The Four Seasons of Marriage by Gary Chapman

Author:Gary Chapman [Chapman, Gary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781414340685
Published: 2012-05-03T23:08:00+00:00

The ability to speak and the ability to listen are two of the more profound gifts that God has given to humanity. Animals don't sit around the campfire reminiscing about what happened five years ago or discussing what they hvope will happen in the future. But people do. Oral communication is the foundation of all human culture. These abilities to speak and to listen allow us to pass ideas from one mind to another.

Likewise, in a marriage nothing is more fundamental than talking and listening. This simple transaction is the vehicle that allows couples to process life together as teammates. Open communication is the lifeblood that keeps a marriage in the spring and summer seasons. Conversely, failure to communicate is what brings on fall and winter.

Speaking and listening-it sounds so simple. So why is it that when divorced individuals were asked in a survey, "Why did your marriage fail?" eighty-seven percent said, "Deficient communication"?

Could these marriages have been redeemed and restored? I believe the answer is yes-if the couples had learned some positive communication patterns. The key to improving communication with one's spouse lies in developing the power of empathetic listening. Empathy means to enter into another person's world, to seek to walk in his or her shoes and see the world from his or her perspective. An empathetic husband seeks to understand what his wife is experiencing-her thoughts, feelings, and desires. And the same is true of an empathetic wife toward her husband. She seeks to understand his dreams, his hopes, his fears. Empathetic listening encourages other people to talk, because theyknow theywill be heard.

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