Emotional Intelligence Will Improve Your Marriage

 Many of my male clients come to me because they fear their marriage is ending. Others find me because they did not see the warning signs of a failed marriage before it was too late. The end goal regardless of what the motivation is is to not repeat the same mistakes moving forward. Every time I get a new client with marriage concerns I see the same thing. A lack of understanding of the other person’s emotions. What I have seen is significant results through building emotional intelligence. Less conflict, more fun, increased is trust, better intimacy, and the confidence to handle any upcoming martial challenges.  

Self-awareness

Women tend to be more perceptive than men. There is a good chance your wife is noticing things about you that you do not notice. How often does she point out your tone, pitch, or your facial expressions? Are you often left wondering why any of it matters? Imagine if you had better control of your tone, phrasing, and body language. 

By strengthening your self-awareness you can gain control of the information she is giving you. You can change your pitch, tone, and have the right body language to avoid conflict. Are you completely aware of your facial expressions and hand gestures during a heated argument? What do you do when you become annoyed, angry, or frustrated? Which of those behaviors is the biggest trigger to conflict? If you cannot answer those questions you cannot know which behavior will cease the conflict. Self-awareness will help you gain control of the behavior that triggers conflict.  

Self-regulation

How often in an argument are you the one who stays calm? Have you noticed that you both feed off each other? If you become agitated does your wife often become agitated in return? Do you then feed off of her agitation and this escalates you? Did you notice this is how you two typically function? Somehow something you are doing or feeling causes escalating tension until eventually, you explode. 

If you have noticed this awful feedback loop, self-regulation will break that cycle. If you cannot stay calm during a disagreement you run the risk of escalating. It doesn’t matter who escalates first, what matters is that you do not continue the cycle of escalation to the point of critical mass. I am not saying to not engage in disagreements. What I am saying is that self-regulation will stop the cycle regardless of who starts it. By regulating your emotions you gain better control of your responses and behavior. Your anger will cause you to raise your voice and say hurtful and regretful words. Your anxiety will cause you to try and establish control over your wife. Control the emotions, control the behavior. 

Empathy

Are you often confused as to your wife’s behavior and emotions? Do you recognize and understand which emotions are in play? Is it a struggle to connect her emotion to your behavior? Haven’t a clue as to why your behavior even triggers an emotional reaction? Do you often feel her emotional reactions are blown out of proportion? Building empathy is the process of increasing your knowledge of emotions. 

If you are not aware of emotions I already wrote a blog post covering the 4 main emotions which will directly increase your empathy with the information I discussed. Empathy allows you to make sense of not only your emotions but the emotional reactions of others. By understanding your wife’s emotions, you can change your behavior and immediately change the course of the conversation. Want your wife to feel happier? Which set of behaviors will trigger that emotion? How long-lasting will the happiness be? How intense will the happiness be? Empathy will give you the answers to those questions which will increase marital satisfaction while decreasing marital conflict. 

Motivation

When the conflict seems never-ending and you struggle to see a light at the end of the tunnel, your motivation begins to die. When the motivation is gone, so is the relationship. You can tell how close the marriage is to end based on how motivated you both are. It only takes one of you to lose complete motivation for the relationship to end. So if motivation is directly tied to longevity, how do you keep it alive?

You need to be rewarded along the way. If the ultimate goal is to have a fulfilling marriage then small consistent rewards are the key. Manage to have a healthy disagreement, reward yourself. Manage to use your empathy to understand the problem, reward yourself. The point of motivation is to achieve a reward. Your emotions play a vital role in your motivation. 

Each emotion exists to solve problems. Anxiety causes you to seek out control to avoid an unwanted scenario. Anger motivates you to remove the problem by raising your voice and scaring off the issue. Instead of letting your anxiety dictate your choices, control your emotions before they control you. Use your anxiety to control yourself, not your wife. Use your anger to find compromise instead of pushing your wife away. 

Social Skills

When you strengthen your emotional intelligence your social skills will change for the better. Do you know what to say to diffuse an unwanted argument? Are the points you are trying to make being received as expected? Can you talk your wife into a compromise that benefits both of you? Do you excel at escalating or de-escalating a verbal disagreement?

As your social skills improve and you notice there is more room for fun instead of conflict. You will know how to phrase things to make sure your message is being received as intended. Anytime there is a chance for conflict you nip it in the bud and successfully avoid escalation. You’ll have more insightful conversations instead of toxic arguments. Increasing your social skills will allow you to control your phrasing, pitch, and tone so as to not trigger unwanted emotional reactions. 

Learn more about Emotional Intelligence here