Summer Quickies: How do I get my spouse to talk about their feelings?

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Hey guys. Welcome to the Naked Marriage podcast. We are Dave and Ashley Willis, and on this podcast, we Undress the truth about sex, intimacy and lifelong love.

And we are loving this summer series we're doing where it's Q and A and we're. We're calling them even Q and A Quickies because they're, they're a little shorter than a regular episode. And the word quickie is fun. But we are going back to the archives, so to speak. We this past spring at the XO Tour, which is our marriage conferences. If you want to come to a live one, go to xomarriage.com they are so much fun. We go all over the country. But part of what we did at the EXO conference was live Q and A and those questions and answers got such great feedback and such great response that we said, we've got to share this with our podcast listeners. They would love to experience this. And so each one of these summer podcasts, we're focusing in on one of those questions and we're going to dive into a really good one today.

The question is, how do you get your quiet, non talkative husband to open up more and become naked with their thoughts and feelings? Feelings. It's a great one. Let's dive in.

How do you get your quiet, non talkative husband to open up more and become naked with their thoughts and feelings? You asked this one, didn't you?

I love that. No.

Did you text this in? Be honest.

I did. You're talkative. No, but this is a huge. Guys. I mean, whoever asked this, you're not alone. Like, this is a common issue. And it's not always men. I mean, sometimes there can be some women who aren't as willing to open up. But I do have something specifically for men. I love getting this question because our friend Shanti Feldhahn, some of you might be familiar with her books For Women Only, for Men Only, for Couples Only. And she is a Christian social researcher and she found in her research that men, you know, men and women obviously are different, but they actually have different communication techniques. And one thing they found is that men are more likely to open up when they are side by side with someone as opposed to face to face, and also while they are doing an activity. And when I learned this, my mind was like, blown because I was like, oh, my goodness. That's when I have my best conversations with Dave, is when we're on a walk side by side or when we're on a drive side by side or when we're doing a fun activity together. So it's really interesting. So if you want your husband to open up, it doesn't mean like you can only talk side by side. That'd be madness. Right? You've gotta face each other and you have to serve each other in that way. Cause women talk better that way. But it's something where if a husband really just tends to shut down, sometimes men can feel just bombarded by questions and they don't know where to start and their mind is just not quite there yet. If you get them doing an activity that you guys can enjoy together or playing a game together, going on a walk, going on a drive, it's really gonna help get the conversation going more. And plus, you're getting exercise together, you're doing something fun together. So it's a win win for everybody.

It's good. Yeah. Men and women tend to communicate differently. And you see this just in groups of women versus groups. Like a group of women can get together just for the sake of talking.

We do. We just want to.

But I've never once been invited by a group of men like Dave. Man, I just want to talk. I just want to. I want to talk about my feelings. I want to talk about what's going on. Like guys. For guys to even get together at all, for any communication to happen, it has to be based around activity. You know, it's got to be fantasy football or playing golf or doing something. And once we start doing something, once we start moving our hands and moving our body some, all of a sudden our mouth starts to move too. And that's just how God wired us up. And so don't. Shaunti's books are incredible, by the way. They are. Shaunti Feldheim. If you wanna really get to the root of why and how God made men and women so beautifully different and complex, read that and it'll kind of. Light bulbs will go off all the time.

Really interesting.

A lot of the miscommunication in marriage happens because women talk to their husbands as if their husbands were women, and men talk to their wives as if their wives were men. And we live in a world where it's, like, not politically correct to even suggest there's a difference, which is madness, because God made us beautifully and masterfully different. And until we really get to understand what those differences are all about, beyond the obvious biological hardware, I mean, on a mental, emotional level, the communication is. You look like you're gonna laugh.

I'm just laughing because we've learned this the hard way. Sometimes.

Yeah. We're just thinking back and I'm like, yeah. No, we thought communication would come so naturally to us because we were communication majors in college, which isn't even a real major, by the way. Study something practical. But we studied it and we thought, oh, we're gonna.

We're like, we got this.

And it was a really hard struggle for us. That was a great question, and hopefully you got some good takeaways there. That men and women are wired up so differently, and then every individual is wired up so differently. So get to know each other. Talk. Sometimes that talk is going to open up if you do it around an activity, if you're walking, if you're side by side, if you're mixing up the location or the topics. But just keep working at it, because the more you communicate as a couple, the stronger your bond will be.

Thanks for listening to the Naked Marriage Podcast. For more free marriage resources to ask us a question or to view our show notes, visit nakedmarriagepodcast.com and if you.

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