One of Laura Doyle’s intimacy skills is Respect.
What does it mean to respect your husband?
In my experience, respecting him means to listen to him.
And I mean, REALLY listen to him.
If you were concerned about your health and went to a doctor, you will really listen right?
Because you respect the doctor.
You recognize this doctor knows something you don’t.
Or he/she might know something you don’t.
Your husband is smart, if not, you wouldn’t have married him.
All these years with him, you might have accumulated a bunch of evidence that you are smarter than him. I get it! I’m with you!!!
But,
I had a choice to make.
Do I want to continue to be right, and miserable?
Or do I want a loving relationship with my husband?
I chose the latter.
So I let go of my belief that I’m smarter than him.
I decided to really listen to him.
When he is speaking, I listen to what he’s saying.
I don’t assume what he’s saying.
I don’t roll my eyes in my imagination.
I stop talking both with my mouth and my brain.
Just focus on what he’s saying for a moment.
No judgement, no correction, no insertion of my counter argument, both with my mouth or with my brain.
In my experience, what helps me to verbalize what I think I heard.
Often I get corrected, meaning what I thought I heard wasn’t quite what he said.
If I was respectful and listened attentively, but I still understood him wrong, then this begins the conversation. He might correct me, then I say, “Oh I see now,” and open, non-judgmental, intimate conversation begins.
The communication I get to have with him is so much more pleasant now, because I attentively listen to him.
He feels heard and he also gets to opportunity to clarify things if I wasn’t quite getting it.
This feel like a lot safer and more intimate conversations now.
And I feel loved and respected in turn.
An amazing feeling.
I invite you to just stop talking and thinking when he’s talking and really try to listen to him in a pure sense.
And let things flow from there.
Amazing what happens next ❤️
