What to Do When Your Conversation Becomes Boring and Unpleasant ( Part 2 )

The Enemies of Good Conversation

The conversation you and your wife once shared was enjoyable for both of you. You looked forward to talking to each other. But lately, it's not at all pleasant. In fact, it's something you often do out of duty rather than choice. That's because you have developed habits that make your conversations unpleasant. I call those habits Enemies of Good Conversation.

The First Enemy of Good Conversation is using conversation to force agreement to your way of thinking. It's okay to negotiate with your spouse, but it's not okay to be disrespectful. Negotiation should start with a problem and end with a mutually acceptable way to solve it. When disrespect enters the picture, you not only fail to solve the problem, you leave with hurt feelings.

If you are thinking, "I'm right and you're wrong," watch out! You are just an utterance away from disaster. The Love Buster, disrespectful judgments, will not straighten your spouse out, as you hope. Instead, it will drive your spouse away from you. At first, you will develop emotional distance with your tactics, as your superficial conversation demonstrates. But eventually it will lead to physical distance -- separation or divorce.

Instead of trying to force agreement to your way of thinking, discuss your differing perspectives with respect. Your spouse's point of view is worth considering. After you fully understand it, you may be persuaded to her way of thinking.

Quite frankly, couples are easily influenced by each other when they are respectful. Their joint wisdom is more profound than the wisdom of either of them separately, and they know that. But that wisdom is uncovered only through respectful persuasion, never through disrespectful judgments.

The Second Enemy of Good Conversation is dwelling on mistakes, past or present.

One of our important emotional needs is admiration. So whenever you remind your wife of achievements of her past or present, you deposit love units because she needs to be admired.

But when you remind her of her failures, you do the opposite. You undermine her confidence and self-esteem, and withdraw love units.

Criticism is painful in marriage because we need admiration so much. We want our spouses to be the most encouraging person we know, one who constantly reminds us of our strengths. We certainly don't want to be discouraged by being reminded of our weaknesses, particularly if it comes from our spouse.

In an intimate relationship we give the keys to our inner self to someone else so that person can be in a position to meet our emotional needs. Intimacy magnifies the pleasure we receive when our needs are met. But it also makes us vulnerable. The pain of criticism is magnified in an intimate relationship. Unprotected, we expose the china closet of our feelings. If the person is critical of us, they are like the proverbial "bull in a china closet." One romp through our inner self and we are not so quick to invite the bull back again.

Criticism now and then is bad enough, but spouses often get into the habit of dwelling on mistakes. These mistakes are mentioned repeatedly in an effort to make sure that the mistake is understood and corrected. But that's not how mistakes are understood or corrected. All this does is magnify the pain until conversation is too unpleasant to continue. Then hope of respectful negotiation is lost.

In your letter, you say that you and your spouse say the same things again and again. You may be referring to this enemy, dwelling on past mistakes. You may find yourselves repeating these criticisms because this enemy dominates your conversation. If that's the case, see it for the enemy it is. As long as you tolerate dwelling on mistakes, you cannot expect to meet each other's needs for conversation. You may withdraw so many love units that it ruins your love for each other.

The Third Enemy of Good Conversation is using conversation to punish each other. When you use words to punish your spouse, you are being abusive. Verbal abuse can be as harmful as physical abuse. When you hurl insults at your wife, you are trying to withdraw love units. You want her to feel bad. When conversation is used to punish her, you have entered a period of emotional divorce, where all hope of reconciliation is gone. All you care about is balancing the books -- repaying her for the pain you felt over something she did to you.

After all I've said about being sensitive, it seems as if this enemy of good conversation shouldn't be a problem. But, for many couples, it is. In spite of all of their efforts to be respectful, and avoid criticism, they blow it all by saying some of the most hurtful things to each other when they lose their tempers. It sure does ruin intimate conversation, and often leaves couples talking about not much more than the weather.

I would imagine that you and your wife have engaged in at least one of these three enemies of good conversation, and perhaps, all of them. That indulgence has not only left you with a history of unpleasant conversation, but it also may have prevented you from using some of the friends of good conversation. For example, if you are disrespectful, critical or verbally abusive, it's almost impossible to "investigate, inform and understand" your spouse. She will keep her thoughts to herself to prevent your from hurting her with your enemies of conversation.

Trust is essential for intimate conversation. If your wife thinks that you might use her personal revelations against her when an enemy of conversation has taken control of you, her lack of trust will prevent her from revealing her innermost thoughts.

On the other hand, if she knows you will guard her private thoughts and protect them from your criticism, she will be more likely to reveal them.

Enemies of good conversation often prevent implementation of the friends of good conversation. I suggest you focus on ridding your conversation of the enemies first. There's no point in introducing a friend of conversation when you haven't yet learned to be respectful. But then, after the enemies are rooted out, you will find that the friends make your conversation downright fascinating. Instead of being boring and unpleasant, your conversation will encourage you to spend hours together, creating the kind of intimacy that you need to have a fulfilling marriage.

Take pride in this effort. Become a professional at being the kind of conversationalist who meets your spouse's need in a far better way than anyone else could. It will encourage your spouse to develop the same skill in meeting your need. Then neither of you will ever feel like every conversation is like every other one you've had -- boring and unpleasant. Instead, each conversation will give you a little better understanding of each other, and bring you closer together.