How to Fix Communication in Relationships: 5 Tools Every Couple Needs

Marriage communication isn't rocket science, but that doesn't mean it's easy. In this candid episode, Eugene and Latanya tackle the real questions couples are asking about effective communication and provide practical tools to transform your relationship conversations.

The foundation of all successful marriage communication begins with a crucial mindset shift: seeing yourselves as teammates rather than opponents. As Eugene points out, "Good teammates don't fight each other, don't only focus on what's going to make them better in the game, and are willing to do whatever is necessary in order to win." This perspective changes everything about how you approach difficult conversations.

Drawing from both scripture and their own marriage journey, Eugene and Latanya address the top communication challenges couples face. They explore why misunderstandings happen (often due to not truly listening or assuming negative intent), how to handle passive-aggressive behavior (by creating safe spaces for honest discussion), and the importance of timing for meaningful conversations. Their approach combines spiritual wisdom with practical strategies anyone can implement immediately.

The heart of this episode lies in its five actionable communication tools: promoting active listening, gently addressing passive-aggressive patterns, choosing appropriate timing for tough talks, using connection prompts like "How can I support you?", and regularly asking "How can I help?" These simple but powerful practices create an environment where both partners feel seen, heard, and valued.

Ready to transform your marriage communication? Listen now and discover how to build a winning team where understanding replaces confusion, connection replaces conflict, and teamwork becomes your relationship's greatest strength. Share your communication wins with us on social media @We3TheWinningTeam – we'd love to hear how these tools are helping you win together!

Chapters

• 0:00 For Committed Couples Only
• 6:32 Stopping Misunderstandings Between Partners
• 17:54 Handling Passive-Aggressive Behavior
• 27:06 Communication Tools for Winning Together
• 30:42 Five Practical Takeaway Tips

Transcript

Eugene: 0:00

Please hear me when I say this this episode is not for couples who are not committed to working together in their marriage that are not committed to working together as a team, because we're not just answering the questions.

Eugene: 0:13

We're going to actually give you tools as teammates. But good teammates don't fight each other they don't. Good teammates don't only focus on what's going to make them better in the game or, you know, focused only on their stats. And good teammates are willing to do whatever is necessary in order to win. And it's funny that when you look at it and think about it in the context of sports, even with your kids on the on the court, the on the court, if your, if your son or daughter was fighting one of their teammates as a or purposely doing something to that was a detriment to the team, you would almost cuss them out on the court so why is it that we can't translate or transfer that into our marriages?

Eugene: 0:58

on on our jobs, we all know that we have to be good teammates on our jobs and we want other people who who are on our teams or peers, even bosses, to be good teammates. We understand, we understand what the qualities and characteristics of a good teammate is, but why is it that we don't operate in the same way? Welcome to another episode of the Winning Team WE3 Winning Team Podcast.

Eugene: 1:38

I'm Eugene, I'm Latanya and we are the Winning Team, but you know, together we win and the whole purpose of our podcast is really to help you to win too, so we love marriage, we're a lover of marriage, and so we understand that communication is one of the reasons why marriages have a lot of trouble, and so our last episode was really about why is communication so hard in marriage and man. The feedback and the comments that we've gotten back from people have been incredible and and we understand that the last episode really helped you, but they wanted us to go a little bit deeper, to figure out the tools in order to be able to communicate.

LaTanya: 2:25

Yeah, because the reality to communication is that it impacts everything in your marriage, in life. Really, you got bad communication, you have a lot of issues and a lot of misunderstandings, and so, um, it's not like it's this thing that is just impacting one thing it can impact you spiritually, emotionally, physically, and so giving you all some tools which really aren't going to be rocket science stuff. It's not rocket science, but it's also not easy, it's not easy.

Eugene: 3:00

It's simple, but it's not easy.

LaTanya: 3:03

It's not easy at all, it's simple, but it's not easy.

Eugene: 3:06

It's not easy at all so and what's interesting is that, out of the people that we were talking to, this time for y'all, we did a little additional research and in our additional research, what we did is we went to Google, youtube, tiktok, and we just kind of searched, like, what are people asking in regards to marriage? And these are real questions that we came up with. We came up with the top five questions that people are asking, and these are real questions, real struggles, and then we're going to give some real strategies in order to help y'all get through it.

LaTanya: 3:37

Yeah, and, like I said, most of this is not, it's not going to be anything new. You know, I believe the scripture that there's nothing new under the sun, like it is true, it is true. And so really, what we're, you know, what we're going to talk about is like five questions, and they're going to be real, they're going to be raw and we're going to give some tools, we're going to give our how it, what it looks like and how this shows up in our marriage as well, because, um, just because we're here talking about it, um, it, we've lived it and we continue to live it. Because communication happens every single day, every day, like every day, every moment, every moment, all of that and even when you're not using words and so often people think it's about the words that you use, but even when you're not using words, sometimes the nonverbal is louder than the words that come out of your mouth. So communication is so key and so vital to your everyday functioning in marriage and we're going to jump in in a second.

Eugene: 4:46

But another thing that I thought was interesting, as I was talking to some individuals and couples over the last several weeks, is that this episode please hear me when I say this this episode is not for couples who are not committed to working together in their marriage, that part that are not committed to working together in their marriage, that are not committed to working together as a team?

Eugene: 5:07

because we're not just answering the questions. We're going to actually give you tools as teammates. But good teammates don't fight each other. They don't. Good teammates don't only focus on what's going to make them better in the game or, you know, focused only on their stats, and good teammates are willing to do whatever is necessary in order to win.

Eugene: 5:28

And it's funny that when you look at it and think about it in the context of sports, even with your kids on the court, if your son or daughter was fighting one of their teammates or purposely doing something that was a detriment to the team, you would almost cuss them out on the court. So why is it that we can't translate or transfer that into our marriages? On our jobs, we all know that we have to be good teammates on our jobs, and we want other people who are on our teams or peers, even bosses, to be good teammates. We understand what the qualities and characteristics of a good teammate is. We're going to give you more about that, too, in the coming weeks and months. But why is it that we don't operate in the same way? So, again, we're going to have real questions, real strategies and real struggles and real strategies. So these are the five communication questions couples are actually asking when it comes on on YouTube, tiktok, google, et cetera. So question number one, let's jump right in, let's go.

Eugene: 6:34

Let's jump. How can we stop misunderstanding each other? How can we stop misunderstanding each other? And, honestly, it takes intentionality and effort to want to understand, and we've said this even in the last episode. You can't listen to respond or listen to want to be right. You legitimately have to do active listening with your whole face, listen with your face.

Eugene: 7:07

My wife had to tell me that for a long time because I would be looking at my phone and she was like, hey, I want to talk to your face, not to the back of your phone. And so, again in my mind, I was listening, but to her. And she knew that it was a possibility that it was going to lead to misunderstanding, because I would often have to ask her to repeat what she said a million times, because it will be a key component where I would hear her pause and I'd be like dang, she must be waiting on me to respond or answer and I don't have nothing to say. And then I'd be like, hey, can you say that? She'd be like, no, I'm not saying it again. And so, because I would have talked for 10 minutes by that point, and so misunderstanding, it really is about you. And that's another good point.

Eugene: 7:52

Everything that I'm saying in here, like I hope that you and your spouse can be sitting down and listening to this together, but even if y'all are, if they're not, stop it right now, pause it, pull them into the room, tag them, pause it, pull them into the room, tag them, share it with them, because this is a conversation that y'all need to have with one another. Because, and when you're having this conversation. Don't listen and then point and say see, told you, told you, this is what you need to do. No, you need to be focused on what you need to do in order to make sure that you are coming to an understanding and communicating better.

LaTanya: 8:24

And I think that's that's really important are coming to an understanding and communicating better. And I think that's really important and I think we've said this even in the last episode about I think the first step in communicating well is looking at you and how are you showing up in that conversation and I think, being honest about it, you know like, sometimes you do have to like, all right, I got to pause, or this is and we'll, we'll talk a little bit more about timing and those things, but, um, but you gotta know you, you gotta understand you. Um, because I think that's the step. First step to misunderstandings is that, oh wait, I didn't, I didn't understand, I didn't, I didn't realize what I was bringing to this space or bring into that conversation, which then usually leads to the misunderstanding.

Eugene: 9:16

Yeah, and I, if? If I'm communicating something or attempting to communicate something and Tanya doesn't understand, I don't say, well, there's something wrong with her. I often say, okay, how could I communicate that differently?

Eugene: 9:33

in order to get her to understand it better. And so what typically will happen is that, in the instances that I've seen, is that people will just repeat the same thing that they just said. If the person didn't understand it the first time, chances are they're not going to actually understand the next time. But it's also becomes my responsibility that if she's saying something that I don't understand, that I need to ask a clarifying question Like what did you mean when you said X?

LaTanya: 10:03

But oftentimes we are too far gone and we're already reacting to what the person said, and those reactions are emotional, and now we're not even seeking understanding anymore, because we're too deep, we're mad and we're trying to be right, and we're trying to be right and we're trying to be heard, and so sometimes somebody in the conversation has to just pause and stop talking and be okay with the pause, because sometimes, like, oh, so you're just going to stop talking. Well, one you might need to stop talking because, again, if it's heated, if a lot of emotions are in place, you got to take a break, we got to pause. You got to, you gotta take a break, like we gotta. We gotta pause, you gotta stop talking so that you can now hear, like what, what are you hearing? What did you hear me say?

LaTanya: 10:54

Um, and it's not trying to now cause, I think even sometimes with that question, what did you hear me say? Now he's like well, now you're trying to be a therapist. I know I'm trying to make sure I'm understanding so that we can get clarity. That's another one of the steps You're working to get clarity, not just to get your point across. And I think that's where the misunderstanding happens is because I'm focused, focus. Someone in the conversation is focused on getting their point across as opposed to getting clarity and really moving the conversation forward.

Eugene: 11:35

And we're Christians and so we're always going to give you what the word says. And James 1 and 19 says let every person be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry. Now I'm going to go back to those first slow to speak and slow to become angry. Now I'm going to go back to those first three or four words Let three words, let every person. It doesn't say, let the other person. It says, let every person.

Eugene: 12:02

So you, you can't think about. Well, you can't even throw this scripture back in your spouse's face and say you supposed to be quick to listen and slow to speak and slow to anger? No, that's your responsibility. There should be times in the art, and that shouldn't even say argument in the conversation, where there's actually some quiet time because there's a pause between when, the when the two of you are actually talking. There are times when my wife and I will have conversations my wife, like you're, I said, but there's times when Ty and I will be talking, and another tactic for me is that I will reflect back on what I heard and sometimes it may be days or weeks later. I'm like, hey, I was thinking about what you said. I was thinking about what I said, and I said this, and I said it like this, and then we may have an entirely another conversation about it, because I'm trying, I'm still processing. Sometimes I'm actually a slow processor, you know, because I think I think deeply about what we're talking about and if if she feels a certain way about something or she didn't have an understanding, I'm now processing what she said, based on what I said and how it made her feel.

Eugene: 13:10

You know what was the end result of the conversation? Because, again, my goal is to get an understanding, and so you got to really ask yourself that as well. Is that you say we? The question was how can we stop getting miss? How can we stop misunderstanding each other? You have to ask yourself that what's causing the misunderstanding?

Eugene: 13:30

Because a lot of times we think it's the way that we explain something, and it's not. It's the way that you view, it's the lens, it's your perspective on life and that, or your marriage, or even how you're looking at them, because misunderstanding sometimes can come from when you view the other person as the enemy, when you view them as a bad person or you view them as a person that's against you, and so there's nothing that Lataya can do that's gonna make me think that she did something intentionally to hurt me. There's nothing that you can say that's going to cause me to think that you did something to intentionally cause me harm. So because of that, we already enter a space where I'm not questioning your motives, I'm not questioning your intent, and a lot of times that that alone is what causes the misunderstanding. And so you got to think about what's causing you to think that your spouse is the enemy and that you are actually under attack when they talk.

LaTanya: 14:37

Yeah, and I don't I would even say to like, how would I say this? So I think misunderstandings can be. Sometimes I think we look at them as this is something huge. You know a misunderstanding can be. I asked you one question, so let me say this let's get into gay world business just a little bit. So, as Eugene said, he likes to ask questions and so he likes to say in our house that we anticipate what he says, what I'm gonna ask, what I mean right or why I'm asking the question, right?

LaTanya: 15:18

they don't ever answer my question he might not be wrong all the time. He might not be wrong all the time. That may be not that's our perspective, but but we just had this conversation the other day because I think I said something and he was like well, I'm not disagreeing with you and I said I didn't think you were disagreeing with me. We're having a conversation, so it wasn't something big, but that was a small misunderstanding. But if those small misunderstandings continue to happen, then those do become the bigger things or you don't really have the skills. You lose the skill set of trying to get an understanding.

Eugene: 16:00

if every time you're in a conversation with somebody, you're being, you feel like you're being misunderstood, no, I agree and I think if, if you didn't, if you didn't resolve the last conflict and then now a new one comes up, then you could be actually arguing about or piling on something that was a misunderstanding before. So you got a misunderstanding on top of another misunderstanding. So if you're, if you're operating off of the previous understanding that was wrong and now you're using that as an opportunity to now try to come to an agreement in the next conversation, it's just going to create this tangled web.

Eugene: 16:41

You're going to continue to be misunderstood, misunderstood and so I think that it's also very important that we have conversations about conversations. So sometimes we'll we'll have a conversation about the previous one and say, hey, what caused the misunderstanding in that, or why did you feel that way about that? And that goes to like reflecting back, and it happens when it's not an argument Everything is going fine. These are good topics of conversation. If you're going out to dinner to to almost not to rehash the past, but to make sure that you are on the same page, how can two walk together except they agree Y'all know Amos three and three is our scripture but to make sure that there's agreement on what is and what will be, and then, when, when the issue or the concern comes up again, we know where each other stood before and we can affirm or confirm that we're still there.

Eugene: 17:33

Now. Growth happens and we're going to talk about that once we get to question number two. But question number two is an interesting one because when you don't have an understanding, it leads to this question that other people were asking is what should I say when my partner goes passive, aggressive?

LaTanya: 17:57

Yeah, I said when we were looking at this I was like I'm not sure passive aggressive is the issue in our. I would say now I think, yeah, you know, in the past it may have been, you know, and I think we use passive, passive aggressive a lot Like so even in defining that, you know, it's just this your indirect reaction basically to what I think is sometimes can be hard conversation or hard things, and so, as opposed to having a conversation, I'm going to have a reaction, you know, and I think passive aggressiveness often causes reactions. But I do feel like in this phase of our life, I'm just going to say what we need to say and address it. But we've shared, I think during our silent season it was a lot of passive aggressive behavior going on and thank God it didn't lead to the detriment of us. Like I don't know what the awakening was to now say, well, it's okay to have hard conversations because they're necessary, they're needed for our growth, but that was a space for us and I think that led to the silent season.

LaTanya: 19:27

And so, like if I had to now look at, like, give the tools to say how do you move beyond? That is, you know, looking at the motives, like whether there on the right team and you all are being teammates and supporting one another and showing up, not always agreeing. Teammates don't always agree, but you know, the goal is that we're here to win and so we're going to do everything we need to do to make sure that we're doing that, and so if you keep, that in mind.

LaTanya: 20:16

Then, when these passive, aggressive moments come up, you're going to say, ok, I don't. I don't think you were your, your intention wasn't to hurt me. But here is what this looks like.

Eugene: 20:30

I wanted to define passive aggressiveness because I think that a lot of times in my conversations with couples or individuals, they'll they won't use the ton of passive aggressive, but their behavior is passive aggressive and passive aggressive. It's a pattern of indirectly expressing negative feelings instead of openly addressing indirectly expressing negative feelings instead of openly addressing them. Again, it's a pattern of indirectly addressing negative feelings instead of openly addressing them. And so, when you think back to when we were just talking about being misunderstood, I think that a lot of times in conversations, especially in heavy conversations, when we have not identified the goal of the conversation, and you know, as you just said, agreement doesn't mean that we have to think identically. It just means that we have to have a purpose that's aligned. And so when you don't have purpose alignment and purpose alignment and expectations, then that can cause you to feel some kind of way, and so people can often say are you OK, I'm fine, but you stomp away.

Eugene: 21:46

And it's when your, your actions and your words are not in alignment, because you're upset about what's going on and, as opposed to talking about it, you'll just react to it. And now it causes tension, and it causes tension in the household. And so I think, when again you talked about not being assuming positive intent, but Ephesians 4 and 15 says speak truth in love.

Eugene: 22:21

And so for me, I'm always trying to figure out if I'm going to say something to you, I want to make sure that I'm saying it in a loving way. I want to make sure that I'm saying it in a loving way and you can look at 1 Corinthians, 13, 4 through 7 to see what love, the way I should operate in love and for me. I just don't want to do anything that's going to intentionally hurt you physically, emotionally, mentally, and so passive, aggressive behavior and again, I'm not sitting here talking about that. I'm perfect because they are sometimes where I am irritable, but I have to constantly check myself and then sometimes within the moment, I can apologize.

Eugene: 23:02

Other times I may come back later and be like my bad the way that I I was acting earlier, but but I don't even and I think again, we talked about unresolved. Sometimes people will act away and then, in order to fix it, they'll try to be loving and like like the thing just didn't happen right and it's like no, like you, you were just acting crazy. So you know, and sometimes we used to, we even do this. We'll say you may not want to talk about now, just let me know when you're ready to talk about it.

Eugene: 23:31

But we just create the safe space so that when you do want to talk about it, that the space is open to have the conversation.

LaTanya: 23:41

I agree with that and again, I think we've come a long way in that and I think in both of our efforts to keep peace, you know, created this space of passive aggressiveness and sometimes too, it's just like I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to be asked like 5,000 questions because you know, the professor that's what we like to call you going to ask you some questions, and they're like great questions, but at that moment, like I don't. That might not be why I want to.

LaTanya: 24:21

You know, I don't want to do that, and so what I just may say is like no, I'm good, you know or okay, you know, and when you hear that okay, um, or I'm good, you know, that's now all of my passive, aggressive behavior has come out and I'm good and okay, those are powerful words and you know, like okay, well, you're not, but okay, you're not good, but you're not okay, but when you want to talk about it, then then we can, you know, and that's usually what I'll say.

Eugene: 24:51

I'm like, well, I know you're not okay, but when you want to talk about it then we can, and that's usually what I'll say.

LaTanya: 24:53

I'm like well, I know you're not okay.

Eugene: 24:54

I know you're not good, but I'll be downstairs watching the game and whenever you feel like you want to talk about it after the game's off.

LaTanya: 25:01

Then you can talk about it Right. Five hours later. I done took a nap. I'm back. I come down here with a talk in the middle.

Eugene: 25:10

I ain't mad no more. Actually I've even gotten better about that because again I can pause it. Now I do have to turn my phone off and take my phone upstairs so that don't nobody text me and tell me who won. But I've even gotten better at not choosing the game over my wife because that would make me angry that you're going to talk to me. Michigan State is playing Like I don't want to talk to you in the middle of the game. But she's even done good about not coming and talking to me in the middle of those moments I want to look at your face.

LaTanya: 25:42

I want to look at your face and I don't want to compete. I also felt like sometimes I'm competing with a TV. I don't want to compete with a TV, like I don't. I don't want to compete with the TV and I want to have conversation, because I also don't want to repeat myself. I know I want to be present and so so I was like no, this is this time and I can respect that. I can respect that, that space, and I can't go in this space when I know this is what you want to do and what you're doing at that time, and now say let's have this deep conversation or let's just have general conversation, when I know at this moment your attention is to there. That's not like that, don't even make sense. Now, that's creating an unnecessary glitch in our communication or unnecessary issue in your communication. It's creating unnecessary strain or, you know, just discord, when I know that it's Saturday, sunday, thursday and we're wild on the road.

Eugene: 26:47

I get it. So if you have a partner or spouse that has kind of dropped into passive, aggressive mode, don't assume motives and your goal is to understand how they're feeling and what they're thinking. So just let them know like hey, I understand that you're not OK right now. Obviously you don't want to talk about it, but just create the safe space for them to talk about it when they're ready. So just to close out, a couple of tips.

LaTanya: 27:13

So, as we mentioned, we want to give you some takeaways. What was really important for us during this episode is for you to get some valuable tools to really work on your communication daily. Remember, daily you're working on communication. So here's your takeaway. Tip number one promote active listening. So that was what we talked about early on. So hear first, respond later and keep misunderstandings out of bay. Keep them out of bay. Point number two call out passive, aggressive behavior. Call it out Again. Use your words well and how you do that, but call it out. Name the pattern gently to prevent resentment, so you don't want to be like here you go again, the clapping off or all of that. Name it, and it may not be able to name it in the moment, name it later on. Hey, I noticed when we were having this discussion this is what happened. Name it, address it so that you can move forward.

LaTanya: 28:19

Tip number three safe timing for tough talks. So make sure again that you're avoiding, as we mentioned, ambushing. You Prepare the environment. You might have to go someplace else, the kids might have to go someplace else, you may not can have that conversation, those hard conversations, in your home if you know that they can go awry. So pick the safe time, pick a safe place and a safe time to have those conversations.

LaTanya: 28:51

Tip number four use deep connection prompts. So, again, how can I support you? That is just valuable to starting some conversations. And I believe that those very words tell your spouse you see them, you hear them and you wanna be connected with them more. And then the last one is ask the question around how can I help? And ask that question on a regular basis.

LaTanya: 29:21

That has really become vital, I believe, in our marriage of how can I help. And that could be with a whole lot of things, from, again, things around the house to, um, the visions and dreams and things that God has asked us. So, um, it's an invitation when you ask that question of how I can help. It's an invitation to, uh, to team up, to know that we're on the same team and this is what we're doing, and we're doing this and we're doing this together. So it's not taking sides, but it's now saying, all right, we in this together and and how can we move forward and move forward together.

LaTanya: 29:59

So that's it, y'all, it's a wrap. We cannot wait to hear about how you are having amazing conversations and how communication um is shifting in your, in your household and in your families, and so share, share it with us, share it in the comments, follow us on social media. We3, the winning team. We want to hear from you because you are what matters, and we want to be able to know that what we've shared has been what's helpful for you. So we cannot wait to hear how you win and how you all continue to win together. So see you next time. Peace, thanks for watching.