Coaching Lessons that will help your Marriage

I remember many years ago (over twenty years ago to be precise) when Grace and I attended our pre-marital counseling classes one of the valuable lesson I learnt then was the importance of communication in marriage. I learned that communication was not just about talking but more importantly about listening. “Listening is more important than talking that’s why God gave us one mouth and two ears so that we listen twice as much as we talk”, our Pastor told us.

We all love talking but rarely do we take time to listen especially if you are an extrovert or a talker like me. In order to be a great communicator one must focus not just on how you relay the information but on how well you listen. Going past merely talking to listening requires a great discipline. As much as listening is good, how you listen is even better. Most people do not think about how they listen. Because of our self-centered nature we default into what in coaching we call self-focused listening. This is where we listen to what makes meaning to us, attention is on me, my own needs and what this conversation can do for me. I have found myself many times operating in this lower level of listening when we are having a conversation with Grace. I will listen only to that which is important to me, that which will provide the necessary ammunition for my rebuttal or that which will give me an opportunity to tell her what she needs to do. And this has often left Grace annoyed and frustrated.

A better way to listen is what we call in coaching others-focused listening. Here you listen to what is significant to the other person. You ask yourself “what does this mean to the other person?” “What does this mean to my husband or to my wife?” Attention is on the other person and what they are communicating. This requires dying to yourself dear husband even when everything within you is trying to shift to the solution mode to actually hearing what your wife’s cry is. What do they mean by that?

However good this level of listening is, there’s even a better way, a more excellent way of listening and that is what in coaching we call Intuitive Listening. In the coming days will dwell more on this level of listening because I believe this is what will transform us for extraordinary conversations at home with our spouse and kids and even in our other relationships.

As Grace and I celebrate 22 years of marriage this Saturday, we are thankful to God for those years. As I always say, for me being married to one woman (I come from a polygamous home) and the same woman for all these years is a miracle. I wish I could have said that it has been easy and enjoyable all through. But to be honest it hasn’t been all that easy. But through all the hard work not to mention the hard talk we have been able to resolve our issues and enter into a deeper level of intimacy with each other.

Grace and I love the movie “Not easily Broken” and we recently watched it for the umpteenth time. From this movie we want to share with you in the coming days some of the lessons we have gleaned from this movie that we can say has been the reason for our success thus far. One of the things that comes out clearly from this movie is how our past affects our present relationship. David in the movie is dealing with some past issues. He wanted to become a professional basketball player but his career was cut short by an injury. He now wants to relive his life in the children he is coaching. He has a skeleton in his cupboard in the form of Darius, one of the boys he is coaching, whose Father knows a little a bit David’s past. He finally confronts himself in the contest he has a one on one basketball contest with Darius’ father. Both men finally get to deal with their shadows.

On the other hand David’s mother-in-law also has a skeleton from her past to deal with. Because of her broken marriage she resents men and poisons her daughter’s mind with the same. As a result they gang up with her daughter Clarice and eventually throw out David from the house.  She too has to confront her past when her daughter Clarice confronts her with this issue but is unwilling to let go.

We all have skeletons in our cupboards which if not dealt with will always come to haunt our present and future lives. 

What we experience in this Nation every election period is a result of some of these past issues that prop us against each other. Most of the things we deal with in marriage are as a result of some of these past issues. Pain from our past, rejection suffered because of our parents’ divorce, sexual abuse by a relative when we were young, mistrust that developed in you when your first boyfriend damped you, unresolved conflict with your spouse, have a way of infecting and affecting our marriages. The sooner we become aware of this and deal with it the better we can be at resolving our conflicts and living together as husband and wife.

As we begin the month of August, we as a Nation are just about to vote in our Leaders from the President to the local MCA (Member of the County Assembly). Funny how five years have gone so fast. During this electioneering period we have been promised a lot of things from free Secondary education to free Internship program for all our graduates. We have been wooed to vote for one party or the other and yes like a lady we are now about to make that decision.

Twenty-two years ago, I wooed a beautiful lady that is now my wife. I made her several promises the biggest being when I said “I do” on the 26^th of August at 12:00 noon at the Good Shepherd Church Ngong Road. When I said “I do” for me it was a done deal. What I didn’t know is that for Grace, it was not simply a statement “I do” but rather it a question “Do you?” And that has been the question for the last twenty years especially during those moments when I withdraw into my cave, demand for my space or are too busy trying to provide for the family.

I know it sounds crazy that after twenty two years of marriage my wife still wonders if I love her.  What we men fail to understand is that, your  “I do” actually didn’t bring permanent emotional closure and put her mind at rest about your feelings for her forever. For her, your “I do” doesn’t erase that insecurity about your love that lives under the surface in even the most happily married woman—insecurity that, when triggered, becomes a deeply felt uncertainty: “Do you? Do you still…love me? Are we still okay?

According to author Jeff Feldhahn, buried inside most women—even those in great relationships—is a latent insecurity about whether their man really loves them. Even more than financial security your wife yearns for emotional security. Your wife wants you to provide a nice life for her and the kids, but she also wants you home for dinner. She wants to know that no matter what, you are not going to leave her. She wants to know that she is the only one in your life that next to God you are priority in his life, that you are her best friend.

And so as we celebrate twenty two years of marriage, I may still say “I do” but what is important is for me to continue to constantly reassure Grace by doing those things that help answer her big question “Do you still love me?” In the coming weeks we will talk more about what Insecurity triggers in a woman and how we can help our wives overcome that inherent insecurity in them.