Letter of Advice Dear Jeff

Letter of Advice

Dear Jeff and Stephanie

Many congratulations from my side on your engagement and for choosing each other as life partner. Choosing a life partner is not simple because it is a relationship, which continues forever. You are not buying a house or a car, that you can change if it did not fulfill your needs or satisfy you; you are starting a relationship, indeed a very complex and complicated relationship. Therefore, it is very important for couples to learn how to manage this relationship and fill it with love and affection.

Unfortunately, there is very limited literature available for couples if they want to know about the first year of marriage or preparation of marriage (Holman & Li, 1997; Larson & Holman, 1994). I am glad that you both already have idea of this and therefore you have given me a chance to give you advice on how to start your new life. One of the most important factors needed for making your relationship successful is effective interpersonal communication and it is my honor to explain and guide you about the importance of effective interpersonal communication in a successful and happy wedded life.

Thesis Statement: Effective Interpersonal Communication is an important tool for building a strong and never-ending married life relationship.

In order to explain and prove the above thesis statement, I will discuss following five concepts here, which according to me are most important to successful communication within interpersonal relationships. These are:

1. Principles and misconceptions in effective interpersonal communications

2. Words have the power to create and affect attitudes, behavior, and perception

3. Perceptions, emotions, and nonverbal expression affect interpersonal relationships.

4. Emotional intelligence and its role in effective interpersonal relationships

5. Appropriate Level of Self-disclosure in relationships

Let us start with the first and most important concept of interpersonal relationships. Due to its critical significance, I will be explaining this concept in more detail than the other four concepts.

1. Principles and misconceptions in effective interpersonal communications

The first concept I want to discuss is the principles and misconceptions in an effective interpersonal communication. Both of you should know that there are many principles and misconceptions in conducting an effective communication. It happens hundreds of times in our daily lives that we do not communicate our message effectively; may be because we lack the ability to express the message or problem. It is a bitterly fact that instead of looking at our own fault, we blame the opposite side or in case of couples, the other partner. We assume that our partner does not understand us or in other words does not care about us. This situation results in confusion and interpersonal conflicts, enforcing couples to think that they have chosen a wrong life partner. Couples do not understand a simple logic that the opposing person will listen and understand what we communicate verbally and non-verbally.

The purpose of explaining you this situation is to make you understand that it is very critical for a couple to engage with each other in a meaning full way. If you will not be able to engage h in a meaning full way and will not understand each other, then you will suffer from loneliness and depression (Williams and Zadiro, 2001). You will regret your decision of choosing each other and as a result, distances increase which will take both of you far from each other. Following are some of the tips that both of you must memorize before starting a relationship:

There is a big difference between saying and communicating. Saying something is not communicating; so please do not assume that if one of you is saying something, the other understands it that way. Therefore, start analyzing each other's expression and way of talking from today, so that when you start living together, you know a lot about each other's way of expression.

Not communicating is a problem but communicating too much is also a mistake, which couples usually make. I do not want both of you to this and ruin your life only because of unnecessary long discussions. If both of you have habit of doing long debates on unnecessary issues, than change your attitude. Now you are not friends; you have started a sensitive relationship in which you will feel everything more than before and will get hurt easily. Therefore, do not over communicate; if you feel any discussion is going in wrong direction, just give it a pause and stay calm. Do not waste your hours convincing each other on issues that are not directly related to your life.

Communication cannot solve all your problems and sometimes even the clear communication is cause of the problem and conflicts. For instance, husband sweetly and clearly explains his wife that he will not able to give her anniversary gift this year as he just gave all his savings to his mother for her medical treatment. This communication is clear but wife gets hyperactive as she was expecting a good present from him. This shows that sometimes even the clear communication is the root of the problem. Although it is difficult to calculate what to disclose to your partner and what not to disclose, even than try to avoid things that you think can make your partner upset.

If your single and simple sentence makes your partner agitated and bursts at you, please do not assume that it was not only because of what you said. There might be many things behind it and it has not occurred in vacuum. Let me give you an example; Stephanie suppose one day Jeff comes home late from office. The moment he enters and you ask him the reason; he shouts at you. You will be surprised that you only sweetly asked him and did not say anything else than why did he shout? You will have to understand that it's not only because you asked something wrong, it's just he had a bad day today in office and his boss made him sit late and complete the work. Remember, nothing happens in isolation, there are always some other factors behind the attitude and response of your partner.

2. Words have the power to create and affect attitudes, behavior, and perception

Now, the second important concept I want you to remember is that, words are very powerful. You can make your opinion good or bad in the eyes of each other by playing with words. The words spoken by one of you will show your attitude, behavior and perception regarding any issue. Therefore, it is very necessary to use the appropriate language while communicating because wrong words can ruin the fragile relationship of husband and wife. Even a single word can result into extremely hurting feelings; therefore understand each other's use of words and its meaning.

Sometimes, you may do not mean what you say but the opposite person will understand your views with the help of words you used. Therefore, be careful in use of words and remember that communication is irreversible. Do not hurt each other by losing your temper because words once said cannot come back. No matter what justification you give later to prove that you got upset but your partner has already saved your spoken words in his memory, which you cannot delete. Here are some of the tips that you can remember in order to do good and effective communication with each other:

Avoid use of words that have double meanings

Try to use words that are familiar to both of you

Always try to avoid unnecessary words and discussions of sensitive issues; like discussing each other's family.

3. Perceptions, emotions, and nonverbal expression affect interpersonal relationships

Jeff and Stephanie, you also have to understand the fact that every person has his own behaviors, perceptions and thoughts, which he gains from his cultural and personal experiences (Pfeiffer, 1998). These thoughts, behaviors and attitudes have deep impact on how the person communicates; therefore please do not assume things, rather discuss your confusions whenever needed.

In addition, also remember that not only verbal but your non-verbal communication also plays a critical role in your relationship. Therefore, always take care of your body language and face expressions because they add meaning to what you say. For instance, let us consider a situation; Stephanie you did lot of work today, you are badly tired and no smile on your face. When Jeff returns home and does not find you normal, he might assume that you are angry with him because he did not call you today. Although it is not the case, the problem is that you are too tired so you do not feel like smiling. This example shows that your nonverbal behavior will greatly influence the quality of your interpersonal relationship. Therefore, try to understand each other's abilities to express encode and decode the non-verbal clues & emotions, which all are very crucial for the relationship satisfaction.

4. Emotional intelligence and its role in effective interpersonal relationships

Another important concept, which both of you should be aware of, is that 'emotional Intelligence' will play an important role in developing a loving relationship between you too.

Different experts have defined emotional intelligence in their own ways. In the following paragraph, I will share some definitions with you.

According to Mayer and Salovery (1997), emotional intelligence is the capacity to reason about emotions and increase the thinking level. Bar-on (1997) on the other side, gives a simple definition by saying that emotional intelligence is to effectively understand each other, relate to them and adapt the immediate surroundings. Another definition was given by Marques in 2007 states that emotional intelligence is an "an ability to recognize the meanings of emotion & their relationships and to reason and problem solve on the basis of them."

All these definitions have one thing common; which is to understand and know each other's emotions by enhancing and broadening the thinking level. Both of you need to be emotionally intelligent if you want to make a successful lifetime relationship, especially you Jeff. You should be more active on this side as marriage expert Jeff Gottman (1999) writes in his book the Seven Principles for Making Marriages Work that "emotionally intelligent husband is the next step in social evolution."

Therefore, you should increase your thinking and feeling scope and try your best to understand and feel Stephanie's feelings; listen to her problems and share her happiness. You might not be very sensitive but you have to give her honor, respect and love. She might share things that you do not enjoy to listen, but try to take interest and show her your positive attitude. Stephanie you must also give respect & honor to Jeff, and allow him to take decisions as your caretaker. In simple words, you both need to manage this relationship as Gottman (1999) also says that couples must enhance their love map. They must know everything about each other and remember each other' wishes, hopes and dreams.