Trust in marriage is everything. How and what you communicate can directly affect the level of trust between the two of you. Below is a short video with a quick example of the sort of communication habits that can undermine trust in marriage. If you prefer reading, here is the transcription.
Transcription – How to Build Trust in Marriage With Clean Communication
Hi there. My name is Donna Tosky, and I am the facilitator of the “Between Men and Women” Couples Communication Retreat.
We just had a retreat [the video was originally filmed earlier this year], and now I’m at Bow Falls in beautiful Banff, Alberta. We’re just kind of taking some down time, but I wanted to shoot a quick video on something that comes up often in our Retreat.
What I say is that there’s a lot that affects your communication that’s underneath everything. There’s things going on that we just don’t realize the extent to which they affect our relationships.
For example, there was a couple in the retreat, and he didn’t like it when she went out with her girlfriends. So my deal is that women need to have girlfriends because we love to get together and talk and we’re very social beings. It just feels better when we can talk to other women.
But here’s what can happen…Deborah Tannen, who’s a sociolinguist, she has the science that shows us that women will often lead their conversations with what she calls “troubles talk”. What that means is a woman will talk about what she doesn’t like, or what’s on her mind that’s bugging her, or what drives her crazy. Sometimes, when you gather a lot of women together troubles talk can begin to look like man bashing.
So for this couple from the retreat, that’s what was going on. He didn’t like it that his wife would get together with other women and say negative things about him.
So we had a conversation about that in this Retreat. You need to be very careful that you don’t paint your partner in a negative light to other people because it has an impact, and it affects more than you realize.
So that was one of the big messages this weekend…don’t enroll other people in the stuff that you don’t like about your partner. Just don’t do that. Keep it clean and that’s how you can begin to build trust – keep your communication clean, not only your communication with your partner, but also what you say about your partner to other people that might have them feel betrayed.
Anyway, that’s kind of a big thing that I see with couples and particularly men. Men are very, very sensitive to that. They’re not in the conversation to defend themselves, so they feel very vulnerable when their wife goes out with other gals and talks about them. Just like women would feel if the tables were turned.
Here’s the thing. Men don’t generally do that. They don’t get together and talk bad about women. Maybe some of the young guys do. I apologize if you’re a young guy watching this, but I don’t know.
I just think that for the most part, what I know about it anyway, is that when I talk to a man, whether they’re in their 40’s and 50’s, and even late 30s, they don’t get together with other men and bad talk about their women. They just don’t do that.
If that happens it’s usually the women. No offense, but it’s very natural that that happens, and it’s called troubles talk. So we just have to be mindful of the trouble it is that we’re sharing with our girlfriends.
My name is Donna Tosky. Thanks for watching. Good-bye.
Want to Learn More About How to Build Trust in Marriage?
Clean communication is so important to the quality of your relationship and to building trust in marriage. The secret to keeping it clean, however, is often hidden from our view. It’s not just about what you say, but more importantly, it’s about understanding who you are speaking to.
There are so many differences between men and women that affect how we see relationship and what goes on between us. These differences affect what we say, how we say it, and what we expect our partners to say.
Fully understanding these differences can transform your communication and your relationship almost over night. That’s what the “Between Men and Women” Couples Communication Retreat is all about. The next retreat is just a few weeks away. For full details, including dates and prices, please visit www.betweenmenandwomen.com.
And remember…At Between Men and Women you don’t change because you don’t have to. Your communication, however, will change immediately.