Keeping Marriage Alive: Honesty Between Partners

Rise From Ashes with Carol Gockel

Key Points

• FB reminder about a documented conversation between hubby and me. He spoke the truth but I was secretly hoping he'll say something nice.
• Speaking the truth vs stating the obvious on my pregnant body
• Difference between Communicating vs Telling. The difference is in the back and forth and a key ingredient, listening with full intention not thinking about how to respond.
• Fighting fair, there is such a thing. Not being truthful about you are expecting and the adopting of different tones will affect the entire conversation exchanges.
• Pick a time, have an agenda, be open, and listen. Agree to disagree so that allows both parties to be completely honest with each other without repercussion.

Book a clarity call with Carol at http://bit.ly/BookCallCG

Ep. 5 Keeping Marriage Alive: Honesty between Partners

Burned, crashed, reduced to dust then rise on the ashes. In this episode, we have a very special guest whose dream is to inspire and empower people around the World.

She is a confidence coach, speaker, author of the book Breakthrough with the legendary Les Brown, I’m a mum of two, a loving daughter and a devoted wife. A model woman can juggle life, work and have it all, you too can have it all.

Welcome to Rise From Ashes Hi I’m Carol, in this episode, I’ll be sharing about honesty between partners.

Honesty in Marriage

Is complete honesty always the right choice in a marriage? Are white lies okay? Here, Carol shared a discussion about honesty between partners.

(0:43 - 1:09) What’s honesty? Well there’s a reason for this podcast recording is Facebook. Facebook gave me a reminder of a post that I did when I was pregnant with my daughter, approximately eight years ago. This time when I was actually, you know, waiting to give birth.

(1:15 - 1:49) When I look at myself in the mirror and I told my husband, ‘Oh my god, I feel ugly and fat’. He looked at me, being the truthful and honest person that he is,he say ‘No, you’re not ugly, and you’re fat’. So thinking back,I had mixed emotions. First thing I was like, ‘I can’t believe you just called me fat in my face’, like of course I’m carrying a baby, right put on weight.

(1:52 - 2:16) I would prefer that he is honest because what will it become if he were to say, ‘No you’re not fat, you know, you’re only looking this way because you are carrying a child and you know you’re putting on weight because you are nourishing the body of our unborn baby and that would be so fake from the way I look at him, from the way I know him rather.

(3:08 - 3:17) That really brings to this thought about this today’s podcast about being honest. Honesty between partners.

Communicating Versus Telling

A good marriage thrives on the open exchange of emotions, desires, and beliefs and when spouses no longer communicate, a marriage nurtures no one. Carol shared:

(3:18 - 3:23) Well, there’s actually a difference about speaking the truth versus stating the obvious.

(3:31 - 3:56) A lot of people thought that communicating with your partner is just, you know, me telling you something, you just give me an answer, giving me a response so yeah there you go we are communicating. You know, communicating versus telling, are two different things. When you are telling someone say, ‘Hey this is I wanted to do, this is what I wanted to hear’, and you’re actually creating a one way communication.

(3:57 - 4:36) Communicating is you state your intention, you state your case and then listen for the response. Most of the time, a lot of people between couples in particular, we do not listen. We are actually waiting, you know when the other person is responding and you’re actually thinking and just waiting and see how you can actually catch what they are saying and form a response immediately. So you’re not really communicating if you are not listening so there’s a difference between communicating versus telling.

(4:37 - 4:43) The difference about speaking the truth versus stating the obvious are also completely two different things.

Big Communication Problem

Fighting in a relationship is normal, an opportunity to learn more about your partner and how you can work together as a team and Carol totally understand that:

(5:09 - 5:46) But of course, I totally understand that sometimes when it comes to communicating with our partners and especially when you have a partner for a very very long time, you know, you sort of like forget to be courteous and polite when communicating with each other, you’re like, ‘You know, you asked me this and I gave you the answer so what the hell do you want, what else do you want?’ And you usually if we each party, I would say women, each party, because when we ask for something, we’re hoping to get a response and if the response doesn’t fit into the idea of we want to have, and what we want to get, we will end up fighting.

(5:48 - 6:01) Fighting is also a type of communication as well. I don’t know if you actually heard of it, that is actually a particular way of fighting, it's called fighting fair.

(7:54 - 8:15) Sometimes, this miscommunication or this so called second guessing or jumping the gun, some of them might actually explain. This whole thing about communicating becomes non communicating because you are feeling this way but you’re not telling the other person.

For a better relationship

It's important to make your partner feel how important he is to you and your family by telling your partner what Carol shared:

(8:23 - 9:03) Rather you know, have the better understanding and by asking ‘How is your day?’, and ‘How are you feeling?’ And it’s very important because we all have feelings right, most of, for us moms, you know we have feelings and we want to talk to our man about our feelings but for men, they’re not really that good about sharing their feelings. And it will be good for us to, rather just, ‘How you feel?’ or rather say, ‘How did your day go?’, ‘What is the best thing that happened to you today?’ and ‘What is the worst thing that happened to you today, would you want to talk about it?’ and if they don’t want to talk about it just leave them be and ask him look, ‘Do you want me to leave you alone?’, ‘Do you want to tell me when you’re done?’, rather than just, ‘Sure I’ll leave you be I’ll just walk away’.

Men will always be men

If your partner isn't ready to share their feelings at that time, this might mean scheduling a time when they are, here, Carol shared:

(9:03 - 9:17) Sometimes you know, men, they are like kids unfortunately, then they do want to have a bit of time of time to process that emotion before they go try to tell you how they really feel.

(9:20 - 9:36) I realized that when it comes to effective communication and being honest between partners is you know, you have to be honest and respect their space and when it comes to communicating is like picking a right time because you have to read the situation.

(9:54 - 10:06) Pick a time and say, ‘You know look, can I s...