Relationships and Communication

Relationships can be a tricky thing even when there isn’t outside interference. Then when you add in something like PTSD or depression, having healthy relationships and keeping them is a whole other ball game.

This is Melissa and I hope you all are well,

Over the next few weeks Lawrence and I will be talking about relationships and communication. We are holding an event with a guest speaker on Tuesday February 2, 2021 at our church at 6 pm. The speaker is our counselor Chaplin Todd Claypool. This man helped save our marriage by teaching Lawrence and I how to communicate better in our marriage. (Discovered we didn’t communicate)

Would you believe we were married for 17 years and figured out that we were not ever communicating with each other. We would talk but we were not effectively communicating in a way that the other person could truly hear the other. This is why we argued a lot and why the same problems came up over and over again.

In this post, I am going to talk about one of the major things I would do that was not a healthy or productive way of communicating. Maybe some of you do this one major thing too and it is a hard one to fix. If you can keep your emotions in check and not do this one major thing, it can make all the difference in the world when communicating with others.

I am a very vocal person. Most of the time Lawrence does not have to guess what I am thinking or feeling because I do not have a problem telling him. The problem is through most of our marriage I would let several little things build up and then explode. In that explosion, I would tell Lawrence all the things I was having issues with over the last few months. Was it right, NO. It was not healthy either. Having all the pent up rage and anger caused me to yell and scream and demand results. I would use what some people would call a Rolodex that is hidden deep in my brain that held everything in it that I felt Lawrence had done wrong in our marriage. Every time we would argue I would pull out that Rolodex and call him out on it.

It is not right to hold things against a person over and over again. We tend to do that though when we feel the situation was not handled the way we think it should have been. So the anger stays for those events and then we bring them up over and over again. Bad thing is, a lot of those things we pull out of that Rolodex will never be solved. What do we do with it then?

Well this is where forgiveness comes in. How many of you just shook your head and said “nope I will not forgive for this reason or that reason.”? If you did, then you are saying the same thing I have said for years. Remember this though, forgiveness is not for the other person, IT’S FOR YOURSELF! Yep that’s right. It’s for you and not them. While some people will ask for forgiveness, most will not. Letting go and forgiving is a great way to remove that situation from your Rolodex. That is a great step forward in communicating better.

One of the best pieces of marriage advice I ever received was to not use that Rolodex ever. The Rolodex is a low blow. When you are in a disagreement you need to concentrate on the current issue, and not all the other issues from the past. To do this you must really work on controlling your emotions and think before you speak. It means slowing the disagreement down and really thinking about why you or the other person is so upset. Do not discard the other person’s feelings. They are valid. Do not throw things in their face though either. That will get you no where.

PTSD makes this even harder. It is hard to control your emotions at times especially when a lot of it just comes out as anger and aggression. There is a good possibility that you might have to walk away to calm down then go back to the conversation with a level head. If this is the case, you need to respectfully express this to the other person. Set the boundary so the other person will respect it. It is okay to set that boundary, just know that it might not always work.

If you are the person that uses your “Rolodex of things done wrong” then throw it out the window. It is not fair to the other person or yourself. If you have that Rolodex, work through it and try to get to a place of forgiveness even if the person has never asked for it. It is not worth your time, energy, and peace anymore. When you do not reach for that Rolodex during an argument you will stay on the main issue at that time. That does not mean the same issue will not come up again, it just means you can have a productive conversation about it without other things getting in the way.

Relationships and communication go hand and hand. It is important to communicate effectively so that those relationships can be as strong as possible.

Join us next week for more relationship and communication talk! Thank you for joining us today. Please Like, Share, Comment and Subscribe!! Also find us on Facebook and Instagram under Relentless Warriors Legacy.

Enjoy your weekend!

James 1:19 (ESV) Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger;

Melissa McGuire (Relentless)