Lana Reid’s innate ability to simply help a friend with his current relationship landed her in the relationship advice hot seat and has allowed her to share her knowledge with many women through her “Loving Him Better” project. This Los Angeles based speaker, author, coach, and the syndicated host is giving women all over the tools to figure out how to communicate better, love more and see the signs before you trip and fall over it.
Who in your opinion is the better communicator outside of relationship-men or women? Inside?
It depends on what stage the relationship is in. If the couple only has less than a year or two under their belt in the relationship then it will be harder to have identified all the triggers that your significant other has. You only learn another person fully by going through many different “life” situations with them and then mentally cataloging their responses. That way when a similar situation comes along again, you will be able to say “ah ha! This bothers my partner, so I know he will be in a bit of a sour mood later today” without them having to communicate that to you.
Now if you’ve been with your partner for seven years or more and can’t read his nonverbal communication, that may signify a larger problem. Maybe you were not paying attention all those years to the way his eyes light up when he sees you in that red dress and then you sit there clueless as to why he is sulking on “date night” and giving you one-word answers when you wear the frumpy blue dress. In the beginning, both sides are doing their best to “get along” and secure the relationship so the trueness of the individual does not readily expose itself. It takes time for all the true quirks and idiosyncrasies of the individuals to come out, but after spending years with someone you really should be able to understand their moods without them having to explain it in full detail when they are happy, angry or struggling with something.
Do you think most couples should know when their mates are angry, happy or struggling with anything even without any specific verbal communication? What is the thing most men wish their significant other knew that they don’t seem to understand?
I think men really want women to understand that they don’t communicate the same way that women do and to stop putting all that pressure on them by expecting them to be able to just “get it” (be the conversation verbal or non-verbal). It takes him some time to understand his woman fully and in the meantime there tends to be frustration from the woman’s side because she feels like “he just does not understand her” or he is clueless.
Let’s look at it like this: both inside and outside of the relationship, men and women (for the most part) are good communicators. What people going into relationships don’t seem to understand is that men and women speak different languages. It’s like having a person who is fluent in French met up with a person who is fluent in Japanese and telling them to build a house together when they’ve never done it before. Both people can communicate very well… just in their own native tongue. So at the beginning of the building process, both have to go back to very basic, elementary styles of communication in order to properly construct a house. Since they speak different languages they have to show each other “this is how you count to ten in my language,” “this is how you say ‘cup’ in my language,” “this is the word for ‘yellow’ in my language.”
What happens in new relationships is that people (both parties are guilty) unknowingly default into thinking that the other should automatically speak, understand and behave the way that they do. For example, if a girlfriend comes from a background where there were people all the time in the house and it was full of constant activity, she might not understand her boyfriend’s need for plenty of quiet, alone time because that was the way he grew up. Without going back to basic communication in the “foundation-laying” stage, both partners might miss the lesson that one needs retreat and recharge time while the other prefers life to be “in motion” all the time.
To make the relationship as painless as possible, the majority of the beginning stages should be spent learning how the other person speaks and comprehends. This is how you say you are angry with me. This is how I say I’m angry with you. This is how you say that you appreciate me. This is how I say that I appreciate you. This is how I show love. This is what I need to feel loved. All that needs to be clearly hashed out right from the start. It goes into your “team playbook.”
Do you find that most women are open to enhancing and nourishing their communication skills or are they confident that they are doing everything right and resistant to change?
Women mean no harm, but we really are communicating with men incorrectly. One of the lessons that I teach in my “Loving Him Better” seminars is this technique of “Completing Your Sentences.” Women do not finish their sentences when they talk to men which leave a man hanging in the conversation and not sure which way he is supposed to respond that will make his woman happy.
Women by nature are more intuitive. We read words that are not spoken. We gather meaning from body language, the tone of voice and more. Women pick up on a majority of the nonverbal cues, especially in our interpersonal relationships. So if you sit two women down at a restaurant table with a man and the two women happen to see an unruly child running around while the parent does nothing, you might see the two women give a head nod towards the kid, give an eye roll to each other, give a few back and forth “uh hmmm’s” “hmphfs” and “I wish mine would” and all the while the man is sitting there thinking “what’s going on…what did I miss…are they talking about me?” Women can communicate with other women without saying the whole message, we understand the parts innately that another woman leaves out and we take this style of communication to our relationships with men. Men don’t do a woman’s nonverbal style of communication too well. They can learn it, but it takes time.
Loving Him Better: Ask Questions
So the all too famous “can you take the trash out” becomes a major argument with attitude in many households because women are not “completing their sentences.” For example, let’s say a woman happens to be in the kitchen and places the last possible piece of trash in the trash can. Then she walks into the living room where her man is watching TV and says to him “can you take the trash out.” To which he responds “yeah, sure” and keeps watching TV. Now, she might get upset because she needed him to do it right at that moment but that is not what she said to him. What she said to him, implied to him that he had options: he could take out the trash right now, before he went to bed, on the way out the door for work. There was no communication of the immediate need for the task to be completed, so he responded according to his interpretation.
We as women want him to hear and see everything we are not saying in the conversation. We will then embark on a whole internal mental debate that ends up irritating us further. We say to ourselves, “now, I know he just saw me come from the kitchen. He heard me washing the dishing and throwing stuff away. He knows the trash can is full.” Maybe even later that night, we are still upset and standoffish and he is sitting there trying to figure out “what’s wrong with her?” That’s the point we need to self-check … the reality is no, he does not know all that we wanted because those finite non-verbal details are not what he uses for communication. A simple “baby, I just filled up the trash can so is it possible that you take it out now for me” gives him a full understanding (in his style of communication) and both people will have a healthy interaction.
Once I explain this technique to women, they are very receptive to implementing the adjustments in order to have productive communication with their partners. Most women don’t realize they are not completing their sentences when they have conversations with men.
8 Facts About Love and Marriage
It’s not the 60’s and today’s relationships are not like those of old. How would you counsel someone stuck on their parents’ idea of marriage and relationships and show them that they can set their own terms?
Relationships in the ’60s and in 2019 still have the same basic premise: two people coming together to build a team along with a playbook for that team. Some of the team player roles have shifted over the years but the end goal is still the same… you and I are building an “us.” At the end of the day, a couple still has to eat so someone has to cook and then wash the dishes. Clothes have to be washed, so someone has to throw them in the washing machine. The rent or mortgage has to be paid so money needs to be made. Children have to be raised, so diapers need changing and homework needs to be helped with. Someone has to go to the store and buy the toothpaste and bread. Cars need to be taken in for oil changes. Although it’s 2019, the needs of a couple are still the same as they were in the ’60s… just who does these functions in a relationship have shifted a bit. I think couples today are running into numerous conflicts because they are looking at it as a “you vs me” type scenario and treating people like they are only options which causes them to bail out on relationships without honestly working to build a good one in the first place.
Right from the beginning, two people should sit down and decide “how are we going to build our team,” how are we going to make this a win-win for everyone. I’ll cook if you wash the dishes. I’ll work extra hours while you start up your business. In the ’60s there was an unspoken expectation that people in relationships filled certain gender role functions but today that can go any which way. The key for today’s relationships is deciding right from the jump what the other expects and needs the other to do in order to nurture the health of the relationship.
Many women stay in relationships that no longer serve them? How do women first define boundaries for their happiness and know when to move on?
There is not really a nice and clean answer to this question because it all falls upon the woman evolving as a person and understanding who she is. Growth happens over time unfortunately and sometimes we stay planted in bad relationships while we are growing and learning what it is that we actually deserve. Until a person knows what their boundaries are and what really makes them happy, they will continue to allow people to cross boundaries and make them miserable. It’s very crucial that a woman learns herself and honestly comes to terms with who she is. Until she does this, any man can come along and waste valuable portions of her time because she has not clearly defined her “wants and needs” or her “negotiables and non-negotiables.”
I do want to say that men do the same thing as well, stay in relationships longer than what serves them because they too have not defined their boundaries. Until you get to a place of understanding who you are and what you deserve, you will always allow others to come into your life and give you their definition of who you are and what you need. Also, I suggest when a person is doing their self-reflection that they are honest with themselves and see if the problem really is with them. Maybe they are the one crossing boundary lines and making others unhappy. In our efforts to protect our own sense of self, we sometimes cast unwarranted blame onto others when in reality we are the problem.
Moving on from a bad relationship is easy and not so easy. You just have to be in a place of loving yourself which is not always a place that people emotionally find themselves in. Moving on requires accepting that you’ve lost the time and energy spent on the other person. Moving on means possibly having to go through the whole process of starting over with a new person which is draining. Moving on means stepping away from a relationship and beginning to understand all that you put up with and wondering how did you let yourself fall so low. Moving on means allowing yourself to say “hey, I short-changed myself but I’ve learned from it and will make a better decision from now on.”
Are you struggling with the dynamics of your current relationship? Reach out to Lana on her website www.LovingHimBetter.com or by calling 800-811-LANA (5262) and via social media on FB and Instagram at Facebook.com/LanaReidOnline / Instagram.com/TheLadyLanaReid .
