Tag Archives: communication

Nurturing Your Marriage Relationship

I talked about relationships on Friday and I just thought I’d carry that over to today’s post because your marriage is one of the most crucial relationships you can have. Along those same lines, it is important to communicate with your hubby. Now, I’m not talking about telling him things that you need done. I’m talking about really talking to him about what he is dealing with at work and with his friends. What is on his mind? What has he been learning?

Okay, let’s get basic. What did you talk about when you were dating? For some of us, that seems forever ago and we may not remember, so don’t wait so long to relate with your hubby that you forget how to relate to one another.

It is easy to slip into the mundane things of every day life and things that need to get done but it is important to continue to know each other. This means that you have to take some time in your day to communicate with each other. And for that, you have to be considerate of his time and what he is doing. If you are ready to go to bed before he seems to have the time for this communication, ask him when a good time would be. Explain that you don’t want to lose the closeness that you shared before you got married or when you first got married. Be inquisitive about him and what he is interested in. Who knows, you might find more things that you share in common. :)

I hope this encourages you to keep the lines of communication open and nurture your marriage relationship.

Until next time,

Michele ºÜº

Giving and Requesting Help

Lori Byerly shared some good thoughts about requesting help from your spouse, but it can certainly be applied to any situation in which you need to request help. I think her suggestions are very helpful and will attempt to put it into practice.

One thing I’ll add is that sometimes I need to remind my hubby to do a task. He gets so busy and it is easy for things to slip the mind–I know it happens to me too. ;) But when I need to remind him of something, I try not to do it very close together. I try to let an appropriate amount of time, days or even weeks, if possible, pass before reminding him about the thing that I’ve requested.

This is one reason why her suggestion about giving a time frame was such a good idea to me. So many times we ask for something to be done and we really want it done right now but he cannot stop what he is doing and do said thing immediately. Here again, it is a lack of communication but Lori’s ideas help communicate better.

The last thing that really stuck out to me from her post was to model what you would like to receive. Put another way, practice what you preach. ;) This is true in raising children as well; if you want to have children that read, don’t expect them to pick up a book if you don’t. But that’s a topic for Thursdays. :D

I hope you’ll hop on over to Lori’s site and read the thoughtful post there. It’s a quick read. Also, please comment below if you already follow or subscribe to Lori’s posts (either on her blog or facebook). I know I refer to her a lot because she is such a great resource and super encourager but don’t really want to just be a repeat in your life.

I’ll run for now,

Michele ºÜº

 

Better Conversation Starters

When Michael comes home from a day at work, I generally ask him how his day was. This does not generally elicit much real conversation. It is usually later, when he has been home for a bit and unwound a little that he actually tells us specifics of his day.

I read this post that had some good suggestions of other ways start a good conversation. :) 14 Alternatives to “How Are You?”

I’ll just keep this short so that you can jump over there and read it too.

I hope this is a benefit to you and your family,

Michele ºÜº