HOW DO YOU RESPOND TO YOUR SPOUSE?

Imagine your hubby or wife (mostly wife) has come from work or out and comes home excited about what transpired out there. They are excited and storm into your space with their excitement eager to share with you their story. How do you respond to them?

So often our response to our partner’s stories can either kill them or make them look forward to sharing their day with you. So often we hear cases where a couple wonder what happened to them because they no longer enjoy having conversations with each other. They instead prefer or look forward to sharing their stories and having those conversations with their colleagues at work or with that other person in their life. What started this lack of excitement in sharing with our spouse our excitement and stories? It just could be how we responded to them.

According to the Active Construction Responding Model by Gables, Reiss, Impett & Asher, 2004, our responses can send messages that are either active or passive, and constructive or destructive. For instance, if your wife comes to you as a husband telling you what new things the baby did today, or when you as a husband comes home excited about a presentation you made at work, here are different ways you as a husband or wife can respond to your spouse.

You can respond by

1.    Rejoicing with them and saying something like “Wow! That’s great! I’m so happy for you! Tell me more about it!” This is what they call a Nurturing or active constructive response.

2.    Being cold about it, not being moved by what you hear and only saying “Oh that is good”. This they call Cold or passive constructive response. You don’t out rightly rejoice with them neither do you shun them out rudely.

3.    Nicely telling them that “Sorry I don’t have time to listen to you right now”.  This they call Ignorant or passive destructive response

4.    Out rightly dismissing or belittling their excitement or story by saying “Only that! Or “You should have done better! Or ‘That’s something small” This they call Hurtfull or active destructive response.

Which of the above four best describe how you usually respond to your spouse?

When do you find yourself responding in a not so nurturing way?

What needs to change for you to respond in a nurturing way?