You Know What You’re Saying, but What Are You Communicating?

There are certain phrases we have been programmed to understand in a specific way whenever we hear them. For example, if someone says to us, “We need to talk,” we know there is bad news to come and we get in defensive mode. But think about just the four words in and of themselves: “We need to talk.” They’re harmless, right? In fact, shouldn’t they even be viewed positively, since the one voicing them is expressing a desire to communicate?

Or consider these six seemingly innocent words: “Are you going to eat that?” Unless the one asking is clearly just trying to mooch off someone else’s plate, this question usually puts someone (especially women) in defensive mode too. “What are you saying?” they ask. “That if I eat these fries I will risk becoming too fat and ugly for your love?” But wait, it was just a harmless question, inquiring whether or not someone will be consuming a specific food. Right?

Of course not. Neither of these examples is harmless and positive, for they communicate something quite different than what they literally say.

What are you communicating to your spouse when you attempt to enter into an important dialogue with them? What message do the words you choose as your verbal tools communicate to them? Consider this wife’s testimony:

I typically start with "I need to talk to you about something," which never seems to go well. An example is a particular ask for him to change up/adjust our daily routine with the kids, as their activities evolve all the time and require a lot of shifting and modification to our schedule. He gets annoyed and agitated and hates that we change things right when he has adapted to the previous routine.

Parents of school-aged kids are well aware of all the crazy schedules that change up throughout the year. Football in the fall, baseball in the spring. School play rehearsals that ramp up the last two weeks before the show. YMCA camps in the summer. And in many cases, especially when there are multiple kids and/or both parents work, it requires both mom and dad to shuffle everyone around. Her request is perfectly understandable: she needs him to be flexible and willing to adapt to schedule changes that neither of them really have any control over.

But what were the words she chose to use? “I need to talk to you about something.” Agree or not, this is what he understood by his wife’s introduction to the conversation, before she even made her reasonable and goodwilled request. “There is something we need to talk about that I have understood and for some reason you haven’t. You’re just not getting it. So I need to spell it out for you, and you better hear me on this.”

Can you blame him when even at an understandable request such as helping out with the kids’ transportation, he becomes “annoyed and agitated”? He isn’t upset necessarily about having to leave work early tomorrow to pick up their daughter from her musical rehearsal, though it may not be as convenient an adjustment as his wife may expect; he’s put on edge over the message his wife just communicated to him—that he’s not pulling his weight, he’s not being flexible, he’s not willing to help her out unless she backs him into a corner and says, “I need to talk to you about something...”

Men certainly need to be careful about this too. Consider a fitness instructor and tri-athlete looking over at his wife who’s snacking on M&M’s and saying to her, after glancing at her handful of candy-coated treats, “I need to talk to you about something.” How is that conversation going to go? She’s likely to explode!

But is he not goodwilled? Is he not simply looking out for her long-term health? As someone who works in the health and fitness industry, wouldn’t his advice be worth listening to? So why does she not welcome the conversation? Because with the words he chose to use, he communicated to her, “Listen, you are making some really bad choices when it comes to health and diet. Our bodies can’t process M&M’s the way they did when we were younger. On top of that, you have to remain vigilant about maintaining regular exercise, like I do.”

Is this what a loving, goodwilled husband means to communicate to his wife? Of course not. And does a respectful, goodwilled wife intend to communicate to her husband that he’s not pulling his weight around the house when it comes to transporting the kids around? Not at all. Yet these are the messages their chosen words are communicating.

So what do we do?

Though there is certainly a timing issue everyone must become better skilled at when it comes to having these types of conversations with their spouse, my emphasis here is with our word choice. What words are you choosing to use when you need to broach a sensitive topic? For example, what if a wife wanting to request that her husband be more intentional about getting home at an earlier time and being more involved in the evening’s activities said, “Honey, I need your help with the kids. Not only do I need your strength with the kids since they often respond to you better at bedtime, but also because who you are is making a greater impact on them than even I am making. So much of their identity does or will revolve around your opinion of them. I long for you to be engaged in the evening because of the impact you can make on their development and maturity and self-image. Truly."

Not only did she avoid putting him on the defensive with the never-comforting “We need to talk,” but she repeatedly appealed to his strength that she and the kids need in their lives. 

Or consider a husband concerned about how busy his wife has been recently, rarely saying no when someone asks for help, stressing herself out to the point that both he and the kids find themselves walking on tiptoes around her. Instead of putting her on defense by opening with, “You need to cut some things out of your life before it kills you,” what if he said, “Sweetie, I am amazed at your heart for others. Your caring and nurturing spirit is in large what I most fell in love with. But I’m concerned with all the many directions you’re being pulled in right now with all your different commitments. Do you think we can talk through some of your commitments and see if there are any that you might be able to begin pulling away from, for the sake of you and the family too?”

Do you see the difference? The intended, goodwilled message is being communicated in a loving and respectful way. The word choice is one of honor and love, not condemnation and disparagement.

Remember word choice. Ask yourself, “How can I say what is true but which honors my spouse rather than suggests he or she is failing as a husband, wife, or parent?”