All right. Does it seem like your ex won't even listen to you? Like they just don't seem to get
what you're trying to say to them? If that's the case, if that's what's going on with you,
then this video will help you out a lot. We're gonna be going over how to talk,
so your ex will listen to you. Now, with that being said, let's go ahead and get into it.
Hey, there, it's Clay with modernlove.life. Now, again, we are gonna be talking about
communication skills to help you improve and talk so that your ex will actually
listen and understand you. For those of you that may not be parents that don't know,
there is a book out there called How to Talk, so Little kids will listen. And you know,
as the parent of a four year old child, um, I have the book and have read it.
So, uh, it just, it just got me thinking like, Hey, what if we just sort of did a little, uh,
uh, you know, joke, building off the title of that book, how to Talk Here, ex will listen. So anyway,
here we are. The first thing is you want to use objective language, okay? Um, objective language.
Now, what I mean by this is we want to drain away all of the opinion and emotion from, uh, how
we are describing things that happened or are happening or might happen. Um, you know, I know
it's so easy to get caught up in saying like, you know, oh yeah, you betrayed me when this happened,
or, um, you, you made me feel sad when this happened, or something like that. It's, it's so
easy to get caught up in that. But just know that when you're doing that, your partner is probably
going to have the experience of you pointing the finger at them and saying, this is your fault.
You did this, you caused this to happen. It's your fault that I'm mad. It's your fault that I'm
sad. It's your fault that I can't get through the day. It's your fault that I can't sleep at night,
because I just keep thinking about everything that could be going on or whatever. And that's not
going to, um, help them to be open and receptive to understanding things. Instead, they're probably
going to be feeling guilty, and they're going to pull back, and they're going to, um, probably shut
down emotionally. If you're familiar with the five stages that we talk about, video link right up
there in the video card, um, this is going to cause them to move backwards through the five
stages, and eventually, if you're not careful, cause them to shut down more emotionally. So what
can actually be helpful is if we start to think about how we talk, um, to our partner in a way
that's sort of, um, just objective facts that has to say, if, if it was you and your partner and,
and, and a third person was watching the two of you interact, well, they say, they wouldn't say,
oh yeah, he, you know, heartlessly abandoned her, or, so, no, they wouldn't say that.
They'd say, you know, they had a conversation and, and he left and she stayed there. So if you can
just start to talk about things in that objective sort of way. So instead of like, you know,
you shouted at me, you might say, you know, you said this to me, or When you told me this,
I felt that. Right? These are powerful things that you can start to do
To help to improve the way that you communicate to, to not risk triggering them,
to not risk escalating things, to potentially an argument or for them feeling overwhelmed and
shutting down. Now, before we go ahead and continue with all of this, cuz we have more
things that you can do to, to, to communicate with your ex, so they're more likely to listen to you,
please help a guy out with his YouTube channel by hitting the thumbs up button for the YouTube
algorithm by subscribing to this channel for, well, me and my own, uh, channel, and also the
YouTube algorithm, and hit the bell icon and just drop a comment down below, what is the
most frustrating thing that you are experiencing when it comes to, um, communicating with your
partner? Go ahead and share that down below. The next thing that you want to make sure that you're
doing is to talk about how you feel, let's to say, take ownership of your emotional state.
It's so easy to point the finger at someone else and say, you made me feel this way. You made me
angry, you made me sad, you make me, uh, confused, or something like that. And it's also, you know,
easy to say things when things are good too. You know, you make me feel so wonderful, uh, you know,
I've never felt as loved as when I'm with you and things like that, right? Uh, and that can
be great when things are going well, , but when things, uh, are, are not going so well,
and you start to invert it, you know, and say things like, you make me feel depressed or
You made me feel angry, or something like that, that's not going to help. So what we wanna do is
we wanna take ownership of those emotions and say instead, you know, when ex happened, I felt blank.
Just say, you know, I felt angry, I feel sad, I feel,
you know, confused, whatever it might be, just take ownership of it. Don't give it to someone
else. And also try to avoid using words that imply someone is doing something to someone else,
like betraying someone or abandoned. So you, you know, you wouldn't say, I feel betrayed,
I feel abandoned, I feel victimized, or anything like that. Instead just say, I feel, I feel hurt,
I feel sad. You know, there's no reason to get overly poetic with all this. You don't get
extra points in life by having the most poetic and complex emotions in the world. Uh, just,
just stick with some of the basics. You know, I feel sad, I feel frustrated, I feel confused,
whatever it might be. You know, you don't have to , uh, pepper your language with all
of these, elaborate words that, that are probably just going to stir the pot and potentially, imply,
you know, you are doing this to me and it's your fault that I'm feeling this way. Okay? So we wanna
be careful about that. We wanna be mindful of that. The third way that you can communicate
as well too is especially when it comes to, uh, very intense things, is to avoid using
words like angry or upset or, you know, things like that. Because these words are not very
Helpful. You know, when was the last time you were talking to someone, you know, maybe your partner,
maybe someone else in your life, a friend or whatever, and you, and you said like, Hey,
you're, you're angry right now, or you're getting upset. And when, when has that actually helped?
Probably never. You know, usually when you start to say you are getting angry just makes the person
more angry. It causes them to look for something to justify their anger. It causes them to look
for something to say, well, yeah, well, you know, it's, it's your fault because blah, blah, blah.
You know, basically violating some of the rules we've gone over already. That's fine. You know,
they're on their own path, you know, sure, it'd be great if they had watched this video and, uh,
and learn to grow spiritually and emotionally and all that sort of stuff themselves, but
hey, you can control you, right?
But we want to avoid these emotions because they sort of create more and they cause the
other person to get defensive. And instead, what can be useful is two things. Number one,
using the word frustrated instead of angry, because anger begets more anger. But I think we
can all agree when we're frustrated, like, you know, hey, seems like you're really frustrated
with the situation rather than, you know, Hey, you're getting angry at me. That, that, that leads
us into the second thing. Uh, so use frustration instead of angry or upset. But the second thing
is also instead of saying, you are angry, you are frustrated, you are whatever, say, Hey,
this situation is kind of frustrating. That can be helpful too, because instead of saying like, Hey,
you are feeling this way, instead you're saying like, Hey, you know, you're, you're doing, you,
I'm doing me, but there's this thing out here, there's this, there's this other thing out here,
and that, that, that thing over there, that's, that's kind of frustrating, isn't it?
That helps to distance them from that intense emotion and it can, uh, avoid triggering further,
uh, challenges in a conversation moving forward. And the fourth thing that we can
do to communicate so that our partner will listen is to really take an interest in
what their experience is rather than trying to fill in the blanks ourselves. You know, it's so
easy to try to make meaning out of the things that are going on in our romantic relationship
situation or in other areas of our lives as well too. It's easy to say, you know,
like, why didn't you text me back, uh, for two days? Or, or why did you start following that,
that attractive person on Instagram? Or you know, why did you say that thing to me? Or Why did you,
you know, not do the thing that you said you were gonna do or whatever.
And we can easily fill in the blanks and say, oh, you know, you didn't text me back
because you don't care about me. You're, you're de-prioritizing me because I'm not important to
you. Or if you followed that person on Instagram because you're, you're secretly in love with
them and you're trying to, you know, uh, impress them and you know, like obviously if you follow
someone on Instagram, they're going to fall head over heels and love with you, right? There's all
these ways that we can try to fill in the blanks and make meeting out of things. But the thing is,
these are often just best guesses. We don't even know if they're even good guesses, right?
Maybe they're even wrong, maybe they're even incorrect. How would you feel
if, let's just say you're driving down the street and someone just like really aggressively,
just like speeds around you, cuts in front of you and just like, just drives around the corner,
you might think, wow, what a jerk, right? That person is, is terrible.
But then what would happen if you turn the corner and right there in front of the emergency room
of the hospital, you saw that same car parked right there at the entrance and the person was,
was taking out some sort of, you know, sick or injured person into the emergency room. That
would change the way that you experienced that the, that, that moment when they were erratically
driving. And in a lot of ways, you know, we can fill in the blanks so often in our lives
by, uh, by just, you know, whatever we, whatever we try to make meaning about someone's actions.
You know, maybe someone doesn't text you back right away. Is it because they don't care about
you? Maybe, but maybe they lost their phone. Maybe they're in the middle of a personal crisis of some
sort. Uh, maybe they're just taking a little bit of time to think about how they want to
respond to you because they want to give you a thoughtful response. I don't know. But there's
a lot of different, uh, possibilities here. So why are we jumping to the one that that casts
us in the worst possible situation that says, you know, Hey, yeah, this is happening because
they don't care about you because they never loved you or because you know,
whatever happened. So just, just rather than trying to fill in that blank yourself, just get
curious and just ask them, cuz you know, you can turn it over in your mind and ruminate about it.
Maybe you can, you know, talk to someone else and they can help you turn it over and the two of you
can ruminate about it. But the only person who's gonna really know why they did something maybe
is them. I say maybe because oftentimes people don't even know why they do what they do. If
they did know , they would probably be the most likely to know why. Uh, they, they,
they are doing what they're doing. So rather than trying to fill in those blanks, ask them,
take an interest and just turn it back to them and let them help you fill in those blanks rather
than, you know, letting your worst case scenario fears and insecurities and everything like that,
rush to try and make meaning out of the whole situation. Anyway, up next, I'd like you to
really learn how to connect emotionally with your ex. So next up, I'd really love you to check out
this video series here on Advanced Relational Skills. These will help you build a unshakeable
strong emotional bond with your partner. Go ahead and click on that next and we'll see you.