How to Get Your Husband or Wife to Listen to You
(Podcast Transcript)
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[Introduction to the podcast]
Announcer: On the Reconciling Marriages with Coach Jack podcast, Christian psychologist, author, and relationship coach, Dr. Jack Ito, will help you to build and restore your marriage. By learning just a few relationship skills, you can help your spouse enjoy your relationship more, while getting more love and affection from your spouse. Listen to Coach Jack as he helps you with one more step toward a marriage both you and your spouse will love.
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Coach Jack: Feeling ignored or unheard by your spouse? Here are ways to encourage real conversations and get your husband or wife to listen.
Arthur was frustrated with his wife’s behavior. Whenever he tried to talk to her, she would continue whatever she was doing instead of looking at him. She gave only short responses, and when he asked if she had heard what he said, she reacted with irritation. Over time, Arthur began to feel disconnected from his wife and wondered if she even cared about their relationship.
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Through coaching, it didn’t take long for Arthur’s relationship to start moving in the right direction again. Most clients see improvement in the first week. Today, I want to share some methods you can use to make the same kind of progress that Arthur did. I’ll also help you consider whether there might be factors you haven’t thought about.
Is your spouse ignoring you? Key questions to ask
Your perspective on Arthur’s situation likely depends on your own experience with people who don’t listen. You might believe his wife has valid reasons for her behavior, or you may see it as unacceptable and unfair to Arthur.
One key factor to consider is how long this behavior has been happening. Has his wife always been a poor listener, or is this a recent change? It’s also important to ask whether she acts this way only with him or with others as well. These are questions you should reflect on when dealing with a spouse who won’t listen. Understanding the context can help you respond in a way that improves communication instead of making things worse.
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Let me give you three strategies for working on relationship problems
First, express love and concern before seeking clarification
When you don’t know what’s going on with your spouse, start by expressing love and concern. Seeking clarification in a way that feels uncaring or hostile will only lead to blame and conflict instead of understanding.
Don’t confuse getting clarification with having a discussion or solving a problem. Trying to do too much in one conversation can make things worse. If your spouse is willing to clarify, focus on understanding. Then, instead of figuring out what to say next, focus on what actions will help. Most relationship issues aren’t fixed through discussion alone, though clarification can be useful.
Secondly, work on being a good spouse in every way you can
Many times, a spouse’s problem behavior is a symptom of a relationship issue in another area.
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Strengthening your relationship overall may help that behavioral issue disappear, even if you don’t yet understand the cause.
As God teaches, we must address our own faults before pointing out someone else’s (Matthew 7:3-5). This applies to marriage as well—there are no exceptions for spouses.
Lastly, set boundaries only after doing your part
Once you’ve done all you can to be a terrific spouse, you can use boundaries to address problem behavior. Being a valuable spouse first will make those boundaries more effective.
I have ten solutions for helping your spouse listen better. I regularly help clients like Arthur implement these steps and restore a loving connection in their marriage. Depending on your situation, you may be able to implement some of these on your own. But if you’re the kind of person who wants to be sure of every step, coaching will take the stress out of the process for you.
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Solution #1: Be a good listener
Did you know that listening is a skill? Hearing is passive, but truly listening requires effort and intention. Being a good listener means staying attentive, showing empathy through facial expressions, responding with understanding, and resisting the urge to interrupt—no matter how much you want to.
Work on improving any listening habits that need attention, even if you already listen better than your spouse. Strive to be your best rather than matching your spouse’s skill level. Strong listening habits not only maintain emotional connection but also help prevent affairs, separation, and divorce. When you consistently show up as a supportive and engaged partner, any boundaries you set will carry more weight—because your spouse will actually care.
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Solution #2: Be a good communicator
Being a good communicator is about listening, but it is also about being relaxed and friendly, talking about subjects that match your spouse’s interests, avoiding bringing up areas of difference, and being sociable even when talking about mundane things.
Think about how you talk to your friends and make sure that you are talking to your spouse at least as well as that. One thing that can start the downfall of a relationship is for your husband or wife to wish that you talked to him or her as nicely as you do to your friends, coworkers, or clients.
The combination of good listening and good communicating are two things that contribute a lot to making your spouse feel like a priority.
Solution #3: Create a positive atmosphere
Do you sometimes have negative things to say when you first encounter your spouse? If so, then your spouse will be on guard most of the time you attempt to talk. That’s because he or she doesn’t know what is coming.
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Make sure that you are always happy to see your spouse. Don’t be in a rush to talk about business or problems. If you do need to talk about problems, make sure you do it with plenty of validation and love.
Whether you feel like being loving or not is beside the point. It is just as much a requirement to love our spouses as to love our kids or anyone else. Love must be tough also means that sometimes we need to love even when it is tough to do so. That’s the way you get more love from your spouse.
Solution #4: Reduce negative and neutral conversations
Sometimes people like to ask questions and talk about things that the other person doesn’t enjoy talking about. Not everyone wants to talk about the day, politics, or a job. Don’t say things just to stretch out your interaction. Just like a comedian, you need to get off the stage as soon as your performance is over, making sure you end on a good note.
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Otherwise, people won’t think you were very good.
Even if you need to cut your conversations from 30 minutes to 5 to make them enjoyable and end on a good note, it will improve your relationship and help your spouse enjoy talking with you more.
Solution #5: Avoid overwhelming your spouse by talking too much
It could be that you are matching your subject to your spouse’s interests and validating him or her in a good way. However, you could still be talking too much. Some people’s ears become tired faster than others. This often happens with people who don’t have friends—they talk too much to their spouses. If you love to talk more than your spouse loves to listen, then make some friends to talk to.
Solution #6: Have realistic expectations
Do you expect that your husband or wife will always want to listen to you and find you fascinating? If so, then you will be disappointed with your spouse a lot.
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Make sure that you have reasonable expectations based on your experience with your spouse as well as general knowledge about people.
The fact is, your spouse will not always be in a good mood, not always be agreeable, not always want to listen to you, not always want to be romantic, and just about everything else you can think of. To expect your spouse to always be available and loving is an unrealistic expectation that needy people often have. Their expectation causes them to get upset, criticize, complain, blame, argue, and seek reassurance. These all damage their relationship and turn disappointments into problems, and little problems into big problems.
The number one cure for people who get upset easily is for them to have realistic expectations.
Solution #7: Use validation to make your spouse enjoy listening to you.
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When you validate, you are either making the other person feel right, normal, similar, good, or important. Any comments you make in that regard while you are talking will help your spouse enjoy listening to you more. On the other hand, any comments you make that make your spouse feel wrong, abnormal, different, bad, or unimportant are invalidation and will cause your spouse to guard, protect, or attack.
A few examples:
- Rather than saying, I told my mother that we are working on a new addition to our home, you can say, I told my mother that you had some good ideas for a new addition to our home and we are working on them.
- Rather than saying, The car needs to be serviced, you can say, I appreciate how you always take care of our car. I think it needs to be serviced again.
- Rather than saying, I was thinking that we should buy a boat, you can say, I was thinking how fun it would be to sail around with you in a new boat.
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Saying things in a little better way is a small investment that will bring big returns.
Solution #8: Encourage your spouse to listen by making it rewarding
When your spouse does listen to you, make sure you don’t punish your spouse with a sarcastic remark like, Thank you for listening to me for a change. Instead, hug your spouse, give a nice compliment, thumb wrestle, or do anything else that serves as a small reward. Behavior that is rewarded is more likely to happen again.
If this feels manipulative to you, remember that whether you do something intentionally or not, you are always influencing your spouse. It’s better to be intentional—for your spouse’s sake as well as your own.
Solution #9: Boost your attractiveness to get your spouse to listen
My guess is that before marriage your spouse was much more interested in what you had to say. Why was that?
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Could it be that you were behaving in a more attractive way or looking more attractive? People are motivated to listen to others they find desirable, either for their appearance, personality, or success.
If you want your spouse to listen to you the way he or she used to, then you need to get back to being more like the way you were when he or she liked listening to you.
Solution #10: Use boundaries for rude listening behavior
If you have done everything you can to:
- eliminate any needy behaviors that make your relationship feel like a job to your spouse,
- be desirable,
- do a good job of validating your spouse, and
- show your spouse how important he or she is to you,
then you are in a position to use boundaries for any disrespectful behavior. Boundaries are used to stop bad behaviors rather than to start good ones. If your spouse is being rude—such as ignoring you, heckling you, making sarcastic comments, or rolling his or her eyes—you can walk away as soon as those things occur.
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For boundaries to be effective, they must be used consistently, both at home and in public. Never use a boundary that you are unwilling to enforce consistently, as it will only make the other person’s behavior worse.
Remember—you must have consistently good behavior with your spouse for your spouse to care about your boundaries and change his or her behavior. Otherwise, your spouse won’t care or may even intentionally do the behavior more to create distance.
A good resource for learning about boundaries is the book Boundaries by Cloud and Townsend.
It’s your turn to take the first step toward getting your spouse to listen
You can choose any of these ten ideas to motivate your spouse to listen better. Start with the ones that are least likely to cause resistance in your spouse. Keep in mind that sudden changes, even when they are good ones, can cause resistance. Gradually work to implement all ten ideas.
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No single idea will get you all the way to where you want to go.
I’ve created free downloads for people who want to improve communication with their husband or wife. Many people have told me these resources have helped them strengthen their marriage.
If you get stuck or if, for some reason, things are getting worse, relationship coaching can teach you the skills to make real progress.
How relationship coaching helps your spouse want to listen
When a husband or wife feels ignored in a relationship, conversations become strained. Without knowing how to make improvements, people like Arthur start talking to their spouse only when necessary. This, in turn, causes more emotional shutdown and distance. It’s easy to get stuck in a vicious cycle of poor communication and emotional disconnection. The end result? Both spouses feel unheard, unappreciated, and trapped in a failing relationship.
(14:01)
Just as it did for Arthur, relationship coaching helps people to:
- stop any needy behaviors,
- validate for maximum emotional impact,
- create the desire for interaction in their spouse, and
- use effective boundaries to stop problem behaviors and gain respect.
Can you imagine how much better things would be if your husband or wife looked forward to seeing and listening to you every time you text, call, or meet? What would it be like to see your spouse’s warm smile every time you are together? You can learn how to make that happen.
My coaching package for Restoring a Loving Relationship with a Difficult Spouse will give you the guidance and tools to reconnect. Sign up today and start revitalizing your relationship—for both you and your spouse.
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[Podcast wrap-up]
Announcer: Thank you for listening to Reconciling Marriages with Coach Jack. Visit coachjackito.com to learn more skills for reconnecting with your spouse and restoring your marriage.
