Open Communication in Relationships
How do you compromise and harness healthy communication in your relationship? What does it mean to have "open communication"? How do you avoid the blame game, when you are operating on high emotion? Joyce and Juancho answer all of these questions based on their experiences and the things they learned in their relationship.
Juancho and Joyce have been together for years. They have been on a journey of constantly learning to communicate. Juancho described ‘open communication’ as having the need for immense listening, understanding, and not reacting when emotions are high especially. It is more about balancing everything.
For Joyce, open communication is the comfort in the relationship, comfort of actually expressing yourself without the fear of the other person reacting violently.
What constitutes healthy communication?
○ Ask these questions towards each other without talking back or reacting: How have I hurt you this week? How can I improve? And will you forgive me?
○ We have different perspectives and emotions and it’s important to have a safe space where we can actually vent out. The constant fear of any kind of relationship when opening up is the idea of fitting the mold of the other person so he/she could be completely loved. But what we should understand is that when most people come to us and tell us everything, they just want to be listened to and not just instantaneously open up a solution.
The simplest thing that I ever learned in our relationship is that sometimes we need to shut up. Shut up until the person tell you to share. On thing I learned from one of our friends is that if it's not against the Bible, if the argument or the situation is not against the Bible, don't sweat it. Don’t make a big deal out of it. If it's something that's not against the Bible, then find your middle ground, don't always think you have doing the conversation. And one thing that you always say is that we're on the same side and we’re not enemies. (JP)
“Don’t be too emotionally invested on it or be distracted about your emotions. Pray for it. Talk to someone about it. ”
How do you avoid playing the blame game when you are on high emotions?
Don’t compartmentalize. Feel the emotions and let them out. Never do anything when you’re on high emotion. as the Bible said, your heart can be so deceitful. It could deceive you into doing or saying things that you don't really mean. And the best way that we handle our situation being on high emotion and being complete opposites, affirm first when you’re on high emotion then take a break, then recoup. Get together again and start talking about it. Obviously, we’re humans and sometimes we cannot avoid it. You just have to pray. But honestly, you have to really try your best to find the solution first to kind of meet in the middle because when you hurt your partner or your loved one, it scars them and scars you as well. (JP)
Was it hard going through the waiting season?
○ Life is a lot of ups and downs. A lot of trial and error until you do find God's best for you. It's hard because you go into relationships, or different types of situations or the waiting season, thinking that this might be it. The only thing that we can do is have faith that this life is just temporary and whatever happens, good or bad in the current situation that you have, you still have heaven to look forward to. (JT)
○ I was healed from the past with the mindset that, knowing that everything that happened in my past, God had the hand in, He was sovereign over it, that he loves me and everything that happens to those who love Him, happens for good. I believed in that promise. Because of everything that God had allowed to happen, including the hurts in our past, we realized that they were all necessary for us to become the people that we are today. (JP)
How would you reach out when you’re the one who needs to be listened to?
You have to talk to the people who actually care for you. Because if you want to open up about something, if you need to be listened to, you have to have the other person be willing to just listen to you. I think that you will be listened to the way that you will be listened to depends so much on who's listening to you. Because if the person that you reach out to is not willing to listen to you. That's going to be very tough. Also, find a way to be straightforward with what you want to happen. I think the best kind of communication is back-and-forth communication. So, if you want to be listened to you also have to listen. Don't be afraid to reach out. There are people who are willing to be empathetic and loving towards you. (JP)
How do you manage communication differences during conflicts?
Just be quiet and just praying about it first. Just being able to not react whenever something comes up. We always have these arguments that are easy to fight about but we kept our mouth shut and then let it go down. We always remind ourselves that we are not enemies. There is a spiritual battle that's happening. You have to take that into consideration and just say that ‘this too shall pass’. (JT)
How do you react well to awkward topics that you don’t want to talk about?
You can dodge it. Change the conversation in a loving way, politely and intentionally sway the conversation elsewhere. If they are your friends, you can tell them blatantly that you aren’t comfortable on talking about the topic. And sometimes, it’s better to approach them privately for us not to hurt the other person. (JT)
Any tips on communicating better?
○ Do things with love. You have to always know that you love them. And you're on the same side. You'll always love them no matter what. (JT)
○ You have to remember what your ultimate goal is. What is your goal in this relationship? Is your goal to constantly be right, to prove the other person wrong? Or is your goal to make the other person feel loved, to create a healthy relationship, and to honor God. if that is your goal, then conduct yourself in that manner. (JT)
○ Allow yourself to also commit mistakes. There will always be times where we hurt each other and we sin against each other, we sin against God. But just knowing that ultimately, our purpose is not to be constantly right. Our purpose is to honor God and respect and love each other. (JP)
From Episode 57 of Adulting with Joyce Pring: “OPEN COMMUNICATION IN RELATIONSHIPS”
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Adulting With Joyce Pring is the How-To’s of your 20’s told by a 20-something, traversing through life expectantly and with gusto!
Episode summary by Chiara
Soli Deo Gloria!