Trevor Beesley

Skousen
Improving Interpersonal Communications

Introduction This semester our assignment has been to find an interpersonal communication
struggle we may be having, and we were asked to use the book to find some ways to help resolve
the struggle.
Problem The challenge I selected was with the communication between my wife and I. At
the time of selecting this issue, my wife and I were three months married, and had only dated
about seven or eight months previous to getting married, so we were still fairly new at knowing
the communication preferences of the other person.
I tend to be a less verbal communicator, and more through text. I have always
loved writing, be it creative, or otherwise, and thus find it much easier to develop my thoughts in
my head at a little slower pace than what speaking allows. This form also allows me to erase
things I have written, and re-write them to make sure they are being said in the way that most
accurately portrays my feelings. Speaking, for me, is a lot harder to accomplish those same
outcomes. I feel like it is harder for me to develop all of my thoughts fully before speaking them,
and with no way of re-writing what Ive said, occasionally I say things that dont quite reflect my
feelings accurately, and may even hurt others feelings.
My wife is quite the opposite. She would rather communicate audibly, and feels
that the lack of emotion and facial expression through text lends to many messages being
misunderstood or misinterpreted which leads to more arguments. She is able to formulate
thoughts a bit more quickly, and speak her feelings a bit more accurately.
We dont get in disagreements often because of how similar our goals and outlook
on life are. But when we do get in disagreements, it seems that due to our communication
differences, the disagreement tends to last longer than desired and feelings often get hurt.
Plan My plan going into this assignment has been to try and learn from the book some
different communication methods that I can use that help me feel like I can still formulate
complete thoughts, and speak my emotions accurately, while also doing so in a way that my wife
can feel like there isnt a barrier that is blocking the emotions on my face or in my voice which
could lead to misunderstandings.
I also wanted to keep my wife informed of the things I was learning, and express
my interest in the different topics so we could practice them together, and so she and I could be
on the same page about what ways we felt would be the most effective. I wanted for her to find
help with this assignment too. Perhaps she would decide she could improve in areas as well, and
we would both be working towards a better goal, rather than just one of us taking steps while the
other stood idly by.
Things Learned Along the Way As this semester went on, I was able to gain a lot of
knowledge on communication tactics from class that helped my wife and I communicate more
effectively. But one of the biggest helps was a class my wife and I took called The Seven
Principles of Making Marriage Work. It was a four-week long class that met once a week for
three hours and discussed things like recognizing types of communication attempts, learning
about things called soft startups, and the four horsemen, and a number of techniques used to
discuss and solve solvable problems.
The class used copious amounts of scientific research and studies done by the
author and his staff which studied communication and its effect on couples. It studied why
couples got divorced, and why couples stayed together. It studied couples over 20-30 year spans
to find patterns, and to see the long-term effects of their findings. The class then took these
findings, and laid out seven basic principles that couples could follow to not only strengthen their
communication with one-another, but also to strengthen their marriage.
Frustrations Some of the frustrations felt along the way came from our different approaches to
situations. She may have a stronger feeling towards studying for a test, leading her to want to
leave early from a family party. Or I may feel like the bathroom doesnt look as dirty to me as it
does to her.
The largest communication struggle we ran into was that most of our battles
became a blame-game of who was wrong or right in the given situation. Since both parties felt
quite strongly about their reasoning or approach towards a problem, it tended to turn into hurt
feelings over who felt more attacked, and in the end, one party would end up being so hurt they
would just bend and give in to the other partys way of doing things. This approach, for me, was
very ineffective. Both parties usually ended up with hurt feelings, and the problem was only
solved to one partys liking.
Finding Help in the Text In the text on page 59, it discusses the importance of listening and
how listening is one of the seven habits of highly effective people. This section regarding
listening was largely impactful for me as it helped me recognize that listening is extremely
important in a conversation. Not only is it an active activity that should be performed during
conversation, but it also is not something that comes naturally.
As I learned this, and learned to practice actually listening actively to my wife
while she spoke, be it about a problem she was having, or even something as simple as
how her day was, I found that this practice helped me to pick up on the subtle emotions
she carried behind the words she spoke. I found I tend to listen to understand now more
than listening to solve her problems. Gaining understanding, for me, has been far more
effective than trying to tell my wife how I would solve her issues.
Along with listening, and as I alluded to earlier, I found that there are the
messages that are being spoken, the verbal messages. But also, there are the unspoken
messages, non-verbal messages, that are simultaneously being given. This is discussed
throughout chapter 4 in the book, and as I have paid more attention to these messages, I
 have been able to more fully understand what is actually meant by what is being said, and
not just making my own assumptions.
I especially enjoyed the section starting on page 87 about Feminine and
Masculine Language. This section discusses the idea that, in many instances, women
speak with what some researchers refer to as rapport talk, which is essentially talk that
tries to create connections with listeners and build a rapport. I found that as I learned
more about this idea, I could think of many of the women in my life that seemed to use
this same type of speech when communicating with one another.
Men on the other hand tend to use what the researches termed report talk, which
is much more focused on the details, the facts, and making the conversation more
straight-forward, and less emotion based. Again I found that as I thought about the men in
my life, most of them used this type of communication to converse. Knowing this helped
me to understand more about what my wife enjoys about conversing, and how I could try
and make our conversations more enjoyable and less straight-forward.
Conclusion As my wife and I learned more from this class, as well as the 7 principles class,
we have been able to much more effectively discuss our disagreements. I have found that I am
better able to formulate my thoughts when I speak with her because I have been able to express
that sometimes I need a little silent time while speaking to think about how I want to say how I
feel. Additionally, as I have spent more time and effort actively listening to her when she
explains to me how she feels, I am more fully able to understand where she stands, and rather
than trying to immediately solve the issue, I am able to express to her my understanding of her
feelings, which sometimes is all that is needed or desired.
I have been very excited to see this assignment go the way it has, as I have felt
that the simple fact that I was able to focus on this throughout the semester has helped us to
make a true effort early in our marriage to try and better communicate with each other. I feel like
because we have started doing this now, it will save us many frustrating fights and possibly
unhappy years in the future.