Doyle Barnett - 20 Communication Tips for Couples: A 30-Minute Guide to a Better Relationship

N EW W ORLD L IBRARY
S AN R AFAEL , C ALIFORNIA

31 39 (80.6 99.7 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

behind your mates words

T his book is a quick, easy guide to some key communication skills. You can practice them every day, with every person; however, some of these skills are best used with the people you love and trust the most.

I believe that trust is the foundation for loving, fulfilling, and powerful relationships. Despite my work with many couples over the years, I still dont know how to assist a relationship in which one or both partners are not completely honest with each other.

When you know your partners actions are motivated more by their concern for you and your needs than they are by their own desires or their needs to be in a relationship with you, then you know they are a true friend and that you can trust them.

I have tried to keep these communication tips as brief and simple as possible but this does not mean this little book is to be taken lightly. You hold a powerful tool in your hands that can help you improve all of your relationships and, ultimately, improve the quality of your life and help you realize your goals and dreams.

C ommunication is a huge part of our human experience not only with others but within ourselves as well. While helping clients with their relationship problems, I often spend the majority of our sessions teaching them communication skills. These skills dont save every relationship, but most couples find that practicing these skills helps them get along with, appreciate, and understand each other better. In addition, this better communication brings greater clarity and greater understanding of themselves.

Being able to express ourselves effectively provides us with not only more choices but more opportunities to live as we choose.

Once two people learn to communicate, they can truly better understand each other. They may still disagree, but with better communication skills, they can understand why the other thinks and feels the way he or she does.

In the relationship groups I lead, I often ask heterosexual people what they are looking for in a mate, and they often reply that they are searching for someone like themselves. So, I ask, if they are looking for someone like themselves, why then are they seeking out someone of the opposite sex? As it usually turns out, most people want to be with someone who is different from themselves so different, in fact, that they are opposites.

Most people actually desire the chemistry or friction that happens between two opposites, but they also want to enjoy and appreciate their differences rather than suffer from them. The joy in relationships comes when we are able to celebrate our differences, and communication is the key to understanding, relating to, and celebrating those differences.

Despite the many books available on relationships and communication, the divorce rate in most English-speaking countries still hovers somewhere over fifty percent. Obviously, a lot of couples still have difficulties relating to and communicating with each other. Many of the couples I interview say they have neither the time nor the desire to sit down and study an entire book on relationships.

This thirty-minute guide presents twenty basic communication tips that can be practiced at your own pace. Every person and every relationship is somewhat unique, so feel free to adjust the wording of these tips to your own style of speaking and understanding. All these skills are easy to learn, but it takes practice to remember them in day-today living.

F riends usually put each other first, while those who have become lovers without developing a true friendship often put themselves or the relationship first. Often, people get so involved in their relationship that they forget to care about their mate as an individual. They are so concerned about getting what they want or need that they no longer care about their partners needs. They play the game of love, with their lover as their opponent. They compete to get their own needs met, believing that if they do, the relationship will work.

Those who put their friendship with each other first can create fulfilling relationships. This doesnt mean putting your partners needs as an individual before your own; it does mean putting your partners needs as an individual before the needs of the relationship. Friends not only love each other, but genuinely like and accept one another just as they are. Lovers, on the other hand, often want to change or improve each other to fit their own needs.

Couples that are true friends stay friends even if they split up. They acknowledge they cant be a couple, but they still care about and enjoy each others company. They want each other to be in a fulfilling relationship. Those who were just lovers can be possessive and jealous of their ex-partners new love and happiness.

When you have a friendship, instead of going to your other friends for help or advice about what you should do in your relationship, you and your mate can work together as friends, turning to each other for advice about what you should do in your relationship.

For example, if you and a good friend are working together on a project and have a disagreement about it, you wouldnt let that disagreement come between you. Instead, you would work together as a team to find a solution the problem is outside of your friendship and cant affect it.