S2 Episode 2: Communicate What? Communicate This!
Episode Summary
Communication is one of the cornerstones of a healthy relationship. Communication is not just one person telling the other what they want and/or need from a relationship. Appropriate communication involves active listening as well as acceptance. If you want to be heard, you have to be willing to listen and process what is being said. Developing appropriate communication skills will serve you and your relationship.
In order to effectively communicate with your partner, you need to understand their communication style. Are they more comfortable speaking with you in person, in writing, or a combination of both? Once you understand how your partner communicates, you can adjust your response strategy. Take your time before you respond. Never assume you know what they are about to say. Don’t let initial emotional reactions get in the way of hearing your partner’s message.
Moreover, give yourself and your partner time to properly process what is being said. You would be surprised by how much answers change when people have the chance to really think about how things.
At the end of each episode, Marlee and Lis vent about commonly experienced issues in romantic relationships. In this episode, the ladies discuss who pays on the first date.
Show Notes
Open, clear, non-judgmental communication is a crucial and necessary part of a healthy relationship. When people communicate with their partners, they sometimes forget it’s a two-way street. It’s never one person bombarding the other with a message they want to deliver.
Open communication requires both parties to be open to hearing what the other person has to say without reacting, because if you are reacting, you’re not listening. You’re coming up with how you’re going to respond. Instantly getting ready to respond will never bring you what you ultimately want.
You should always leave room for your partner to speak without thinking you automatically know what they are going to say, even if you’ve known them for a long time and feel safe to assume what they’re trying to communicate. Let the other person finish what they’re saying, and if you still don’t understand, ask follow up questions.
It’s important to note that people do have their own unique communication styles too. Knowing your partner’s communication style will help you move forward more productively in a conversation. It’s also a much better option to talk face-to-face when having an important conversation so you can catch all the nuances of communication.
In this episode, the vent session topic is: When people judge a person who doesn’t offer to pay on the first date. Maybe you were rude or were nasty to the server. Maybe you seemed uninterested. The rules have changed, and you can’t always expect a man to pay for the date. This person rendering judgment needs to practice some self-awareness.
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Visit us at www.romancipation.com
Tired of toxic, boring, or dead-end relationships? Feeling lonely or clueless when it comes to love? Need a fresh perspective? Well, you found it. This is Romancipation, a podcast that challenges conventional ideas about sex, love, dating, and mating. Hosts Marlee and Lis offer candid and provocative advice about what it takes to find the partner you deserve.
It's time to rethink your approach to your love life. Take charge and get Romancipated.
Marlee:
Today's topic is Communicate What? Communicate This! So I’ve got to tell you, communication, something we're doing right now. Everybody communicates. You can communicate in lots of different forms nowadays.
Communication in a relationship, huge. It is one of the foundational blocks.
Lis:
Yes.
Marlee:
In a relationship. For me, it's trust, respect, communication, mutual admiration. I can't keep emphasizing that. For me, those are the four cornerstones, the foundation to be romancipated.
Lis:
And they all layer together.
Marlee:
Yes, they absolutely do.
Okay. I just, I have to say this Lis. Open, clear and non-judgmental communication with a partner is such a crucial and necessary part of a healthy relationship.
Lis:
Oh, wait. Say that one more time, Marlee.
Marlee:
I said open, clear, and non-judgmental communication with a partner is such a critical and necessary part of a healthy relationship.
It really is. What I think a lot of people forget when they're communicating with a partner, especially now that we've so often turned to electronic means of communication, is that communication has to be a two-way street. It can't just be one person bombarding another person with a message, whatever message it is that they want to deliver.
It's got to be a conversation. To communicate is very different than to announce. You know what I mean? I can announce here I am, right? I can announce I am hungry. But to actually communicate with another person, especially a romantic partner, yes, it's a conversation that takes two people. And you know, I have to say that not only does it take two people, but both parties have to be open to listening to what their partner says without reacting.
Lis:
Yeah. Oh, yes.
Marlee:
Oh, yes. Lis, because if you are reacting, you are not listening, you are coming up with how you're going to respond.
Lis:
Oh my God, yes.
Marlee:
Don't, do that. First, listen, because you know what, defensiveness is never the answer. Getting defensive and instantly being like, you know, ready to like respond and go back at the person, it's never going to get you what you ultimately want.
And it's never going to get your partner what they ultimately want. If you are actually open to listening to what the person says and processing it. And so what I mean by that is you can have like a gap in time. You know what I mean? You don't have to instantly respond. You can actually have the person say something and you sit there silently and say to them, just give me a second.
Let me just think about. And take a few seconds to just quickly process what they're saying and you'd be shocked at how different your reaction may be and your tone may be.
Lis:
Yeah.
Marlee:
If you took just five seconds to actually listen to what they were saying, not what you think they were saying…
Lis:
Or what you're hearing.
Marlee:
That's right. And how you’re going to respond.
Lis:
And you really hit the nail on the head too, because for me, I am a very defensive arguer, so, and I'm a listener. I will listen, but I'm immediately put on the defensive when I'm in an argument.
Marlee:
Very common.
Lis:
And I think that is very common. So I have had to really work hard to take a break or take a time out, and really, and I'm also a very Tone-y arguer.
So my inflection goes up and I sound angry or mad when I am delivering a message, and I don't even mean to. And so learning how to properly communicate, not only with my husband, but with my children, and when I'm in a rough spot, it takes a lot of work to be able to account for other people in an argument or a conversation.
I don't think that people give it enough credit because. You can constantly be having conversations and I, I have quite a few friends and I've been in quite a few relationships where I'm having a conversation and I see their wheels turning. I know they're not hearing me. I know that they're…
Marlee:
That's right.
Lis:
Literally thinking, and it could just be a normal everyday conversation, not even like an argument conversation. It can be, I'm talking about what I did at the beach or on a family trip and I see. that they're not listening to what I'm saying. They're thinking about how they're going to respond and, oh, well, we went on a family trip and then we did this.
Marlee:
That's right.
Lis:
So it's almost as though they've completely dismissed everything that I've put onto the table. And they're automatically wanting to talk about something about themselves.
Marlee:
That's right. Or something that's important to them. Or they're gripe.
Lis:
That's right.
Marlee:
You know, what I will say is that a lot of people don't take the time to actually listen. And when they do, not only will they hear things differently, but like we've also talked about in a prior podcast, understanding the person's perspective.
Lis:
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Marlee:
Recognizing that what you're hearing isn't necessarily what that person is saying.
Lis:
Right.
Marlee:
And so if you take a pause, you actually really listen and focus. You would be surprised by how often what they're saying is not what you actually thought they were saying. We have a tendency to fill in the blanks, right?
Lis:
Yeah.
Marlee:
As we hear the beginning of a sentence, we fill in the blanks thinking that we know what the end of the sentence is going to be, which is why people interrupt each other all the time because they think they know how the sentence is going to be finished.
And especially in a relationship, right? You're get so good at knowing what your partner thinks, how they speak, their cadence, how they finish sentences that you think, you know, how their sentence is going to be finished. But that is not always the case. I will give you a perfect example of where this happened to me in a prior relationship, and it really frustrated me.
I was getting ready to break up with a gentleman and he thought didn't let me finish. He kind of interrupted me.
Lis:
During the breakup?
Marlee:
Yeah, as I was trying to explain why we were going to break up because he didn't let me finish the sentence. He thought that we were talking about a very different subject.
Okay. Like a very different subject. And he thought that I was getting ready to sort of attack him on his mother. Yes. I know. I seem to have a thing with mothers anyway. Not my own, but other peoples, other men’s mothers. Anyway, he thought that this was something that we were going to be rehashing, something about his mother and it wasn't about his mother. It was about the fact that I recognized we weren't right for each other, and I was planning to move to another state anyway, so there was just like going to be a natural conclusion, you know?
And certainly, his mother had a part of it because I didn't like her, you know, and she interfered a lot, but that's another story. But you get what I mean, like, he thought the, the fight or the disagreement or the communication was about his mother and his relationship with his mother, and it wasn't.
Lis:
Wow.
Marlee:
It was about our relationship and how I was going to end our relationship. And what ended up happening is by him turning the conversation about his mother, it derailed what I was saying. And then we got into a huge fight about his mother.
Lis:
So it almost took away from the breakup.
Marlee:
Yes. Now here's the interesting thing.
We did break up that night, but he left thinking that we broke up because of his mother.
Lis:
Ugh.
Marlee:
Because he derailed the conversation and made the mother his focus. When in fact his mother was maybe 10% of the irritation.
Lis:
Mother Fork.
Marlee:
Yeah, mother Fork. There you go. Exactly. His mother was maybe 10% of the irritation of the relationship, but 90% was completely other stuff.
But so we ended up breaking up and it was really interesting because I did move and we did have several friends in common, and of course when word got back to me, right, he made it out like we broke up because of his mother.
Lis:
That's so ridiculous.
Marlee:
And, and so it was one of those things, and when I say to you, I was like really young, like, I think I was 20.
Yeah. Okay. Like it wasn't your mother that caused the breakup, do you know what I mean? It was, we were young. Our life paths were going in a different way. I was moving to another state. You know, and I just wasn't that into him? You know what I mean? Like I said, his mother was like 10% of it, and I was trying to break up in a nice way.
Lis:
It was an annoyance.
Marlee:
Yeah, I was, but it wasn't. That's right. I was trying to break up in like a nice way, like, Hey, you know what? Our lives are going in different directions. I think, you know, our, our time has run its course, but I, you know, I'd like to stay friends, blah, blah, blah. But instead, it didn't end like that.
It ended with like, you know, you're breaking up with me cause my mother, and I'm just like, no, I'm not. I mean, So, but you know what I mean?
Lis:
Yeah.
Marlee:
Like if he had just listened instead of like assuming he knew what I was talking about. We could have ended the relationship in a way where I think he would've felt better about it.
I ultimately didn't care, right? Cause I was the one who was ending the relationship and it was over, right. But for him, I think he would've ended up feeling like he was in a much better place with the ending of the relationship if he had actually let me speak versus assuming what I was going to say.
Lis:
Right. And you know what, that's actually a really good point that you make about communication because in his head and his perception of it was that it was his mother. So his whole reality is that he probably knew you were breaking up with him. This is how I'm going to read it too, because he probably knew you were breaking up with him.
Marlee:
No, I don't think he did.
Lis:
Blame it on his mother, really?
Marlee:
No, I get where you're coming from, but no. I think he thought he was going to move with me to this other state.
Lis:
Oh, okay.
Marlee:
I actually do, he was making comments like that, that he was going to kind of wrap up what he was doing and like kind of move with me.
And so that's what I mean.
Lis:
There was a lot of assuming there.
Marlee:
Yeah. I think there was a lot of assuming there, because again, I don't, maybe it wasn't the best at communication. I was young. I hadn't learned as much as, as I have now with the experience. Right. But so I'm just saying like, that's an example of where, you know, regardless of what…
You're saying if let the other person finish what they're saying and really get a sense of what they're saying. And if you don't understand exactly what they're saying, you can ask probing questions.
Lis:
Right.
Marlee:
But don't assume, don't jump in, listen, whether you're in a long-term relationship, whether you're in a early relationship, communication is key.
Lis:
And learning how to communicate correctly with your partner.
Marlee:
Yes, that’s right.
Lis:
Because everybody has different styles of communication too.
Marlee:
Yes, Right. You got to learn your partners communication style, and then you have to learn how to respond in a way that will actually move the conversation forward.
Lis:
Oh, I love that point. Because you're so right. Everybody has, some people need to take that pause. And that some people need to walk away. Some people need to give it a night, right? In order to be able to continue. The conversation to clearly think about it, to kind of digest what the other person has been saying and.
Knowing what your partner needs is also a hugely important part of the communication of your relationship. Because if you need something very different than your partner, they also need to take that into consideration. No, it's a, it's an intricate dance. But you do, and everybody's different.
Marlee:
And I'm going to add another layer. Even though I strongly advise that any kind of communication you have in an interpersonal relationship, like romantic relationship needs to be in person. I'm going to tell you, there are people who are much more comfortable revealing their thoughts and feelings in writing.
Lis:
Mm-hmm. because they feel like they get it all out.
Marlee:
That's right. You know, or journaling. So it's interesting because again, some people's communication styles are very, very different. And so it might be that the person needs to write their feelings. And then maybe read it to you or write it down and hand you the letter.
Or email you. And then after you have a face-to-face, I do need to emphasize the importance of face-to-face. I think it's because, like you said, you have different tones, different intonations. You can really see the person's facial expression, their body language. You can read a lot from what a person is saying without listening to their words.
And when you see do something just in writing and just in or electronic communication, you lose a lot of those nuances. And I'm also going to say, I can't tell you how many times, maybe this has happened to you. I've received a written communication letter, email, text, and I read it, and it instantly incited some type of emotion in me.
Lis:
Oh yeah.
Marlee:
And then I instantly respond or I react. And guess what? When I then reread it, I realize what I thought it had said wasn't even in there.
Lis:
Yes. Oh my gosh. Well, tone, we already know that this is a huge problem that I have. My children tell me all the time, but I am definitely a person that will read into communication.
So, I will not only read into body language, but if there is a text message or an email, and I am in a particular mood, I will definitely read into whatever that communication is, based on how I'm feeling in the moment. So let's say my husband sends me a text during the day and it's perceived as innocent by him, and it's…
What are we having for dinner? There's no emoji, there's no happy face. I'm looking at it like, you bastard, what are you making for dinner? Why are you sending me this text message? I've got a million things going on. And meanwhile, his text message may have been the start of the communication and trying to see, well, what is for dinner tonight?
[00:14:28]
Should I pick something up? I'm going to be near here like, So I immediately changed the tone of the conversation based on my perception of what he's communicating to me.
Marlee:
And also by your mood.
Lis:
And by my mood, right? Exactly. But I have now dictated the direction of this conversation based on my mood, rather than letting it be an open dialogue and understanding that he is just trying to communicate…
…to me, what are we doing later on this evening? Right? And so I think that understanding how people communicate and being able to take yourself out and your emotions out of the actual communication, because I will overanalyze it and spiral. Before we've even had the opportunity to have the conversation.
But I also want to say, I think you made a great point that having a conversation in person also lends such a different level to the communication that you're having. So had my husband asked me in person, what are we having for dinner, I would have been able to physically see that he wasn't trying to irritate me.
Marlee:
Communication is so important and so doing it in person I always think is best. And you know the other thing I'm going to say again about what you say in person or what you say electronically in writing, you be careful what you say.
Again, this is the lawyer in me , because good or bad, I’ve got to tell you, it's going to come back to haunt you. You never put any negative or angry feelings in writing. That's my legal advice to you. Okay? Because it will come back and it will bite you on the tush. And not only the angry or the negative, even positive. Oh my gosh, in the bedroom.
Don't sit there and communicate with the old fake orgasms. Ugh. If he or she isn't doing for you what you need, because I’ve got to tell you. That's a communication. That's a communication. And they are going to absolutely believe that they knocked it out of the park when they did not. So I'm just telling you, communicate what? communicate this!
And the only way you're going to do that is by developing these types of skills. The skills that allow you to communicate, the ability to ask questions, appropriate questions.
Lis:
Yes,Yep.
Marlee:
The ability to actually listen to the answers.
Lis:
And let somebody get it out.
Marlee:
Right. The ability to accept what somebody said.
It's venting time with Marlee and Lis.
Marlee:
It's that time when Lis and I get to vent our frustrations over commonly experienced issues in romantic relationships.
Lis:
Yes.
Marlee:
Ooh. All right, so today's topic, When People Judge a Person Who Does Not Offer to Pay on the First Date. Oh, do you want to do this one or you want me to take it?
Lis:
I'll go. I'll go.
Marlee:
Oh, okay. I want to hear. Let's go.
Lis:
Okay, here we go. Maybe they were on a budget. Maybe you were rude, treated your date poorly, or were nasty to the server. Maybe You've shown clearly uninterested in being with your date and have been on the phone most of your time scrolling or clearly in it for free…
…drinks or whatever it is that you guys are doing together.
Marlee:
I love it. Keep going.
Lis:
Maybe they don't intend to see you again. You know the saying, maybe they just aren't that into you. Or maybe they're all about equality and feel. You should split the bill. And how about this one? Did you invite them on the date?
Marlee:
Yes. Okay. Okay. All. Awesome.
Lis:
Turn it over to you. I'm tossing it over to you.
Marlee:
Here we go. I think it's completely acceptable for people to either pay their own way or go Dutch on a first date.
Lis:
Sure is.
Marlee:
The rules have changed and you should not expect the man to pay for a date.
Lis:
Nope.
It is polite for the person who initially asks for the date to pay, but it should not be expected.
Lis:
No, exactly.
Marlee:
Okay. People need to be sensitive to a new person's financial situation. I would not want to pay for a person that I may end up disliking very much. Much like you said, Lis right?
Lis:
Yes.
Marlee:
Some people use the offer of payment on a first date as a purity test.
Lis:
Ooh, I didn't think that one. All right.
Marlee:
Good luck. This is a major mistake. Major. I think it's entitled behavior.
Lis:
Yes it is.
Marlee:
I think it comes off as materialistic. And the person who's judging the other individual for not paying, they need to practice some self-awareness.
Lis:
Sure do. All right. Yeah. Oh, those are good ones.
Marlee:
Thank you. I mean, so let me ask you, did you always expect somebody to pay for you?
Lis:
I didn't. I actually, it made me uncomfortable. I always offered, because same always kind of gave me like a feeling of like I owed them something.
Marlee:
That's right.
Lis:
Maybe like the expectation was if they paid for something, like then I would, you know, not even a sexual thing. It was just almost like it just felt wrong.
Marlee:
No, I agree. I always made sure to come to a date with money in my purse. And I always knew I would have enough to cover my portion, even their portion as well. So, I would always offer, always, I just felt it was the right thing to do. And I can't even tell you how many of the men after the date would comment on how much they appreciated it.
Lis:
Huh? Yeah. I love it.
Marlee:
Lis and I want to thank you so much for joining us this week. To view the complete show notes and a recap of today's podcast, or to learn more about us, visit www.romancipation.com. Before you go, make sure you subscribe to the podcast so you can receive notifications of new episodes right when they're released.
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