The One About Relationships And Communication

Jon and I don't always have the perfect marriage. We have our faults and quirks. But then again show me a couple that doesn't. We do however try to remain conscious of our relationship and make an effort to be our best. One area that we've had to work a lot on and I imagine will have to continue to work on for years, is communication. We try to take interest in each others hobbies and do things together. One thing we both enjoy is playing video games. We like different games mind you. But there are a few we enjoy playing together.

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A couple years ago another couple that we were friends with challenged us to a gamecube mariokart tournament. Couple vs. Couple. We hadn't played that version before, so they lent the game to us for a couple days. For those two days we practiced playing it to any spare minute we had together. We got to the point where we were amazing. We even had special code words for communicating during the game. We went to their house that Thursday pretty confident. They put up a far fight but in the end we walked away the champions. They had a few snippy words at each other, but we understood. There had been some mis-communication during the game. And when you're on a team and your team loses it's disappointing.

 

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Fast forward to the day Mario Brothers for Wii came out. We are huge video game nerds. Ok ok... Jon is a huge nerd. I'm merely a video game enthusiast. We went out right away and bought it; rushed home and proceeded to play. It did not go well. Oh, it started off good.

But soon there were conversations like "why did you do that?! I said I'd get it!" or "thanks! because you shot that turtle shell at the tube, it bounced back and killed me!" or "you're too fast! the screen moved and I was behind and I died! I just got a propeller hat!"

Several times we decided it was best to just turn the game off and do something else, perhaps even something separate for a bit. We don't hold grudges though so an hour later it'd be like nothing ever happened. We laughed about the whole thing. Who'd a thought a video game would cause so much trouble! We decided to use it as a tool though. While we were playing we kept in mind that our sole intent in doing something together was to build a stronger relationship so why not use the video game to do that. We began to work on how we communicate with each other; not just what we say but how we say it and what words we  used. Using teamwork and strategy to reach the goal of finishing the world and moving on.

A few months later Jon's coworker mentioned they had just bought the game and he and his wife were going to spend the evening playing it. Jon gave him a heads up that it was going to challenge their communication skills. They had a good laugh. But the next morning when they returned to work his coworker confirmed what Jon had warned of. They had ended up turning the game off too! My sister and her boyfriend also bought the game and we forewarned them. Last week-end they were here and someone mentioned they hadn't played that mario brothers game for a while. They looked at each other and my sister said "yeah, we used to play it together but we can't anymore. We have to play it separately."

We love playing it together now! We've gone on to beat the game! But we still laugh about how worked up we got about a stupid video game. But I think it was worth it!

So what's the moral of my story? Communication skills in any relationship is important! Want to gain more or test the ones you have? Do something together as a team like a sport, board game, or a video game!