Communication Styles – What’s Yours?
Oliver and I talk about everything.
E-VER-Y-THING. Eventually, that is. Lol
I (Denise) am typically a procrastinator when it comes to communicating my feelings to Oli regarding an issue we may be having. I want to talk about it, but need time to process and gather my thoughts first.
The Procrastinator is one of the four types of communicators we talk about in our Extreme Marriage Makeover seminar.
The second type of communicator is The Shotgun.
This person wants to talk about the issue right away, get it over with and keep things moving.
Oli is a shotgun communicator, so with me being a procrastinator, we’ve had to learn to balance each other out by compromising: we each take the other’s communication style into consideration, and come up with an agreeable time talk things out.
Then there’s The Hoarder.
This is the person who keeps all of their thoughts to themselves and doesn’t communicate anything to their spouse. If you’ve ever watched the reality show “Hoarders”, you can imagine how dangerous it can be to hold on to every thought without ever expressing anything to your spouse. Things eventually become unbearable, explosive and just downright unhealthy.
The fourth kind of communicator is The Non-Confrontational.
This person has an opinion, but in order to avoid conflict, chooses to just agree with everything their spouse says instead. If their own feelings are not expressed, this person may eventually and subconsciously become resentful, distant and/or depressed.
Which one of these communication styles can you relate to the most?
Procrastinator?
Shotgun?
Hoarder?
Non-Confrontational?
Maybe, like me and Oli, your communication styles differ. And that’s ok. However, we must figure out how to best sync up our communication styles with our spouse’s. Because at the end of the day, we HAVE to have conversations, right?
What’s your communication style? Do you know your spouse’s style? We encourage you to find out.
God Bless
Fun fact: Gender has an effect on language and communication. Some studies say that women use about 20,000 words a day, but men only use about 7,000 daily. Read more about this in a great blog post by our friend Dr. Jessica McCleese
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