Marriage

Even as I attempt to be somewhat discreet, I can never resist stealing at least a glance at couples seated in restaurants enjoying what appears to be a date. More often than not, the two are either staring at their respective cell phones or simply silently eating. Rarely are they engaged in conversation with each other. There is of course nothing wrong with silence, but I often wonder if that quiet is the peaceful result of uncomplicated pleasure in simply sharing the same silent space together, or if it is a less affirmative habit. Are they comfortable or careless? Content or complacent? Or maybe some of both? Convinced that conversation is both human and humanizing, I worry that that silent time may be more often simply passive or resigned than thoughtfully intentional.

Recently my husband and I accepted an unexpected invitation to attend a reunion with long ago school friends of ours. We spontaneously dropped everything and traveled across the country to spend a long weekend with several couples we had had little contact with for years. As a final event for that improbable, happy group, the host duo had organized a game they called, “The Not-So-Newlywed Game.” The game was played just as one might guess it would be. The husbands and wives took turns answering questions as they predicted their spouses would answer them. We had all been married for decades, so we engaged in the play with great expectations that we would all surely have the correct answers at the ready. We were all surprised and a little embarrassed by our poor predictions.

Among the questions were:

-Your spouse has the day off in an empty house. How does he/she spend the day?

-What is one of the most thoughtful gifts your spouse has given you?

-Is your spouse more like his/her mom or dad?

-What is the most common way that your spouse is extravagant?

-If your spouse could only eat three foods for the rest of his/her life, what would they be?

-Which of the two of you is more decisive?

-If the two of you were on a date, which of the two of you would be most likely to look at your phone during the date?

-Which one of you usually picks the restaurant?

-If you had to leave the house in an emergency, what two things would your spouse say you would grab on your way out?

-Who is most likely to remember the name of a friend they were just introduced to?

-When he/she was young, what did your spouse say he/she wanted to be when he/she grew up?

-Who tends to be late more often, you or your spouse?

-What is your spouse’s go-to ice cream flavor?

-What chore does your spouse most dislike?

-What kind of cake does your spouse like for his/her birthday?

-How long does it take for your spouse to get ready in the morning?

-Who has been an important mentor for your spouse?

-What problem did your spouse used to have that he/she has conquered?

-What would your spouse say is your best quality?

Based on the findings of scientific study, we shouldn’t have been surprised by the poor results of our predictions. William Ickes, a scholar on how accurate we are at reading what other people are thinking, concluded that strangers engaged in a first conversation with others, predict accurately what that person is thinking about 20% of the time. Close friends and family members do better, but still not particularly well. They predict accurately about 35% of the time.

Most surprising to me was his finding that the longer people are married, the more poorly they do with predictions of each other’s preferences and opinions. Not surprisingly, they assume they know each other very well, but their predictions are too often based on old experience and not kept current with new information. (Nicholas Espley, “Mindwise: Why We Misunderstand What Others Think, Believe, Feel, and Want.” New York: Vintage, 2014). In other words, we may content ourselves with knowing a version of our spouse from years earlier without making significant effort to stay current with new versions of the person we married. I would suggest that perhaps we may spend too many evenings side by side but not talking, or, in other words, being too often alone together.

During an unusual season of Church service, my husband and I were assigned to live for four years in Argentina. My husband had spent years serving and interacting in Spanish, so his language capacity was current and robust, but I arrived in Buenos Aires able to understand only the very most basic, rudimentary Spanish, and able to say even less. I was powerfully convinced that my ability to engage with and understand the Argentine people and significantly offer something of myself in service would be mightily influenced by increasing my ability to communicate with those marvelous people. I wanted to know them and enable them to know me.

Even as I dove headlong into all kinds of language learning activities, I identified conceptual considerations that I felt would strengthen and advance my language learning cause. I believed that five particular qualities of heart and behavior could inform and deepen my efforts. Perhaps the same qualities are relevant for couples who are also seeking to become better communicators with each other in order to know and be known more fully by their spouses.

1. Motivation. Why do I want to learn to understand and speak Spanish or communicatee more effectively with my spouse and others? Are my motives unselfish and worthy? Do I genuinely desire to know and understand the people with whom I am seeking to communicate in order to love and serve them more generously?
2. Am I appropriately aware of my need for heavenly help? Have I made my peace with the fact that I can’t achieve the goal alone? Am I eager to be a careful listener even as I seek to be an able speaker?
3. Am I willing to work hard? Do I acknowledge the simple reality of the difficulty of the task and the implicit energy I will need to expend to achieve the goal?
4. How do I intend to use any capacity I am able to achieve? Is my intention focused on doing and being good and on building and blessing both myself and others as we grow together?
5. Am I prepared to do all that I do with a generous and pure love of God, of others, and of myself? Will love drive and sanctify it all?

As we seek to engage in more conversation, it’s helpful to remember that not all conversation is of equal value. In fact, if the conversation includes competition, a goal of personal victory or being right at the expense of the other, or any message of unkindness, then silence would be better than engagement. Certain phrases are considered “conversation stoppers” per se. Those to-be-avoided phrases might include:

“You always…” and “You never…”

“Yes, but…”

“You should be more like…”

“I don’t have this problem with anyone but you.”

“You’re overreacting.” And “It’s not that big a deal.”

“Calm down.” Or “You’re crazy.”

On the other hand, verbal interaction that is truly connecting conversation is marked by certain essentials, especially asking careful questions and then listening intently to the answers. Too often our default verbal interaction consists primarily of telling stories, offering didactic information in an authoritative way, or explaining to a captive listener how he or she “should” solve a personal problem.

Those presentational responses are not as connecting and generous as is a balanced, two-way sharing of ideas in a thoughtful linguistic exchange. The end place of a conversation engaged in that way is often different from the starting place. Both conversationalists will have gained new insights and refined their thinking as a result of the back-and-forth sharing of ideas and perspectives. Profound, promising conversation – especially with spouses, children, and close friends – is most powerful and binding when it feels like an interaction among loving, trusted thought partners.

We have likely all played a game standing in a circle with a group of friends. The first speaker offers a beginning phrase, then the next adds a responsive phrase or piece of narrative. The game continues until all those in the circle have contributed aloud to the resulting story with the final player putting the linguistic period at the end of the eclectic, cooperative, emergent narrative. The final result is the unpredictable outcome of different perspectives all woven together in a generous welcome of ideas. That’s the way a cooperative conversation feels. In both cases, the result is almost certainly rich, more clever, and different than anyone could have predicted, and the process is happy pleasure.

At least as important as the careful comments offered in a connecting conversation is the careful listening that precedes the responses. Real listening is not passive silence. Ideally, to promote the kind of conversation that deepens understanding and binds people together, real listening includes receiving another’s thought, asking clarifying questions, turning it over a few times in your mind, considering it in the context of your own thoughts and experiences, then responding with a potential insight or new way of looking at the original thought.

Real listening promotes an exchange of ideas with no one choosing to feel criticized or threatened by an alternative thought. The newness of another’s input can feel exciting and enlarging rather than competitive. That kind of engagement requires full attention and absence of ego. The goal is broadened, enriched thinking and increased connection, not victory.

Sometimes clarifying questions simply seek more information to enable the listener to respond in a better-informed way to the question. Clarifying questions have the added benefit of assuring the speaker that the listener is actually interested and engaged in the exchange. Even nods, eye contact, gasps, and facial expressions can evidence reassuring attention.

Clarifying questions can also advance the quality of the conversation per se if they include questions like, “What have you learned from that experience? How have you changed? Is there anything you would do differently next time?” Then listen to learn, and listen to love.

Good conversation is not always totally balanced. Often, one person will do more talking than the other because that person is working on a problem or simply wanting to flesh out a new thought. In those cases, a good listener will happily assume a quieter place in the conversation, but not a gratuitous, silent one. Engaged, active listening communicates love and promotes growth and closeness.

I tend to be a verbal processor of ideas and life in general. My husband’s contribution to my eager sharing of an idea or analysis I am working on (sometimes at great length!) contributes enormously to the breadth of my emerging thought. His perspective and life experiences are different from mine. The love I feel both from him and for him soar when he offers me the valuable, patient gift of his active listening, demonstrated by his full attention and engagement. I think we both benefit from and enjoy informing and refining our thoughts with the generous addition of another point of view, even – maybe especially – a challenging one. It’s nice and important to remember that almost certainly neither point of view is fully right nor fully wrong. A favorite family phrase we have repeated often for years is, “They’re both good. They’re just different.”  And informed by each other, they’re both better.

Deeper connection and learning from and with our spouses and others is a wonderful and worthy pursuit. Deliberate, generous conversation marked by active, engaged listening and thoughtful sharing advance that heavenly cause.