How to be a good listener in marriage

One of the most common causes of broken marriages is not being able to listen to understand, but to hear to react. Sometimes, the problem is not having open communication but having an ear to listen to our spouse.

Are we honestly understanding their feelings and opinions?

Listening is essential to a long-lasting healthy marriage. We can only be genuinely happy with our spouses if we know their real feelings and perspectives. 

However, dealing with all issues in marriage, such as finances, attitudes, and roles at home, could hinder us from being good listeners to our spouses. 

So, we should learn more about listening and understanding to have a healthy relationship with them.

How to be a good listener in marriage

Marriage is an endless school of learning. The more you stay together, the more you realize there is much to learn about compromising with your spouse.

More so, being married is one of the most beautiful seasons in a person’s life if they can handle it well. 

However, it can seem like we live in hell daily if we are unwilling to adjust and change our character with our spouse. 

To start with, we should learn how to be good listeners. 

Here are some things we can do to become good listeners to our spouses.

Be quick to listen and slow to speak

“My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry.” - James 1:19

A good listener does not interrupt and tries to let the other person finish talking first. Not interrupting your spouse is one of the most challenging parts of marriage, especially during an argument. 

We tend to voice our opinions and feelings, regardless of whether we know all the information before we listen to our partners. However, it could only lead to more problems.

Thus, controlling our mouths is essential in marriage. We can never know and understand our spouse if it is faster for us to open our mouths than to lend our ears. 

Although it takes time and self-discipline to listen before we speak and become angry, we could eventually make it a habit when we do it little by little.

No distractions

We should focus on listening to our spouse when we want to be good listeners. Stay away from distractions, find a quiet place to communicate, and be open to each other. 

You disrespect your partner if you are focused on browsing your social media accounts while they are talking to you. Put down your phone, turn off the television, and concentrate on your partner's words. 

Moreover, if you had kids, try to talk when the kids are not with you, whether they are sleeping or you are inside your room. Let them know that their mom and dad need time to talk.

Be present in the moment

You could be with your spouse, but your mind is elsewhere, like work, ministry, or household chores. We get that married people are adults with so much on their plates, but never take your marriage for granted.

Besides, it can be tempting to think of how you would respond while your spouse is talking; however, listening is not just about waiting for your turn to speak. It is more about understanding each of their words. 

Particularly for wives, they love to talk about even the most minor details of their days, and they feel valued and loved when they know that their husbands will set their hearts and minds to listening to their stories.

Be interested

Although there are still things your spouse likes and you don’t, being a good listener means showing interest in what they are saying. For husbands, they appreciate their wives if they ask questions, even if it is not their cup of tea. 

Also, they appreciate their wives asking about what happened to the game, even if they are not sporty women. The same is true with wives; they love to answer questions from their husbands and share more of their thoughts. 

Thus, simply asking questions like, “How are you feeling now? Or What did they tell you?” means a lot to your spouse. Remember that your spouse is supposed to be your best friend because you share the most intimate relationship.

Be fair with your spouse

Although you are unified in Christ, you and your spouse sometimes have different opinions. 

It could be difficult to let those insights go in favor of simply listening to each other, but one helpful way to be a good listener in marriage is to listen to your spouse without bias.

Moreover, setting your opinion aside long enough to hear your spouse's words is part of a marriage compromise. Although our views differ, we must still respect and validate their feelings. 

Nevertheless, you do not always have to change your opinion in favor of your spouse, but being a good listener means giving them a chance to express their thoughts without you filtering everything they say.

Check out their body language

Both body languages matter if you want to be a good listener. Take note of how your spouse is sitting and what their body language is trying to say. It could help you understand their feelings better. 

You want to ensure that your spouse sees that you are listening to them. Look at them in their eyes instead of facing away, looking around the room, or at other things. 

For instance, when your partner feels down, you could use your hands to embrace them or tap their shoulders. This way, you could make your spouse feel you care about their feelings.

Validating your spouse’s feelings

Validating your spouse’s feelings is a great way to ensure you understand them right. You can paraphrase their statements to let them know you are paying attention to every word from their mouth.

Besides, it would not lead to miscommunication, which could be another reason for fights in your marriage soon. Validating what you have heard or understand is another way to avoid conflicts in your marriage. 

Furthermore, there is nothing wrong with asking questions, especially to your spouse.

Listen before you solve

Sometimes, our spouses just want to know that their opinions matter to us and want to be heard. Listening to their sentiments or beliefs does not mean we must find a solution immediately.

Being a good listener means allowing our partners to be heard and share their feelings towards us or our situations. So while our partner is talking, we should not think of any solutions but just open our ears to them. 

Moreover, the best solutions would come after understanding the root cause of the problems.

Avoid being judgemental

Being judgmental during a conversation with your spouse is highly challenging. But, the more beliefs we have with our spouse, the more we close our ears to listening and understanding them. 

When our spouse says something about us or our actions, most of us feel we must defend ourselves. Also, we think that we should bring up our own issues with our partners to change the focus of the topic.

However, as good listeners, we should avoid judging and listen to our spouse’s concerns.

Listening is an act of love

If we genuinely wanted to make our marriage work, we must be willing to learn how to listen well to the needs and opinions of our spouse. This is an act of our love for them.

God has given you the gift of marriage, but it also takes responsibility to cherish and flourish your connection with your partner. One way to do that is to hear their hearts and minds, no matter how challenging.