Listening Better: A No Conflict Way to Start Rebuilding Your Marriage

Listening well will help your husband or wife to enjoy talking with you more. Going beyond understanding and creating a feeling of similarity will boost your relationship.

Marriage counselors are generally good at helping people to understand each other. That is a vital step in resolving conflicts. Usually, their methods feel and sound unnatural and lend themselves best to working on problems. As a relationship coach, my goal is to teach clients how to create desire and reconnect. To do that, mere understanding is not going to be enough.

Counselors are fond of teaching Active Listening, an idea that began with Carl Rogers. Research indicates however, that active listening promotes understanding, but does not promote liking. It’s actually validation that promotes liking.

You will need to learn how to talk more like any skilled single person would in a casual encounter or on a date. This means listening well and responding with validation. Do this regularly, and your spouse will like to hang out with you. Helping your spouse to enjoy you more will take care of most problems without ever having to talk about them. And, when you do, things will go much better because of the improved connection between you.

Counselors start with problems first. Coaches start with relationship building first. Make your decision about what to do based on your spouse’s desire, or lack of desire, to talk about problems.

The importance of matching in relationships

The basis of all connection is matching.

The best predictor of a long and happy marriage is how well people match in several areas before they marry.

Namely, attitudes toward:

• children,
• money,
• sex,
• politics,
• religion,
• socializing with others,
• use of free time, and
• spirituality

Once married, people need to continue to match. Of course we can all have differences, but the more we match the closer we will be. Your best friend will be the one who is most similar to you.

Continuing to match can happen either by accident or by intention. Some couples naturally stay close because they spend a lot of time together, share similar interests, and agree on most things. Others, however, tend to drift apart after marriage, developing different interests, different friends, and separate activities. If that continues unchecked, the emotional connection weakens, growing like a crack in the ice during the spring thaw.

As soon as you notice that happening in your relationship, take steps to strengthen your connection by increasing the similarity between you and your spouse. The best way to foster a sense of similarity for your spouse is to listen well and respond with validation. Isn’t that what you would be doing if you were single and trying to start a relationship with someone? I doubt you would be arguing.

The skills for successful dating when you are single are the same skills for keeping your spouse interested in you when you are married, no matter how long you have been married.

Become a good listener

Being a good listener will help you in another important way in your relationship with your spouse.

Besides helping your husband or wife feel that the two of you are similar, being a good listener will also make you a more valuable partner. The more valuable we are to our partner, the less our partner would like to lose us, and the more our partner is going to be concerned about things that we like or don’t like. Also, the more effective our boundaries are going to be if we need to use them.

In addition, the more valuable we are, the more likely our spouse is to do things that we would like or that we request. Many times people are not getting what they want from their spouse because they are not being valuable enough for their spouse to really care. Being a good listener can increase your value so that your spouse cares more.

Listening helps your spouse feel like a priority

Being a good listener also helps your spouse to feel more important to you. You’re showing that it’s worth your time and attention to listen carefully and remember what he or she says. That helps your spouse to feel like more of a priority.

One of the complaints that many people have when they are deciding to divorce is that they just haven’t felt like a priority in the relationship. One of the factors that contributes to that is not being a good listener. A large part of the seduction of an affair is having someone who listens well and makes time to do so.

If you are having problems in any area of your marriage, being a good listener is one of those low-conflict ways to improve your relationship that’s not likely to cause resistance. Many times we can get resistance when we try to talk to our spouse, especially if they’re not wanting to talk to us. However, listening is not going to create resistance because we’re doing that when they are wanting to say something to us.

Listening is a non-pursuit behavior which builds relationships, when done well.

Sometimes people’s relationships are so bad that they can’t talk to their spouse to say anything, even about the weather, without getting a negative response. However, at that time, being a good listener can help to start the conversations to become a little bit more pleasant and gradually get to the point where you can say something and your spouse is actually going to be interested.

Good talking starts with good listening.

Understanding isn’t enough to create connection

Many people who learn to listen better focus on understanding and making the other person feel understood. That’s an important part of listening, but it doesn’t create connection. It does, however, pave the way for connection. If you can’t understand what your spouse is saying, it will be hard to take the next step in creating similarity and helping him or her feel that the two of you match.

When you are trying to understand your spouse, you might focus on one thing, like, What does he want me to do? or What does she want me to do? That’s good information to have, but if you really want to build connection, there are other things you need to understand as well.

What you really need to understand

The most important things to focus on when listening for connection are not the words that your spouse uses. They are:

• Your spouse’s feelings – Pay attention to body language, tone of voice, eye contact, or lack of eye contact. You don’t have to ask, How do you feel about that? like a therapist would. Instead, observe and pick up on cues naturally. The better you are at recognizing emotions without asking, the easier it will be to empathize and create connection.
• Your spouse’s needs, desires, likes, and dislikes – Many of these can be figured out just by watching your spouse in daily life. Some spouses don’t mind telling you directly, especially if they believe it will lead to changes in your behavior. Others, however, may feel frustrated if you ask because they expect you to already know.

Saying to someone how am I supposed to know how you feel–I’m not a mind reader makes as much sense to some people as saying, how can I know if it’s raining–I don’t have a crystal ball. You’ve got eyes, don’t you? Do most of your listening with your eyes.

Listening must lead to action

If you do need to clarify feelings, likes and dislikes, be prepared to act on the information. What’s frustrating for people is when they express how they feel or what they need, and while their spouse shows understanding, no changes follow. Your actions should reflect that what they said was important enough for you to do something about it.

If your spouse tells you what he or she needs, don’t reciprocate by saying what you need. That would bring clarity, but also disconnection. Instead, empathize with your spouse’s needs and desires. That brings connection.

Clarity is overrated when it comes to rebuilding relationships. What is most needed is connection.

Validating and empathizing with your spouse

When you are listening to create connection, you need to take a step beyond understanding to matching. You may understand how your spouse feels, what your spouse needs, and what your spouse desires, likes, and dislikes. But understanding alone doesn’t create connection. To build connection, you need to match those feelings, agree with those needs, or empathize with those desires, likes, and dislikes.

That shows that you are similar in the kinds of things you like or dislike, in the way you feel, or in how you would feel in your spouse’s situation. That’s what creates matching. People who are very good at understanding often offer practical help. People who are good at matching create emotional connection, even if they’re not as skilled with practical support.

When we’re talking about longevity in relationships, can you guess whether practical help or emotional connection is more important? It’s the emotional connection. No matter how practically helpful you are in your relationship, if you cannot connect emotionally, you are far more likely to lose your relationship than someone who can connect emotionally but isn’t as helpful practically.

Mr./Mrs. Nice Guy is not the one who gets the dates. They will always go after Mr./Mrs. Similar.

Shifting your mindset to improve listening

One thing you need to do before you even listen to your spouse is to have a positive mindset about your spouse. You do that by thinking positive things about them.

Whenever you find yourself thinking negative things about your spouse, tweak the thought so it ends on a good note—just like a conversation should end on a good note. For example, if you think, Oh, my husband never picks up after himself. I always have to do that, you’re ending your thought on a negative mental note. And when he talks to you, you’re more likely to show irritation—not because of what he’s saying, but because you’ve already set yourself up to feel that way.

So if you catch yourself thinking negatively, add a “but” to shift your mindset. For example, My husband is so messy; I always have to pick up after him. But he works really hard to pay the bills, gives me lots of attention, and takes me to nice places. Doing this helps take the irritation out of the thing you don’t like. Rebut all of your negative thoughts with positives and it will transform you into a happier and more desirable person.

I wrote an article/podcast on why we fall out of love and how to fix it. If you struggle with negative thoughts about your spouse, working on those things can help you develop a better mindset, which in turn will help you be a better listener and that will help your spouse to be more affectionate toward you.

Be a receptive, friendly listener

When you are listening to your spouse, it’s important to be friendly from the very first moment your spouse sees you. Whether you’re texting, watching TV, playing baseball, fixing the car, or talking with friends, you should look happy to see your spouse approaching and be prepared to listen to whatever they have to say.

Remember, your husband or wife needs to be your priority—not your children, not your activities, not your friends, not your job. Marriage means commitment to your spouse and forsaking all others. So whatever you’re doing, if your spouse approaches you, always look glad to see him or her.

And the most important way to show that is with your eyes. You need to look at your spouse like someone you love. Hopefully, that’s really how you feel. But even if it’s not, you need to make yourself look that way.

How are you doing in these four relationship critical areas?

Here are four of the questions that I use to assess areas people need to work on to reconcile. They are also areas that people need to have in order to maintain a good relationship.

Would you answer yes, no, or I don’t know to each of the following statements:

• My spouse feels like I am always happy to hear from or see him/her.
• My spouse feels like he/she is a priority to me.
• My spouse thinks that I empathize with his/her desires.
• My spouse feels that the two of us are very similar.

The way you listen and respond to your spouse is going to impact those four areas. If you are weak in any of them, you can start to improve your listening. That will be a good start in rebuilding emotional connection in your relationship.

Resources for better listening and rebuilding

I have free downloads that will help you to get your spouse to enjoy talking with you more. In addition, my book Connecting though “Yes!” will help you to listen and respond to your spouse better, particularly in areas where it is often difficult to agree. And, if your relationship feels like it is slipping past your ability to rescue, sign up for my Re-Connections Coaching Package and I will help you get it moving forward again.