communication – Page 2

Strong Wife, Quiet Husband

PWs and PW husbands come in all personality styles. For this issue of Peter’s Wife we are looking at the strong wife and the more easy-going, quiet husband. How do they manage in a cross cultural situation?

Many PWs have strong personalities or they wouldn’t survive in a cross cultural situation. These women are gifted in certain areas and are capable leaders. Some of them are married to strong, visionary, high-energy husbands and have the usual adjustments to submission and cooperation. But for strong, capable, verbal women married to more easy going, quieter husbands, the adjustment may be much harder.

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Talking Like the Animals

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Let’s have some fun! Communication is challenging whether in marriage, with our children, with our co-workers, or with nationals. But sometimes improvement comes when we step back and look at it from a different angle.

My husband came up with the idea of using animals as pictures of human communication. Take a look at these and see if you can identify yourself or someone else you are trying to communicate with. Note that we sometimes act like different animals in different situations. Puppies can become clams if they are intimidated.

Have fun with the animals, and no fighting or self-condemnation, please. [Read more…]

Challenges of Single Women

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Allyson shared the results of her survey of single women(SW) serving or preparing to serve overseas. Many who read Peter’s Wife could benefit from these insights. The largest group are the wives and mothers who are serving overseas with SW on their team. They can probably do the most to help SW with their particular struggles. Agency directors may not be aware of some of the special stresses single women on the field face and what they could do to help. And finally there are some from home churches who could do much to help SW serving overseas.

Many of the problems that the SW mentioned are common to anyone serving outside their culture. The lack of communication with people at home, the glazed over looks when we share our stories, the expectation that those serving overseas need much less money to live on and really should live on a lower standard than others, and the fear of loss of support when we are “out of sight.”

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ABCs of Communication

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Communication in marriage requires work. It takes time and effort to keep it healthy. Living and working cross culturally can add to the difficulties of communication with our husband. His work may involve hours of struggling to listen to people with deep needs. He’s worn out with listening by the end of the day.

We, on the other hand, may feel we are using every bit of our emotional reserves to deal with a life that seems totally foreign and unintelligible. The demands of keeping our children safe, our house clean, and food on the table don’t leave time and energy to listen to our husband’s plans for a future project or his thinking process in preparing his next sermon.

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