Communication

     In one of my areas on my mission, the Elders came over often during the dinner hour (sitting on our steps outside our apartment) because they were working in our area and didn't want to go home.  I was in a threesome, all of us Americans.  And the Elders, one was American, the other was a native.  He understood English but preferred Spanish.  I know what it is like to be excluded, and felt bad for this Elder.  We all loved talking English, but I was trying to include him.  I went out of my way to speak Spanish to him.  Well because of this, he took it all the wrong way.  Looking back in hindsight, he probably misunderstood why I was speaking Spanish to him.  He thought it was more than just a friendly gesture.  My body language, to him, must have been saying more than my words.  He wrote me a note confessing his undying love for me.  Well this blew me away.  I never intended for him to develop feelings for me.  That was farthest from my mind, I mean I was a missionary and a focused one.  This was an example of bad communication.  The end of the story...I didn't know what to do.  After several days I told my companions about it.  They decided that I should write him a letter back telling him that I wasn't interested.  Well this upset him.  He wrote me one more letter saying it was I that liked him, that he never liked me.  In the end it turned into emergency interviews with the Mission President, and then he still kept us both in the same area for another couple of months.
     When my husband and I had only been married for about a month, we went to a Relief Society activity, our husbands were invited.  They had a special guest speaker.  I don't even remember who it was.  This activity was about communicating with our spouse.  He had us turn to our spouse and practice "I messages" with them.  As a disclaimer he said, that sometimes he would spend couples home mad at each other.  Well I was just person.  When I was trying to practice with my husband, I just made up a scenario, and it went well.  My husband then brought up something that we'd been discussing for our first month that was a sore subject.  The "I messages" went South and I did leave feeling upset with him.  While "I messages" are important, it doesn't point fingers, it is hard to do sometimes.
     Another communication wall, for me, was when my sister-in-law (My husband's sister) lived with us.  My husband would come from work and then go immediately to the computer to check his personal email.  He wouldn't come and sit down and talk about his day right away.  He did eventually would but it would be right when I was trying to put the kids to bed.  My sister-in-law ended up being the one that would here his update.  I was never jealous of her because it was his sister.  It did make me feel bad though because I felt like all the important things he wanted to say would have already been said by the time I finished with the kids.  He would only talk about his day once and if it was me there than I got to hear it, but if it was my sister-in-law, then she would hear it.  This was hard.
     Our textbook, Marriage and Family The Quest for Intimacy gives some great suggestions on marital communication.  They are:

•  Discuss ways to spend your income
• Discuss their work and interests
• Express feelings together
• Avoid saying things that irritate each other
• Have pleasant mealtime conversations
• Listen to each other
• Perception that they are understood by the other
• Support each other
• Communicate affection and regard
• Avoid the silent treatment
• Confide in each other

It also says, "Satisfied couples talk about their marriages and their families.  They discuss their dreams and goals for the future.  And they continue to affirm each other through expressions of appreciation and compliments.  More compliments mean greater satisfaction with the relationship, because a compliment is a way of saying "I notice what you are doing and saying and I respect and admire you."  We need to look for the good in our spouse.  We need to fall in love with them every day.