Clarification

When communicating with another person, everyone knows that one way to show interest is by asking questions. This is why on first dates with someone else, people ask so many questions in order to get to know each other. If one person in the date does all the talking without questions being asked by at least one party, the person who didn’t get to talk usually doesn’t view the date as successful. Why? Because the other person wasn’t interested in them!

But usually these questions stop at the dating. Usually because we start to think that we know the person that we are with. But in intimate relationships, it’s important to have that feeling of being interesting to another person. Asking questions does that. That’s part of the clarification – finding out more information about the other person, their thoughts, opinions, and feelings.

Let’s go back to the last post for a little bit. Let’s say that you want to validate another person’s feelings but you don’t understand or agree with their response (emotional, verbal, etc). Asking questions can help you to understand how the other person got to their response – but you want to make sure that your tone (nonverbal body language) indicates interest, not disbelief. A tone of disbelief will put the other person on the defensive because it indicates judgment. Let them know that you really want to understand but need more information. 

Ask questions about what they thought had been done or said. Ask about how they felt/feel. Ask if it reminds them of any previous events. The more information that is shared, the easier it may be to figure out where the miscommunication happened or to prevent miscommunication from happening in the future.