I hadn’t plan on this being an online book study but if you have read this book, interested in reading this book and would just like to participate either here or on your own blog, feel free to grab the image on the left and post it on your site with a link back to me please.
For help on adding the “Exploring Love & Respect” image on your own blog, it’s very easy. You would either need to host the image on your own server or get an account with either imageshack, photobucket or any other image hosting site, than grab the code below:
If there is enough interest, I would be happy to post a “Mr.Linky” otherwise a simple link back from your site and/or a comment (no not that needy…lol, just helps so others can visit your blog and gain insight from your posts too), would be deeply appreciated.
I have to apologize for mistakenly writing Dr. Eggerichs name as “Dr.Emerson”; If you had been unable to find the book by
Dr.Emerson, it was my fault and I deeply apologize for the error on my part.
As I was reading Chapter 2, “To Communicate, Decipher the Code”, I reflected on how often we tend to failed as a couple to completely communicate thoroughly with each other and almost expect the other to have the ability to read each other’s minds.
I remember many times beginning a conversation with, “Well I figure you would….” or “I thought you would already know….” or just simply,” You should have just know….” and neglect the responsibility of not so much as belittling our spouses intelligence but rather give them the courtesy of giving them all the information rather than expect them to fill in the blanks.
Both are guilty parties, we live busy lives and sometimes if we don’t take the time to give someone a heads up, it’s hard to really expect the same for ourselves.
I liked the example of the 10th wedding anniversary that Dr. Eggrichs had described in the book, “Love and Respect”.
A wife expected her husband to forget their 10th wedding anniversary; Time after time she would drop hints and he managed to forget. This time no hints, and wow, he remembered.
He buys her a card, takes the time to find out that would be special for her and gets a gift and everything.
Heads home, gives her the card, chest all puffed out and beaming and she reads the card…and gets,”The Look”. You know the “Look” the one we get when we’re like…”Nice try but missed the mark”?
It’s a birthday card.
She looks past the gifts and the special dinner he has arranged and gets upset about the card. It’s the wrong card.
She gets angry and lets him know it, and he deflates…He went from doing something he thought was right, to he lost anyway.
Or how about our husbands?
We’re in opposite rooms and they yell a question to us. We answered back, but it’s the wrong answer. he gets upset and thinks we are ignoring him. We’re not but we just didn’t interpret the question like he wanted to…angry feelings ensues.
I don’t think anyone intentionally goes out and says, “I’m not happy to we are yelling,” but as husband and wives we can forget that what we say and what we actually process can be two different things to us.
I like how Dr. Eggrichs describes how women have pink hearing aids and glasses and men have blue hearing aids and glasses and we see and process what we hear differently than guys do.
It’s not because we are less or they are less, but just…we do see and hear things differently.
Trouble is that we have to be careful that we are not decoding the message based on what is really there but based on what we want to hear…sometimes rather than really taking the time to listen to each other, husband and wives tend to already “jump the gun” and have an expected answer and when they don’t get it, and instead receive this “foreign code”…it’s easy to think that the other isn’t listening and base it on what WE are really wanting to hear.
Confused yet?
Basically…if we respond with negavity, “You don’t do this…” or “You do this….” what our husbands are hearing isn’t what we consider to be constructive criticism but contempt….They feel we are looking down to them and they aren’t measuring up; However when husbands respond to us by not saying anything or with silence, what do we do? We think they are being hostile to us.
See how our pink hearing aids and our blue hearing aids are interpreting the same thing but in different ways. Guys think they are listening to us, giving us what we want…we are decoding this as, they are hostile or angry.
Same goes with husband attempts or even that of a wife’s attempts…It helps to try and take a step back and see it not from our perspective or what we are hoping or wanting but rather…what are they trying to do and what were they trying to do?
Sometimes it helps lower the defenses and realize that our husbands or wives meant well, just they were doing what they thought was right based on what information was given and processed.
It really helps taking a step back and figuring out…how am I decoding his/her message and how might they actually decoding my message, instead of just taking for granted, they just know. They might actually not know at all and it’s not because of immaturity but that we are sending out all these codes to each other and sometimes its not the right code.
It reminds me of when I was trying to type in my pin. I tried five or six times, swearing that I was using the right code. Frustrated, I went home, upset and angry that my card, for whatever reason, just didn’t work.
I called the bank to find out what was going on and turns out…I never had the right code at all. Instead of taking a breath, taking a step back and figuring out what was going on, I kept trying to use a non-existent pin to make a purchase.
Same goes in our relationships with our spouses. Just because it maybe “1234″, that doesn’t make it the right code to decode what our spouse is trying to tell us. It may work for us on something else, but it doesn’t mean that it will open the door to everything else.
Imagine how silly I felt when I realize I was using the pin for my cellphone voice mail to try to make a purchase. Nice, huh?
Men and women look and hear things differently and just because we maybe able to “decode” what our close friends, sisters, mothers, aunts, etc. are saying, doesn’t mean that we can use that same “code” to understand and get through to our spouses.
I like how Dr. Eggrichs described it on page 39 of,”Love and Respect” that “Often both spouses have goodwill but are not deciphering each other’s code. She criticizes out of love, but he “hears” only disrespect.He distances himself to prevent things from escalating, which is the honorable thing to do, but she “sees” only his failure to be loving!”
How often have we pursued our husbands who retreat to try and calm things down only to say,”You don’t love me?”
How often have they say,”Stop nagging me,” when we keep rehashing a subject instead of allowing them to “have space” to think?
We forget that as women, we are taught to be proactive, to keep at it till it’s fixed; Men, men are different than us. They do have an honor code that says retreat to protect her. Men with basic goodwill as Dr. Eggrichs described, don’t want to keep fighting verbally. They often do what they think will help calm the situation and back down and rather than respect that, how often do we use that as an opportunity to keep pushing forward and not stopping to think…they aren’t pushing back?
Most couples, men and women, have basic goodwill toward each other, but they get caught in this cycle that there is no end because they both out of what they think is love and respect for each other, are trying to be the better guy for it and in the process, both forget…whoa, the other really is trying and just interprets as, they aren’t trying.
The perspective I gained from reading this is that sometimes, we both have to learn where to draw our boundries and respect each other’s boundries instead of stepping over when we see the other give; Although we are both looking at the same situation, we are processing it in different ways and we have to remember, what is our viewpoint isn’t their viewpoint and it’s not wrong, but just that it’s we’re different.
This isn’t an accident. God made us different and we are taught and reminded to respect those differences. By doing so, then are we able to really find our common grounds as husband and wife and work together. He isn’t you and you’re not him.
Rather than push and pull to try and make the other, like…well, the other, it’s about going, time out…how is he really seeing this and is this more how I (him or you) want to see it and interpret or maybe I (him or you) need to ask myself, am I angry because this isn’t define by how I am seeing it or is this being define by a genuine problem that we both can see equally.
Most of the time, it’s probably based on misunderstandings caused by the both of us, interpreting how we are seeing it and not really how the other is really seeing and hearing the issue.
Just like a voice mail pin code won’t make a grocery purchase, talking to our spouses based on a code they can’t understand, won’t help get the message through.
Matthew 19:4 (NLT)-“Haven’t you read the Scriptures?” Jesus replied. “They record that from the beginning ‘God made them male and female.’
We can’t get around that we are different from our husbands. It’s a basic biological and scripturally fact and it doesn’t make us any less or any more than the other, but it does make us have to remember that we can’t put a round peg into a square hole, no more than we can put a square peg into a round peg.
Our husbands (and wives, we aren’t any more innocent) aren’t ignoring us or don’t care about us; Just that they decode things differently from us and if we want to successfully communicate to them, we need to learn to “speak their language.” This goes for both sides of the picture.
He’s no more sure than you are sure but men weren’t created to be expressive like we were. We were the communicators who had to be able to convey to our children, that they were loved, they were needed; We are the teachers who had to learn to express ourselves to get our messages across; Men couldn’t do that because out in the field, it could cost them tonight’s dinner.
They had to proceed cautiously, and sometimes even retreat if it meant eventually reaching their goal.
Just as much as we appreciate when they do something without us telling them and being allowed to make mistakes, so do we appreciate it when they let us talk and rather than give us space, they give us time.
What happens on Sunflower Faith?
