Follow-Up Study Guide To:
Stop Communicating With Each Other
Part 2 of 6 in the series “How To Get A Divorce”
April 6, 2008 Pastor
THINK OF ALL THE VARIOUS WAYS YOU
COMMUNICATE WITH PEOPLE DURING A REGULAR DAY IN YOUR LIFE
Write down the different mediums of communication and
why they are used. Many couples make the excuse, “We just don’t seem to communicate
anymore.”
Would you consider this to be an issue of availability
or priority?
READ I CORINTHIANS 12
This passage is dealing with the Body of Christ and
emphasizes that everyone has a role to play
Ê What do you think would happen
in the church setting if there was no form of communication?
Ê How would anything get done?
Ê What would be the quality of
results?
Ê How committed would the members
of the body be over time? Why?
NOW, COMPARE THIS ANALOGY TO YOUR
MARRIAGE
Ê Why do you think communication
is so important?
Ê What is your current communication
plan for your marriage?
Ê Have you prepared for
communication or are you just winging it?
Ê How has this worked so far?
Ê Can you think of any areas of
your life where winging it works and helps grow a successful part of your life?
COMMIT TO TALK TO YOUR SPOUSE ABOUT THE
NEED FOR A COMMUNICATION PLAN. BEGIN TO THINK ABOUT SPECIFIC TIMEFRAMES THAT WOULD
BEST SUIT YOUR SCHEDULE TO DISCUSS DAILY ROUTINES, REGULAR EVALUATIONS, AND
MORE SPECIFIC FAMILY ISSUES.
Sit down with your spouse and communicate why this is
so important to you and to your marriage success. Ask them to at least commit to a “trial” run
to see if you can both improve the overall level of communication in your
marriage and home.
START OFF WITH A COMMITMENT TO ‘DAILY
DEBRIEFINGS’
Ê When would be the best time to
have a daily opportunity for face to face communications?
Ê How much time is reasonable to
set aside for this?
Ê What might be some obstacles you
will face?
Ê How can you overcome these
obstacles?
Ê How often have you and your
spouse discussed how well the two of you have done in meeting each other’s
needs?
Ê How often have you discussed how
you have done in meeting marriage or family goals?
Ê How often have you discussed how
much you have grown in your marriage?
THINK ABOUT YOUR JOB FOR A MOMENT
Ê How would you feel if you never
had any form of evaluation?
Ê What would it be like to wonder
if the job was being done to satisfaction?
Ê How would that be an advantage?
Ê How would that be a hindrance to
your growth?
Ê Compared to your marriage, how
can a marriage grow without knowing if it’s growing in the right direction?
1. Sit down with your spouse and commit to a
time of evaluation for your marriage. The
first time you do this, you will have to be prepared with what you hope to
accomplish. It will get easier and clearer over time and with greater
frequency. This is more than a daily debriefing and will take a bit more time
and privacy. Set aside a time and place
and commit to follow through. In this
evaluation discuss such things as overall happiness, personal struggles, areas
of frustration or needed change, areas of success and enjoyment, and
understanding of each of your needs in the marriage. Communicate together how often you might need
this time of more structured evaluation time.
Schedule it on the calendar. Knowing that a regular evaluation time is a
part of your marriage expectations allows you to limit the number of random
blow-ups that sabotage the marriage relationship.
2. In the corporate
setting, how does your boss or company deal with specific ‘large or difficult’
issues? Most companies will reserve the right and see the need for having a team
meeting when specific issues need to be addressed. Many families seem to miss this logic and
allow very difficult or divisive issues to be discussed with no planning, no
thought to setting, and no idea of desired results. This is a destructive
pattern of poor family/marriage communication.
3. One of the strategies of our military is to
allow troops to come off of the frontline to rest, recuperate, and re-engage
mentally to be up to the challenge. If a
soldier is left to fight the frontlines all the time, mistakes are easily made,
often with devastating consequences. Marriages
can learn much from this strategy. No family or marriage will survive long term
living in a battle zone.
Ê When specific
issues arise in the marriage, how are you currently addressing them?
Ê Is there a
plan?
Ê Can anyone in
your family call a family meeting?
Ê Does your
family understand the importance of sitting down and discussing the issue in a
safe environment?
4. Talk to your spouse and family about
committing to a better “crisis” management strategy. Set the ground rules
before the meeting of what is allowed, what is fair, and what promotes the
safest place of communication. These types of family meetings are the sign of a
planned communication strategy and will promote long term growth although in
the midst of them, there will be times of difficult
and strained communication.