We’re at the end of our Direct Communication series, and I wanted to give you a final pep talk today!

This month we’ve looked at why direct communication can be hard, both in general and for men and women uniquely. We’ve looked at how it can feel mean, but isn’t.

We’ve even looked at the 6 elements of direct communication:

And a bunch more (the links are at the bottom of this post).

On Friday, in our weekly email, we’ll include a quick activity that you can do with your spouse to talk about these issues and walk through direct communication.

So if you’re not on our email list, sign up!

Some quick thoughts about how to have better communication

Before we end the series, though, I want to emphasize a few things.

1. It’s so much easier to have hard conversations if you’re also relating to each other in good ways.

Yes, that means showing appreciation for your spouse. But it also means doing things together on a regular basis.

Find some hobbies to do together. Or my personal favourite: Do the high/low exercise everyday as a check-in.

What was the time you felt most in the groove today? What was the time you felt the most discouraged?

Talk this through with your husband. It helps you process your own feelings, but it also keeps you emotionally in-tune with each other. It’s then much easier to bring up things that you do need to talk about!

2. Hard conversations won’t just happen.

Have you ever waited for a good time to bring something up? Or waited for your spouse to notice that something needs to be talked about?

Part of direct communication is bringing things up when they need to be talked about, even if it can be awkward. If we wait too long, the thing often gets blown up bigger than it needs to be. And we also give time for bad habits to become ingrained.

Is there something that you need to talk about with your spouse? Make plans to tackle it. Put the kids in bed early. Don’t get on a screen tonight. Tell him earlier in the day, “I’d like to talk to you about something after the kids are in bed tonight.” Like just do it!

3. Sometimes you must insist on having those conversations.

If your spouse doesn’t want to talk about something, that doesn’t mean that you don’t talk about it. It’s okay to say,

And then be firm. Remember: If your spouse is running away from intimacy, they are sowing discord in the marriage. If they are sowing discord, they do not get to reap intimacy. It’s okay to stand firm. That doesn’t mean being mean, but it may mean being firm and saying: We aren’t going back to business as usual until we talk about this/see a counselor/whatever may be appropriate.”

But hopefully none of that will be necessary–because the more you spend time together; the more you do emotional check-ins with each other; the more you talk about things directly, then the easier it will hopefully be to deal with the big things!

One last thing, and this one’s super important: just because you may need to have that conversation does not mean that it all needs to be solved at once:

4. Give your spouse time to process

Many people (especially introverts) need time to think about something before they can respond. So while you may want them to listen to you raise an issue, you can’t expect them to figure out how they think about it or what they want to do about it right away.

A reader left this thought, which is wonderful:

For more help with these difficult situations, please see:

• My Iron Sharpens Iron series
• My MBTI Personality Series

Some final words from you about direct communication:

The posts that got the most traction on social media were the ones this month looking at how the genders are discouraged from direct communication.

Men, you’re allowed to have emotions and share them. God made you to be emotional. And you don’t need to run away from communication. You’re allowed to listen to your wife!

And women, I’ll just leave this here:

Did you have a big takeaway from our series this month? Let me know in the comments! And remember to sign up for our emails to get the direct communication activity this week!