Communicating
By David & Maureen Brown
A Communication Exercise
In the communication age we all live in today, it can sometimes be a bit of a shock to find that it is not always easy to communicate to our life partner.
When couples first meet communication is not a problem but as a relationship deepens this can change and begin to place a strain on that relationship. Set out below are some tools to aid communication.
In this exercise we are seeking to help couples to put the Heart back into their relationship.
The following exercise has been designed to make it easier to open up avenues of communication. Individually write your answers to the following questions taking as long as you need and if possible do this apart from each other.
Exchange your answers and read through at least twice, without commenting, and then discuss ensuring that your give your partner time to understand what you feel about your answers.
- What are my feelings about our overall communication?
- How do I feel about the way we communicate on money, sex, hobbies etc?
- How do I let my partner know when I want him/her to do something
specifically for me?
- When we disagree we usually
.
- The three things I would like to change in our relationship are
.
- Two things I would like to do to help us build a better relationship are
.
- How do I feel about the way in which we express affection and appreciation
to each other?
- The things I like best about my partner are
- The things I value most about my partner are
- What I value most about our relationship is
.
- On a scale of 110 (1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest) I would put our relationship at ___ Using the same scale I think that you would put this at ____
When you have read through and discussed each others responses did anything surprise you?
Are there areas you would like to work on?
Do you need to discuss anything with a neutral third party?
If this list looks a bit daunting, choose just one or two topics to start with. When you have discussed this/these continue with more questions at a later date or dates.