your spouse ignores you because you seem either unpleasant or uninterested. These ten skills will help to make sure that you are not coming across that way. Then, you will get more time and attention from your spouse.
Many of my clients are either defensive listeners or argumentative listeners when we begin working together. My client John was that way. It was hard to blame him since his wife was often irritable and just went to him when she either wanted something or to complain about something. His attempts at friendly conversation were mainly to ask her about her day. His wife would answer his questions with short answers before walking away to do her own thing. If we couldn’t create some changes, John’s love for his wife would be gone, and probably John also. Fortunately, there were a number of things that John hadn’t tried, which were able to turn his situation around.
The first was …
1 Creating a positive mindset before interacting
If you do this, it will not only help your husband or wife to enjoy you more, you will also enjoy your husband or wife more. A glass half full of water is a lot more satisfying to drink than a half empty glass of water.
Before you encounter your spouse, create a positive mindset. You do that by thinking positive things about him or her. Prayer is a good way to prep our mindset. I pray for my clients before our meetings and it helps me to give them my best. Reminding yourself or thanking God for the good things your spouse has done for you will help create the right mindset and it will show on your face and in your voice.
This also happens to be one of 12 ways that you can revive your love for your spouse. (See the article link in the podcast description).
2 Prepare to respond in a positive way
First off, expect that your spouse might be negative so that you’re not caught off guard and reactive when it happens. Tell yourself that if that happens you will focus on finding something to empathize or agree with and let the rest go in one ear and out the other.
3 Pay good attention
If I leaned back and closed my eyes when I was listening to a client, or worse yet was looking at my cell phone, they would rightly be upset, even if I was hearing every word they were saying. Even just thinking about lunch would be enough to not make me seem present. Why would I do any less with my wife? Why would you do less with your husband or wife?
Put your phone down or turn it off. Mute the TV. Look at your spouse and focus on what he or she is saying. If you are actively listening for things to agree or empathize with, it will help you to focus better.
4 Don’t interrupt
If you really need to say something, that’s fine—important conversations are part of any marriage. But hold onto it until your spouse has gone first. Don’t interrupt before your spouse finishes, even if it takes five or ten minutes. Unless the house is on fire, it can wait.
A good way to avoid interrupting is to wait three to five seconds after your spouse finishes speaking before responding. If your spouse has ever said, Hey, don’t interrupt me, I’m still talking, then you need to be extra careful to allow him or her space before responding.
5 Validate to create relationship connection
Listening with validation means making your spouse feel right or normal about what he or she has said. It could also be validating something your spouse says that he or she did. To validate, you will need to either agree, empathize, appreciate, or compliment. Don’t do it a lot, but do it at least once per conversation.
If you need help learning how to agree with negative things your spouse says, my book Connecting through “Yes!” can help you connect even in this situation.
6 Don’t invalidate
Invalidation happens when you make your spouse feel wrong or abnormal about what he or she thinks, feels, or does. Arguing, criticizing, using negative body language, or defensive explaining are things you will absolutely need to avoid. Those are a few behaviors characteristic of what needy people do to try to improve relationships. They never work. If you do these things, my book on overcoming neediness can help you to break those habits.
7 Remember what’s important to your spouse
To be a good listener, you need to remember important things your spouse says. What is important? Whatever he or she thinks is important.
For example, if a friend told you he got a new puppy and you didn’t see him for two months, you could ask, So, how is your puppy doing? If you remember the puppy’s name, even better. This shows that you listen, that you think about him, and that he matters to you. The same applies to your spouse.
If you struggle to remember details, taking notes can help. I talk with 20 to 30 clients a week, and when I meet with them again, it feels like we just talked—because I take notes. Before I meet with them, I review my notes to refresh my memory. I write my notes during the session, but you can make your notes after finishing a conversation.
8 Know what your spouse likes to talk about
It also helps to remember what your spouse enjoys talking about. Many people say, I just don’t know what to talk about with my spouse. But you can figure it out by paying attention to what your spouse likes to talk about with others. Also, you can pay attention to what your spouse does in his or her free time.
Everyone has a topic they prefer talking about more than anything else. If you listen carefully, you’ll learn what that is—and that makes conversations easier. You can even make a note!
9 Match body language to his or her feelings
Essentially, you want to make good eye contact, nod in agreement, and avoid shaking your head in disagreement. However, if your spouse shares something shocking, you might shake your head in disbelief—that’s fine. Smile or laugh at something they think is funny. It’s part of the work of being a good spouse to laugh or smile at stupid jokes, just as it is with kid’s knock knock jokes.
Wherever you create emotional match, you create connection.
10 Observe your behavior
When I was first learning to be a psychologist many years ago, I learned to not only pay attention to what my client said, but also to the interaction between me and my client. We called this a third eye that was observing our interaction. It’s like watching a video of yourself interacting with the other person.
This awareness of how you interact with your spouse and others is one of your keys to relational success.
Little changes can make big differences
This is the power of coaching. It helps people build relationships by taking many small steps without creating rejection. By gradually introducing the listening improvements I have given you today, you will soon start to notice your spouse enjoying talking to you more. Even the most difficult of relationships can be improved by taking small steps.
In addition to these ten ways to improve your listening, you can download five free communication lessons. These will help you to get your spouse to enjoy talking with you. Just go to coachjackito.com and click on “free downloads” (or see the link in the description).
It is my hope that you can discover what John and my other clients have discovered—that no matter how distant your relationship has become, there are always ways to make it better. You can do that with me by signing up for my Re-Connections Coaching Package at coachjackito.com . (You can also find the link in the description). I’ll help you take the right steps to get the love you want and deserve from your husband or wife.
