One of the reasons we find communicating with our spouse so frustrating is the delusion that we are good communicators. Whatever your day job, be it Secretary of State, Chairman

of the Federal Reserve, or just a regular hostage negotiator for the FBI, relative to the average spouse, it’s just not real communication.

Groucho Marx said, "People who agree with me, tend to be right." Communicating with people who agree with us is not communicating, it's nodding. Since we tend to surround ourselves with people who have the same outlook as us, when an issue does arise, there is hardly a debate.

A spouse is really our personal shot of reality telling us we need to improve our communication skills. Real communication comes from understanding each other. One of the reasons it’s hard to communicate with a spouse is we just don’t understand them, and without that, it's hard to understand what on earth they are talking about.

Dismissing our spouse’s opinion simply because it is wrong, even malicious, even maliciously wrong, is a huge mistake. If your spouse is straight-jacketed, in a padded cell, on heavy medication, then you have a right to say, “My husband is crazy.” Barring that, our spouse’s brain synapses fire at the right speed and they are able to hold fairly intelligent conversations with many people – just not us.

It is strange that people who otherwise seem to exhibit behavior reminiscent of normality become frothing, hysterical and incoherent when discussing the most simple of questions with their spouse. “Who put that dent in my car?” is not a productive way to start a conversation. Similarly, discussing budgets, in-laws and even diets can prove most vexing.

It’s not that these issues plumb the depths of Aristotelian philosophy. How is it that two policy analysts who can rationally debate something as complex as the nuances of Friedman and Keynesian economics can become wild-eyed beasts when talking about something that can be objectively determined simply by getting on the bathroom scale?
“Honey, you either put on weight or you didn’t. Can’t we talk about this calmly?”
“No!”

I know I am supposed to explain how to talk so your spouse will listen, but the reality is, you already know how to do that. It’s not that your friends are listening and your spouse is not. Most of the people we claim to be talking to are not at all listening, they’re just nodding. Haven’t we all lost friends because our values have changed and are out-of-sync with the old crowd? Our former friends are not listening to our new beliefs. Our spouse on the other hand is, and that’s why they are reacting.

If we want to talk so our spouses will really listen, then we have to start by understanding what it is they hear when we talk (that gets them to react so strongly).

We may be speaking, and they (our spouse) are definitely listening, but we haven’t a clue what it is we are really saying.
http://www.getbliss.com/

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