CONVINCING AND PERSUADING YOUR SPOUSE

- Pst. Gavin Aleogho

After many attempts to convince the husband, Sandra gave up trying. For the issue has led to many emotional outbursts between the couple. It has even affected their intimacy.

Even before Oshogwe got married to Sandra, he has been keeping his hair very bushy. On the other hand, his wife does not like her husband keeping a bushy hair. Why then did she accept his proposal? That is a question for another day.

The wife gets irritated with the husband’s hair, considering the fact that he does not maintain the hair which makes it smell with a lot of dirty particles.

She has tried to bear with it but to no avail. The question remains, how can she be able to convince her husband to keep a style of hair that she really loves?

One of the common challenges in marriage is the inability of a spouse to convince the other concerning an issue. This has led to diverse degree of misunderstanding in marriages.

This misunderstanding is not necessarily because one of the spouses is not communicating rightly about the issue on ground. Rather, the problem is that the other partner is not seeing things from the same perspective as his spouse. Hence, what needs to be done is left undone. What needs to change is left unchanged.

This challenge can also be seen in a case where a partner is not okay with the behaviour or attitude of the other. And he or she has tried several times to speak to his partner concerning the matter. But sadly, the other person is not seeing the seriousness of the issues. Thus, the problem lingers beyond normal.

Now, if you’ve tried talking about a problem to your spouse and he or she is not seeing any reason to change, there is a need for you to try another approach to convey your dissatisfaction. For not until your spouse is fully persuaded, he or she will never change.

So, your aim is not just to talk about the issue. Wisdom demands that you deploy another approach to convince your spouse so that he or she can have enough reasons to change and follow your way.

Let me share with you four effective ways to achieve this.

4 WAYS TO EFFECTIVELY CONVINCE YOUR SPOUSE

1. INDIRECT COMPARISON

This is a form of conviction that is achieved by mirroring your ideal desire to your spouse using another person, object or scenario.

Take for example, if you want your wife to slim down a little bit, you could say, “Ladies that are slim look bright, brilliant and beautiful.” By saying such, you are indirectly mirroring your desire to your wife using another person. If your wife is wise she will understand that you want her to slim down.

Mrs. Sandra could deploy the indirect comparison by saying to her husband, “men who cut their hair look neat, responsible and charming.”

As effective as this method may seem, you have to be careful of the kind of comparison that you used to avoid being misunderstood.

2. ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECT

This is where you intentionally bring your spouse to an environment where he or she would see or hear what you’ve been trying to tell him through another person.

Such an environment could be any marriage forum where couples are taught on how they can succeed in marriage. Many persons, especially women have testified how their husband has positively changed since they joined our Couples’ Corners (Marriage Matters) WhatsApp platform. It’s a platform where we teach and also share valuable materials that will help couples and intending couples. You too can join in, if you so desire.

So, depending on the matter at hand, you might need to bring your spouse to an environment where he can learn from an expert. If it is health related issues, bring him or her to health forums. If it is problem of mismanagement of money, get him or her to attend financial seminars.

3. EXPOSURE TO RIGHT MATERIALS

This is when you deliberately expose your spouse to materials that could help him or her to see reasons and change for the better, for a glorious marriage.

There are a lot of materials out there which will greatly help your marriage in this regard. These materials range from videos, audio, books, articles, movies etc.

Your job is to discover the best way that your spouse can learn better and expose them to materials that will help them to become a better person. So, you can buy a book for your spouse if you want his life to change based on the content of the book.

You could persuade him or her to watch a particular movie that addresses the problem in your marriage. Today, there are a lot of Christian movies that will greatly help you in this regard.

In the same vein, there are a lot of audio messages on marriage, family and relationships that you can take advantage of.

4. THE INVOLVEMENT OF A THIRD-PARTY

This aspect has to be traded with caution as the involvement of a third party to some marriage has led to the destruction of the marriage. Despite that, I still recommend that there are issues that you need to get the involvement of a third-party who could be a pastor, marriage counsellor or a professional in the area you want help.

Most times, it will be more convincing to your spouse when he or she hears from a professional who is God-fearing, experienced, matured with vast knowledge on the subject matter.

Personally, I have greatly leveraged on this. Thanks to the wonderful people that God brought our way in our early years in marriage. Their counsel greatly helped us.

For the scripture says..

Where no counsel is, the people fall: but in the multitude of counsellors there is safety.
Proverbs 11:14

Personally, I don’t recommend the involvement of relatives on such matters. This is because even though they may be sincere, there might be bias in their judgment.

Take advantage of these four approaches to better your marriage.