The best person to challenge you

The best person to challenge you

Many couples don’t realize that they have in each other a kind of coach. Your spouse is the best person to give you feedback about your strengths, weaknesses, and to help you improve as a person. That’s because your spouse is the closest person to you, who knows you better than anyone else. 

Your spouse is a kind of mirror, where you can see a reflection of yourself. You wonder, “How am I doing? What am I good/bad at?” A quick look at your spouse, and the life that s/he gets from you, will tell it so truthfully that it may hurt you.

Your boss, colleagues, friends, and even relatives don’t know you that well. And however much they do, they’ll probably not tell you what they think of you in all honesty, for fear of hurting you. Or simply because they don’t really care.

But your wife or husband wants you to improve. You improve, s/he improves. So rather than seeing your spouse as a nag or avoiding having that hard talk, you should welcome the feedback. In fact, ask for it. Set up a system in your marriage where you will agree to be each other’s coach. Come up with some rules for it. Here are a few, to get you started:

1. I’ll only give you feedback at your request or with your permission (lets your spouse know it’s coming) 
2. My feedback will be for the sole purpose of helping you improve, not to vent my frustrations
3. I will never attack your character or person 
4. I will not pressure you to change, but trust that you’ll judge for yourself the value of my feedback and decide what to do with it
5. I will still love you no matter what 

The big enemy of feedback is that it triggers defensiveness in the person receiving it. The above rules should help minimize that.

You have a free coach by your side. Are you making the most of it?



P.S. It’s this sort of information that helps you become a better, happier couple. Every couple of months, we gather smart couples in Houston for a two-week marriage course that transforms their relationship. The next one will kick off on August 2nd. If you're in Houston, you may want to do this course with and for your spouse. That’d be great. But above all, do it for yourself. Register now.

P.P.S. Not in Houston? You could buy the DVD set of the course via our online bookstore. It's no real substitute for attending the course personally, but it's the next best thing.