One Simple Rule of Communication that Changed Our Marriage

Words. Words are so important in a marriage. Words are so fragile in a marriage. Words are so frustrating in a marriage. Solomon goes as far as to say in Proverbs 18:21, that “The tongue has the power of life and death.”

Yes, all of our words, to one degree or another, either bring life to our marriage or death to our marriage. While big arguments are the most obvious of examples, when it comes to words of death (sounds like a horrible movie because it is), there are smaller examples that we can miss. These smaller examples are . . . smaller, but they can also be more frequent, unaccounted for and add up to be relationally deadly.

These moments happen during times when our guards are down. When we are around co-workers, friends, relatives and neighbors, we guard our words. We think about we say. We don’t want to be taken the wrong way, hurt someone unintentionally or cause someone to move out our lives because of our careless words. But then we get with those we love and our guard comes down, which is so good…most of the time. BUT (big but), when it comes to all our words, I think Proverbs 13:3 is spot on: “Those who guard their lips preserve their lives, but those who speak rashly will come to ruin.” Proverbs 13:3.

Yes, words are huge part of what makes marriages work and what makes marriages fail. So we are to guard our lips to preserve our married life. This all makes sense in our best moments, but when we are _(i.e. tired)________ we forget. So here is one simple rule a mentor taught me 12 years ago that has served as a Word Guard at the Lowe house. He said, “My wife and I don’t talk about anything important before 9AM or after 9PM.” Why? Because that is the time they had learned their Word Guards had left their posts. Nancie and I applied this principle almost immediately after hearing it. What did we learn? It cut out a lot of our disagreements. TRULY. We learned our miscommunication had less to do about content and more to do about approach. When we were tired, we were off our guard and it made things harder than they had to be.

So what time of the day do you and your spouse tend to have less than stellar communication? For us the 9 to 9 rule works great because she is a morning person and I am a night person. For you PM may be great and AM is a no go for neither of you. Maybe it’s not right when you get home at night or when the kids are around.

Whatever that time is, get with your spouse today to determine the times when you shouldn’t talk about anything important. But make sure you talk about that at after 9AM and before 9PM or whatever time your guard is not too far down, as in dead.

from MarriedPeople Couples http://ift.tt/23ekNmF
via IFTTT