Most of us would say that communication is important in a marriage, but when we’re in the heat of the moment, most people find it hard to actually communicate well. Retired Navy SEAL Jason Redman and his wife Erica have learned to communicate through combat deployments, a life-threatening injury and recovery, business, alongside the regular challenges of family and marriage.
Whether you feel overwhelmed and end up giving your partner the silent treatment or flood them with all the points you feel like you need to make, ineffective communication eats away at your partnership and intimacy. You don’t have to feel like you’re locked in a constant stalemate.
Healthy Communication Skills: The Lifeblood of Our Marriage
We’ve learned the hard way that effective communication skills aren’t just about talking. Communication includes listening, but more importantly, actually caring about each other. Whether we’re discussing our day over dinner, tackling tough issues, or carving out quality time, how we communicate our positive emotions, and negative emotions, either strengthens our bond or drives a wedge between us.
In our journey together, we’ve discovered that effective communication is a skill we can nurture and improve to enhance our marital satisfaction over time. It’s not always easy, but it’s worth the effort.
Effective and enriching communication begins with a commitment. Here’s ours:
We’re in this marriage together. For life.
From high-stakes environments to everyday challenges of long-term relationships, communication is about more than just words. It’s respect, active listening, and working towards a stronger relationship. In this article, we’ll share communication busters we’ve learned to avoid, and communication boosters that have transformed our life together into an invincible marriage.
Whether you’re navigating a new relationship or looking to revitalize a long-standing partnership, we hope our insights will help you build a more connected, understanding, and resilient bond with your spouse.
Communication Breakdowns
Even when you’ve nurtured strong communication skills, things can go off the rails. With practice, you can learn to course correct much faster and reconnect. Here’s an example.
Last year, Jason had been on the road for several weeks traveling for work. It’s a common scenario for us. Erica was back at home juggling the organizational side of our business along with our home and kids. He got home on a Sunday and we hadn’t had much time together before we both headed into work on Monday morning, straight into a quarterly meeting.
Jay had been reviewing the reports and in his signature problem-solving, driven personality, he’d already identified several areas where he hoped the business could grow. It’s a strength most of the time.
As the meeting began, with Erica and several staff members seated around the table, Jay didn’t hold back:
“Look, the marketing sucks right now. We need to see how we can improve social media and outreach.”
Erica felt her face go hot and began blinking back tears. She had been solely managing these areas along with many other responsibilities while Jason was away. She knew there was room for improvement, but she felt hurt and defensive.
Jason failed to notice Erica’s reaction or lack of eye contact, so he pushed through the next part of the meeting. When he finally noticed her body language, he abruptly paused the meeting and Erica fled the room. Jason realized he’d overlooked her efforts and the way he’d shared it had hurt her.
Once Erica had time to regroup, we were able to have a constructive conversation. It wasn’t that she wasn’t doing a good job, she was. But to concentrate on the marketing at the level the business needed, required more time. And that meant freeing up Erica’s plate or bringing on another person.
Jay apologized. Erica was honest about what had happened in the meeting, and we found a constructive way forward.
But none of that would have been as straightforward if we had a history of ignoring each other, name calling, or disrespect. Start by paying attention to the habits that mark your discussion together.
Communication Busters
Communication habits can strengthen or damage relationships. How many of these negative behaviors creep into your conversations?
Not listening
Couples often fall into the trap of listening only to counter each other’s points, rather than truly hearing what our partner is saying. It makes our spouse feel unheard and unvalued. If Jay hadn’t been listening to Erica’s body language in that meeting, he wouldn’t have realized he’d hurt her.
Assumptions
Jumping to conclusions without seeking clarification can lead to misunderstandings. For instance, if one of us brings up long work hours, the other might assume it’s an accusation of neglect or infidelity, rather than asking for more information about the underlying concern with the simple phrase, “Tell me more.”
Defensiveness
When we feel criticized, our instinct is to defend ourselves, shutting down productive dialogue and preventing us from addressing real issues in our relationship. When Jason criticized the social media, Erica internally became defensive, preventing a productive conversation in the moment, but she kept it to herself, trusting that she just needed a minute to process.
Disrespect or contempt
If we allow disrespect into our interactions, whether through sarcasm, mockery, or even eye-rolling, this nonverbal communication and negative body language shows a lack of concern for our partner’s thoughts and feelings, which can severely damage our connection and ability to communicate effectively.
Anger
While it’s natural to feel angry at times, allowing unchecked anger into our discussions can be destructive. If we let our emotions escalate without taking time to step away and take a few deep breaths, we might say hurtful things that are hard to take back, especially in heated moments of conflict with our most important teammate.
Lack of appreciation
We sometimes forget to acknowledge the everyday efforts our partner makes in our romantic relationship, leading to feelings of being undervalued or taken for granted, building into resentment over time. Jay had always been appreciative of Erica’s efforts in the past, so this boardroom discussion wasn’t a pattern of behavior. It made it easier to address for both of us.
Making unilateral decisions
If one of us consistently makes decisions without consulting the other, perhaps because we fear a difficult conversation, the lack of communication undermines our partnership. On a deeper level, it says we don’t value our spouse’s input or consider them an equal in the relationship.
If any of these pop up regularly in your conversations, notice them and address them together.
Communication Boosters
You can begin to replace those communication busters with some of the techniques we used to get back on the same page in our quarterly meeting.
On one hand, the conversation was about business. But the more important conversation was about our partnership and showing that we cared about each other. Here are the things that helped us correct course quickly that day.
Full Respect
When you see someone as an equal partner, you approach every interaction with full respect. Jason had seen the product of our marketing efforts and rightly noticed room for improvement. But he forgot that a person, Erica, was the one behind those numbers. As soon as he realized he’d disregarded her efforts, he apologized and we were able to get back to problem solving.
Appreciation
A powerful communication booster, appreciation sets a positive tone for discussions. Once Erica had a minute, Jason acknowledged Erica’s efforts: “Erica, thank you for managing everything, especially the social media, while I was away.”
Additionally, you don’t have to wait until you’re in the middle of a discussion to use appreciation to strengthen your communication and connection. Start noticing things your spouse does for you and your family and say thank you. When it’s honest and specific, you’ll find it helps foster an emotional connection between you.
Ask questions
Instead of making assumptions or getting defensive, we’ve found it powerful to use the phrase, “Tell me more.” The goal isn’t to communicate perfectly, it’s to pursue honest communication to make your marriage stronger. And that means trying to understand where your spouse is coming from.
Take a break when you’re heated
Erica was overwhelmed in the meeting. Instead of lashing out or simmering in resentment, she recognized she needed a minute to regroup. She knew she would come back to the table and to Jay to explain why she’d been upset. But she couldn’t do that until she took a minute to process her own feelings.
Once she calmed down, she knew Jay hadn’t meant to hurt her. She’d felt overwhelmed not just by his evaluation of the marketing, but by the heavy load she’d carried while he was gone. Once we took a break, we could better hear each other and create a path forward together.
If you get overwhelmed during a discussion, find a way to give and take space in a healthy way. It shouldn’t be used to avoid hard conversations—only to allow you to calm down and come back to the table ready to work together.
Effective communication in marriage requires you to practice. These boosters can help you take the steps to hear each other better.
Invincible Communication
Our journey has taught us that communication in relationships is an ongoing practice. By focusing on respect, appreciation, and active listening, we’ve transformed our interactions and deepened our connection. This is how we’ve built an invincible marriage.
We’ve learned to steer clear of communication busters like disrespect and defensiveness. Instead, we prioritize communication boosters: showing full respect and expressing genuine appreciation.
Good communication isn’t just about the big conversations—it’s about building a foundation of trust and understanding everyday. By practicing consistently, it’s much easier to openly share our thoughts, feelings, and concerns.
The goal in an invincible marriage isn’t to win arguments or prove who’s right, but to make your partnership stronger. By committing to honest, respectful, and open communication, we can navigate any challenge, together.
