At some point in our brief adventure of marriage, after a long conversation about some grievance that I had brought up to Marty, before we closed the conversation he made sure to ask me me, "what's my takeaway?".
I was caught off guard by the question. Had I not just spend the last [insert extended length of time] communicating what it was that I was upset about? While I had in fact communicated well my problem, what I had not done was give him a clear expectation of what I hoped he would do/say instead in the future. He wanted to know what he should make sure to be more careful of in the future. This has become a staple question in almost every conversation we have in which one or both of us is airing a grievance.
I have loved it. It has caused me to realize how often we are still not on the same page about what should happen differently going forward, even though we may have talked the issue to death. Now not only do we know how each other feels about something, but we are creating action plans together to help avoid the same pitfalls in the future. It also forces clear and direct communication, and avoids messages getting lost in translation.
Just the other day Marty came up and showed me a dirty plate, and informed me that it had just come out of the dishwasher. At first I thought he was pointing out that our dishwasher is not working well, but I asked what my takeaway should be, and learned that he wanted me to see that it was still dirty so that I could pre-wash things better the next time. (It turns out that my mom had done the pre-washing, that wonderful lady, and her dishwasher requires much less pre-washing than ours.)
Had I not asked that question, he would have walked away thinking that I knew I should pre-wash the dishes better, and I would have walked away thinking that he was frustrated with our dishwasher. Oh the subtleties of communication.
We are by no means pro's at this communicating thing, but this trick is one way we've gotten much better.Labels: Marriage