Communication is Key

This week I have been focusing the impact my communication has on my relationships. Everything we do within our families has an impact, it just may not be the impact we think. There are lots of theories involving the interaction of families, the one that catches my eye the most is the family systems theory. This theory states that,"the intimate group must be analyzed as a whole; the group has boundaries that distinguish it from other groups" (Marriage & Family: The Quest for Intimacy by Robert H. Lauer & Jeanette C. Lauer, p.20).  This confused me at first, but as I dove deeper I realized how much sense it makes. According to systems theory we do not react independently of the individuals in our family and each part acts as a piece of the whole.

I decided to conduct an experiment using this theory. I used the family mapping system developed by Salvador Minuchin to map my family's relationships and subsystems at the time of my parents' divorce. (See page 236 for a family map example).  After  my map was complete I asked both of my parent if, at the time of the divorce, they perceived their relationship to be rigid, permeable/clear or poor/ diffuse. After receiving both responses I gave them a quick run down of the mapping process I asked them to each create their own. The results amazed me! While on my map I had said my parents relationship was far too open and boundaries were unclear they both thought that it was very clear. My mind was blown. This opened up a conversation as to why we each felt the way we did about the relationships. Talking about these things would have saved a lot of stress in the long run.

My little experiment got me thinking. How do I better communicate in order for my family systems to be as healthy and functioning as possible? Keep in mind that these are just my own thoughts and maybe someone out there has better ones that can help me. First I looked at my parents. My mom and I agree that we've always have a pretty clear relationship we just need to work on explaining when we're frustrated and why. My relationship with my dad is usually quite rigid on my side and diffuse on his. We talked about meeting in the middle. I need to provide more than one word responses to conversations and he needs to hold back a little bit.

I think the first step in better communication is seriously evaluating exactly where you are. Talk to others about improving the communication in your relationships, be open to their position. My husband and I sat down to evaluate how we talked to each other and we found out that when I get stressed it seems to me like he retreats to avoid confrontation. To him he is giving me the space I need because he know that often times my stress is caused by anxiety and coddling me makes it worse. I thought he didn't care enough to talk about things, but really he didn't want to stress me out more.Misconceptions like this occur all of the time in every relationship. This loop of I do things because he does things but he only does it because of what I am doing only ends if we come at situations from the other persons point of view. I know that as we strive to understand where family members are coming from we will be able to better communicate with them.