Category Archives: Postmarital

Challenge, Encouragement, Issues of the Day, Marriage, Men, Postmarital, Women

Longevity in Marriage is a Plus

When we see an advertisement that includes, “Serving the city for more than 25 years” or “Celebrating over 50 years of business” we take notice. While so many businesses are looking for hyped up advertising, those with longevity need only their reputation which has been earned over time. 

Are you committed to your partner for the long haul? Are you sowing seeds into your marriage that will breathe life into it for decades to come? As you faithfully invest you will bear fruit in your marriage that can be noticed by others throughout your lifetime. 

Coming back into the U.S. on an international trip, the customs officer asked what was Mary’s relationship to me. She said, “I am his wife of 47 years.” The customs officer raised his eyebrows, looked at the two of us and said, “Wow, you’re REALLY married!” 

Humorous? Yes. Unusual? Yes. Our longevity caught him by surprise, but at the same time he wished us well and many more years as we moved through the line. 

For by me your days will be multiplied, and years will be added to your life. (Proverbs 9:11) 

And if you will walk in my ways, keeping my statues and my commandments, as your father David walked, then I will lengthen your days. (I Kings 3:14)

If you’re a young couple reading this, please know that every choice you make matters for today and tomorrow. If you’re an older couple, do not rest on what was, but continue to pursue life and health for your marriage. The more our marriages mature, the more fruitful they are to become. 

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Encouragement, Marriage, Men, Postmarital, Women

Building a Marriage That is Thriving and Lifelong

A special treat today is to give you the opportunity to listen to our most recent podcast with the Larry Kreider Leadership podcast show. On this podcast we discuss marriage issues from our book, Staying Together, Marriage: A Lifetime Affair.

We love doing this kind of thing together and we hope that you can derive many insights from this podcast. It is our pleasure to share it with you. Happy listening and be sure to give us your feedback.

Steve & Mary Prokopchak on Building a Thriving and Lifelong Marriage
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Challenge, Encouragement, In the news, Issues of the Day, Marriage, Men, Postmarital, Premarital, Singles, Women

 Marrying Young and the Surprising Changes in the Beliefs and Boundaries of Marriage Today

In my many years of studying, researching, writing, interviewing and counseling in the pre- and postmarital realm, I had little hope I would see secular research come to agree with so many of my findings and beliefs. But the proof just keeps showing up in article after article.

My belief, without waver, is that premarital experiences directly relate to our marriages and that pre-marriage sexual experiences harm the marital experiences of life as a married couple. In the recent past the typical sequence to marriage went something like this: dating, sex, cohabitation, maybe children and then marriage.

Sex and cohabitation before marriage

Psychologist Galena Rhoades PhD and Scott Stanley in an online article titled Before “I Do,” What Do Premarital Experiences Have to Do with Marital Quality Among Today’s Young Adults, now questions this contemporary view of how family life begins in our society. She believes that every serious relationship has certain milestones, like the first kiss to actually coming to a definition of where the relationship is going. She unequivocally states that about 90% of couples are sexual before marriage according to one study (Diner, 2007). She also states that most couples live together before marriage (Copen, Daniels, and Mosher, 2013).

But then she writes this, “Many of them have sex with multiple partners before finding the person they will eventually marry. Do premarital sexual relationships relate to later marital quality? Yes and no. It depends on who you are having sex with. Men and women who only slept with their (future) spouse prior to marriage reported higher marital quality than those who had other sexual partners as well. This doesn’t mean that sex before marriage will doom a marriage, but sex with many different partners may be risky if you’re looking for a high-quality marriage.” 

Dr. Rhoades makes this eye-opening conclusion, “We generally think that having more experience is better [in life] but what we find for relationships is just the opposite.”

Multiple experiences with multiple partners sexually is now actually linked to marriages that are worse off and that having a long history with cohabitating may actually cause you to devalue your spouse. 

Marrying young

Brad Wilcox, a director of the National Marriage Project and Professor of Sociology at the University of Virginia wrote an article on how marrying young (by young I mean early 20’s) and without cohabitating “seems merited.” He wrote, “Our analyses indicate that religious men and women who married in their twenties without cohabitating first–have the lowest odds of divorce in America today.” Read that last sentence again, please.

What is it that the author of this study suspected as to why the success rate? “We suspect one advantage the religious singles in their twenties have over the secular peers is that they are more likely to have access to a pool of men and women who are ready to tie the knot and share their vision of a family-focused life.”

It has been believed and practiced for decades that a college education with a lot of dating, partying, fun, one-night stands and living together and then finally career all came first before settling down with a commitment to marriage. The statistic of living together (70%) before marriage is scary high. But Professor Wilcox wrote this, “But the conventional wisdom here is wrong: Americans who cohabit before marriage are less likely to be happily married and more likely to break up.” In fact, he says that couples who do cohabitate have a 15% more likely chance of divorce than those who do not.

Milestones in dating and pre-marriage days in a couple’s life means something because decisions mean something. We can remember when our spouse first spoke the words, “I love you.” We can recall where we were when we became engaged. We either loved or endured premarital counseling, but it was another milestone, a decision we made for us and our success in marriage. 

Forty-Seven years of marriage 

Over 47 years ago my wife and I abstained sexually out of total love, commitment and respect for one another–keeping for marriage what belongs only to marriage. We did not cohabitate because we knew this one act reduces the chances of a healthy lifelong marriage. We had a large wedding because we wanted others to celebrate with us, hold us accountable and enter into our joy of oneness. We went on a two-week honeymoon dropping out of life as we knew it to simply work on becoming one. We did not know one another intimately (sexually) prior to marriage, but we discovered the joy of purity meeting purity night after night.

It was not a college education, financial security, sexual experiences or age that helped to create these milestones, it was love for God and a desire to obey His truth. We were married in our early twenties and we continue to celebrate milestones in our marriage. We look forward to celebrating the milestone of half a century of marriage in the not-too-distant future.

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Challenge, In the news, Issues of the Day, Marriage, Men, Postmarital, Premarital, Singles, Women

What’s Faith Have to Do With Sex and Marriage Stability?

Young men and women with an active faith in God and His word, the Bible, are long-term men and women who take saying “I do” seriously. They share similar moral beliefs and deeply held values. They possess a higher commitment to sexual fidelity. And those who regularly attend church have about a 40% less likely chance of divorcing. (See this Harvard study.)

Marrying when young often means less relationship baggage primarily because there are less exes. Maturity in a relationship is not measured in chronological age. Maturity is measured in one’s ability to think of their spouse or future spouse first and not themselves. 

Cohabitation is precarious, uncertain and shaky because it undermines the quality of your marriage commitment. While marrying Corrine, you may find yourself thinking about your years with Heather and then comparing your new wife’s sexual responses to Bekah’s. It will increase the instability of your marriage foundation. Cohabitation is pretending to be married with a widely open back door. There is no need for commitment in sickness and in health; there are no vows spoken to one another and to God. There are no community of believers helping you to remain committed to each other without the bond of a legalized marriage.

And then this

In a Wall Street Journal article dated Saturday, February 5, 2022 Lyman Stone and Brad Wilcox wrote, “[In surveying] 50,000 women in the U.S. governments National Survey of Family Growth, we found that there is a group of women for whom marriage before 30 is not risky: women who married directly, without ever cohabitating prior to marriage. In fact, women who married between 22 and 30, without first living together, had some of the lowest rates of divorce in the National Survey of Family Growth.” Now that says something which majorly contradicts the former conventional wisdom of trying it to see if you like it.

One of the reasons couples are marrying later today is hope against hope that they will not encounter divorce. They are vying for a lower risk rate. But along the way as they give themselves freely to various sexual partners and/or cohabitate they are actually decreasing their chances of marriage without experiencing divorce. Research is now growing and concluding that to cohabitate prior to marriage and to experience multiple sexual partners, couples are less likely to be happily married. The pretest thought simply does not work. 

It has been God’s word of truth

The word of God has revealed this truth for centuries. Social science is now only catching up to the truth written in the Bible about relationships and marriage. God’s word is more current when it comes to marriage and pre-marriage than tomorrow’s scientific study found within academia. 

For example, did you know that sexual pleasure between husband and wife was God’s idea? Solomon wrote these inspired words, “May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth. A loving doe, a graceful deer–may her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be captivated by her love.” (Proverbs 5:18, 19) 

Paul the Apostle wrote:

But since sexual immorality is occurring, each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband. The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife. Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. (I Corinthians 7:2-5)

God is not embarrassed by sexual intimacy, He is not a prude or naïve when it comes to His wonderful gift, but He did place very strict, very safe and very loving boundaries around it. Paul also clearly warned us when he wrote, “Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body.” (I Corinthians 6:12)

Sexual pleasure is God’s intent for marriage and procreation is not the only purpose of sex, but sexual fulfillment within marriage is a process, a learned experience. 

Concluding with married sex is better sex

Married couples have better sex for numerous reasons. They are committed to one another. They desire to please one another and give versus taking to meet a need. Intimacy is not filled with lust, but rather love. The married partners are monogamous. Sex within marriage is the safest sex. It is sex without worry, without thought of being caught, without fear of disobeying God’s command and sex within marriage is the best sex because you know the desires of your life mate. 

For all of these reasons and more we can conclude that God was right all along. His written word and His commands were all for our good and our pleasure. Boundaries are an important part of life and so it is also true of sexual boundaries. May you find this truth for yourself and then experience the pure joy of obedience and God’s gift to you.

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Challenge, Issues of the Day, Marriage, Men, Postmarital, Premarital, Women

Seven Steps to Help You Resolve Communication Conflicts

Every couple on earth has suffered through communication conflicts. Here are seven areas to consider as we walk through life together so that our conflicts will actually decrease. 

  1. When we have a conflict we need to maintain a right attitude toward one another. Conflict is not always detrimental in marriage, but it does test our faith, our patience and our personal level of grace. According to the scripture, it also develops character (Romans 5:3-5; James 1: 2-4) In marriage we often “use” one another to help smooth out our character. It is true that our conflict is deeper because our love is deeper.
  1. As conflicts are resolved, God uses those areas in our lives to help others. I know that sounds far off, but it’s true. We will have authority to speak into that which we have had to grow through and have won the battles. Believe God for win/wins with your conflicts.
  2. The natural response to conflict is more conflict, a desire to win or bailing out and quitting. But when we push through, pray through and persevere through the trial, the outcome will be perseverance doing its work. James said to let perseverance finish its work so we can mature. The problem is too many couples quit, give up and believe it cannot be resolved or they want others to resolve it for them. The truth is the more we persevere the more victory we will eventually have. Ask any couple who fought through finance differences, persevered, stuck to a budget until they saw the reward and you will find a couple who has grown strong in the financial realm.
  3. Whatever we sow, we reap. Sowing and reaping is at work in our marriages. If we sow the negative, we will reap it. Typically, we sow discontent and criticism because we’re not getting what we want. We forget that is what we’ll reap. The seed of criticism cannot produce the fruit we’re looking for. In the midst of this conflict, what good seeds can you sow?
  4. Don’t give the enemy a foothold (Ephesians 4:26-27) by not coming to a resolve. A marriage that holds bitterness, plants negative seeds and criticism, anger, etc. is not doing what Peter said when he told us to be considerate of our wives and treat them with respect so our prayers are not hindered. In other words, prayer will be powerless in the home of disrespect, discontent and the lack of peace.
  5. Be aware of what Paul called selfish ambition (Philippians 2:1-2). Most of our conflict is over selfish preferences rather than desiring the best for one another. 
  6. Lastly, we are to love deeply. I Peter 4:8 tells us “Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.” Love often means overlooking, forgetting and not pointing out failures. It’s a “keeps no record of wrong” position. 

God wants you to be able to resolve conflict and I believe He gives us the tools to do so. Obviously, we both need to stick to the plan and press forward for a better outcome to our marriage communication. 

Assignment: A step that you can take is to write down the common triggers in your relationship that tend to cause arguments and discuss why and how. Ask God for healing in those areas of your lives.

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Encouragement, Marriage, Men, Postmarital, Women

When We Mess Up in Our Marriage

No matter the length of time we’ve been married there are times we mess up. Maybe we become angry too soon over a small issue or we forget an important date or we fail to show appreciation for that extra special effort shown by our spouse. In any case, in our humanness we do the wrong thing every once in a while. 

And then there’s that reoccurring argument that raises its head up every so often. How do we get over that hump?

We may not try it, but we realize as soon as it happens we can’t take it back. Herein lies the problem. We said it, it’s out there and now we have to deal with it. 

However, all too often pride gets in the way of simply humbling ourselves and making a quick apology. We just don’t like to admit we were wrong…again. 

Here are a few steps to think about incorporating into your marriage so you don’t keep finding yourselves back at that same old issue or repeatedly feeling bad because you messed up once again.

  • First, realize that you cannot change history, but you can take responsibility for history and any issues you caused.
  • If it’s an ongoing issue we need to repent to God, ask His forgiveness and then ask Him for new patterns.
  • When talking about the issue, we need to both admit our failures.
  • While we may see things differently, where do we agree?
  • We need to both humble ourselves, move beyond the problem and then look for, pray for solutions.
  • What is the solution(s)? What can we both live with, agree upon and walk out together? You might start with the question, “If we could start over, what would we do differently in this area?”
  • Can we develop a new heart, a new outlook in this area? Can we identify new language to use that would help create a new attitude?

Early in our marriage, I thought Mary, my wife, was a “spender.”” She thought I was pretty “tight.” We didn’t agree on everything financial. Realizing we were stuck, we began to ask God for solutions and suddenly our eyes became open to a deeper truth. Mary was not a spender; she was actually a giver. I was not trying to be tight, but I was concerned about saving for an investment in the future. We were givers and investors. We changed our language as we healed from our financial differences.

Try it. Follow the steps above and ask your heavenly Father to redeem your reoccurring differences and mess-ups.

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Challenge, Encouragement, Marriage, Men, Postmarital, Women

Three Vital Questions for Marriage

Discovering how we need to change in order to reflect love is an effective strategy for our marriages today. Here are three reality questions to consider.

Question number one: Do you realize that you were born into brokenness? We all have imperfect families, wounded backgrounds and personality difficulties. When we found the “perfect” person, we found someone like ourselves — in need of healing. While weddings reflect perfection, e.g., perfect clothes, flowers, beauty and pageantry, they are actually filled with imperfect people. Psalm 51:5 reveals, “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.” I must realize that in my natural, selfish state I do not always reflect Christ to my life mate.

Question number two: Do you realize there is no perfect marriage? Only one relationship on this earth started out perfectly: Adam’s and Eve’s. Their world was perfect, their jobs were perfect and their lives reflected that perfection. But, Adam and Eve chose to walk away from perfection and by the second generation one of their children committed murder. Marriage is not perfect because the two individuals that make up the marriage are not perfect. Within the first 90 days of marriage, we quickly discover we married someone unlike us.

It is God’s story and strategy to begin to hold us together through our differences. You see, my wife is what I am not and I am what she is not, but together we make an amazing and whole team. Ephesians 5: 25- 27 says that, as men, we are called to love our wife as Christ loves His church. We are not Jesus, but we are His representatives.

To love your spouse is to give your life and your love to the point that you bring healing to them.

Our final question; number three: Do you have the mentality of an owner or a renter in marriage? I had a nagging issue with a basement wall in my house that was repeatedly becoming damp. We had torn it apart and rebuilt it only to have moisture show up again. We have now torn it apart a second time. I am the owner; I will do whatever it takes and spend whatever money it takes to make that wall dry again. It’s an owner’s mentality. Owners do what’s best for the property at their own cost and sacrifice. Too many couples are renters today–they’re out the back door while owing three months’ rent. A renter’s mentality in marriage will bring damage to a spouse because they lack long-term commitment. They’ll walk by the weeds every day and not bend over to pull them. A renter in marriage does not think in terms of making an investment in their marriage. Marriage by nature is designed for owners, not renters.

Owners invest their own sweat equity, their life savings and their day-to­ day care to repair, clean and manage their property. Why? It’s a lifetime investment. It’s an asset, not a liability. Owners desire an increase in value over time.

Do you take ownership for being healed and bringing healing to your marriage? Are you in your marriage for a lifetime investment and have a passion for an increase in value? If you answer, “yes” to these questions, then you are taking ownership, growing through your own brokenness and imperfections.

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Challenge, Encouragement, Marriage, Men, Postmarital, Premarital, Women

Why Are You Married?

Have you ever been to an ox pull? We were in New England, seated on a set of old wooden bleachers at a county fair; we had never experienced a real, live ox pull. Let us try to describe it to you: two mammoth oxen are yoked together, side by side, and behind them is an apparatus like a hitch. The hitch is connected to a large chunk of concrete weighing thousands of pounds. The oxen are commanded by their owner (called a driver) to pull together and drag the concrete slab as far as they possibly can. It was quite entertaining, and we immediately began to realize something with the teams of oxen. Some were young and inexperienced. Some pairs were noticeably different sizes. Some simply refused to work with their partner. But those teams that were mature and experienced knew how to work together, with their driver shouting out commands at their sides. Those teams, we noticed, pulled the heavy concrete a lengthy distance. 

We found ourselves thinking about how the teams of oxen were a picture of marriage—specifically, the picture of a team of two either working together successfully or failing miserably to pull in unison. It was not the biggest or strongest team that won; it was the oxen that could work together, each performing to the best of its ability. Working alone, the block wouldn’t move an inch; but working in complete harmony, the teams would succeed in reaching the goal. 

It astounds us to discover how many couples do not know why they are married. For what reason(s) has God called you together into this union? Those who once were two have been called to move as one. When the two oxen didn’t compete with one another and acted as one, they were surprisingly successful. 

Businesses, civic organizations, churches, and the military all have mission statements. If they understand this statement and what goals are to be accomplished, all of the members or employees of these organizations know why they belong. Mission statements are composed of descriptive terms like “to serve the homeless of our city,” “to build a better and more efficient home,” or “to protect our nation’s borders.” When God created man, He also created a mission for man. God gave Adam and Eve an assignment from heaven—to tend the Garden of Eden and to rule over creation. 

This assignment was not just busy work; it was a charge from God to care for God’s creation and to replenish the earth. There was purpose, a co-mission in this first marriage, and Adam and Eve went about each day fulfilling that call of God upon their lives. Both you and your spouse can discover your co-mission, just like Adam and Eve. You each have both spiritual and natural gifts that balance and complement. As husband and wife, you are a team, yoked together to fulfill all that the Father has planned for you. Perhaps God has called you to the business realm, to be in worship ministry together, or to raise your children or to pay off your mortgage early. All of these can become pieces of your mission together as a married couple. 

Life can get busy and pass us by rather quickly. Before we know it, we’ve been married for five or even ten years. We can begin to myopically focus on the stuff of life that has no real or eternal value or lasting effect upon our lives and the lives of others. It’s important to remember why God called you together in matrimony, and writing your mission statement as a couple can help to refocus your marriage on the things that truly matter. 

Where it all began for us 

When Mary and I first discovered the idea of mission as a couple, we were already many years into our marriage. Looking back over several decades, we realized that our first co-mission assignment came from our local church. Our pastor asked us if we would consider starting a bus ministry. The idea was to fill a bus with unchurched kids and bring them to Sunday school. We loved visiting the kids and their families every Saturday and picking them up in our red-and- white converted school bus early Sunday morning. Sometimes they ran to the bus half-dressed due to a lack of parental involvement, but they were excited nonetheless. The bus ministry was so successful that we began a second route, and then a third. Soon we were reaching the parents as well as the children and were helping to grow a multicultural fellowship. 

Excerpt from the book, Staying Together, Marriage: A Lifelong Affair by Steve and Mary Prokopchak.

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Challenge, Encouragement, Marriage, Men, Postmarital, Women

Happy 47th Anniversary to Us!

I love celebrating our anniversary. It means we’ve reached the milestone of another year. We’re still very much in love. We’re still committed to one another and we’re still having fun. We celebrate our 47th year of marriage this month!

Many couples have many ways of “making it” this far or perhaps they just don’t know another way to live. I’ve always thought that being in a chronically ill marriage would be worse than never being married at all. But that’s not our story. 

So, what are the things we can implement into our marriage to not only have it survive 47 years, but thrive throughout those 47 years? Allow me to share a few of those things.

  • Maintain a heart of love and dedication to one another.
  • Hold hands when you take a walk, when you pray at the meal table and when you pray together just before bedtime.
  • Continue to date.
  • Buy small gifts for one another.
  • Remember important dates through the sharing of greeting cards.
  • Purchase flowers for special occasions and for no occasion.
  • Write love notes or text messages or both often.
  • Maintain a spiritual component of prayer together as often as possible.
  • Don’t stop kissing.
  • Say “I love you” multiple times in a day.
  • Notice each other and while you’re noticing smile at your life mate.
  • Go to bed at the same time routinely.
  • Be affectionate.
  • Maintain your intimacy.
  • Compliment one another frequently.
  • Say “thank you” for the daily mundane things accomplished by your spouse.
  • Read a marriage book together to challenge your marriage.
  • See a respected counselor or pastoral couple who can encourage you to grow in your love relationship.
  • Go to a marriage seminar/retreat. 
  • Take a mini vacation for just the two of you.
  • Praise in public; construct in private.
  • Disagree agreeably and resolve issues promptly.
  • Never take your mate for granted and work at noticing the “little things.”
  • Have good will toward your mate at all times; think the best.
  • Take time to listen to each other and hear one another’s heart, not just words.
  • Serve in a mission bigger than yourselves, e.g., your local church, a missions project.
  • Don’t be legalistic; give grace to one another.
  • Keep communication lines open in order to always build trust.
  • Stop attempting to change your mate. That’s God’s job.
  • Keep your marriage a higher priority than the life issues you are dealing with.
  • Pursue personal growth. The healthier you are, the healthier your marriage will be.

And last: Apologize quickly by learning to say, “I am sorry; I was wrong; please forgive me.”

Marriage is a gift–treat it as one.

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Challenge, Encouragement, Issues of the Day, Marriage, Men, Postmarital, Premarital, Women

Can Husbands Listen to Their Wives?

It’s an age-old question: can men tune into and really listen to their wives? We know there is a generally accepted answer to that question: no. But is that true? Do men listen differently than women? Do men practice looking like they’re not listening when they really are? Are men created with a filter that women simply do not have? Read on.

Men do listen to their wives, but there are some qualifications around the parameters of that answer. 

Some of those parameters might include, but are not limited to: are they interested in the conversation; have they been drawn into the conversation or forced; do they feel valued in the conversation; is there a solution that he can add; is there a purpose for this conversation that directly affects him; how long will this conversation take; and can the conversation actually arrive at a point? 

Quite honestly, I have found that men like to listen to other men more than to woman (again generally speaking). That may mean men will actually listen to the advice of a man than that of a woman. That does not mean he doesn’t value a woman’s input. But what that actually means is men’s brains seem wired to accommodate other men and their opinion before a female counterpart. Now, before you take that statement and run with it in a hundred different directions, let’s consider a man’s approach to another man.

Men generally will leave feelings out of the conversation. Men generally will speak in facts as they understand them and men generally will not converse just to converse. Men do not tend to have a need for all of the little details and men tend to use fewer words. As well, men tend to keep advice giving to a point of request only. In other words, men enjoy or embrace the communication style of other men rather than woman. It’s not an attack on a woman as much as it’s a preference of style.

With all of that said, men need women and their relational style of communicating. Men need to hear the feeling side of conversation and men need to allow woman the opportunity to share the details they feel effect the conversation. Men need to listen to women because women have this uncanny ability to pull truth from feelings and not just facts. Men need to learn to converse with just listening and not always listening to fix. Men need face-to-face conversations with the women in their life for a balance in receiving the feminine side of their Creator.

Yes, husbands can listen to their wives as wives keep these parameters in mind. So, ladies, stop trying to remake your husband into one of your girlfriends. He is not them; he’s different and he enjoys that difference. Perhaps let him know up front that you are looking for his advice or let him know you are not; you just want him to listen. He can do that, but he needs you to let him know what you’re looking for early in the conversation.

Men and women converse differently and we need what each one brings to the conversation. We need to learn to value each style and honor one another by practicing our listening skills. 

Here are some secrets to conversing with your husband:

  • Make an attempt to use fewer words.
  • Use a tone of voice that is inviting and engaging rather than commanding or directing.
  • Practice letting him know what you need or are looking for from the conversation before it starts.
  • Be sure there is sufficient time allotted for the conversation. If not, schedule it for another time.
  • Try to relate a few facts.
  • Study his language style and do your best to incorporate his style of communication. For example, quite often a builder uses building terms or a salesman uses sales terms. Learn those terms and incorporate them in your communication.
  • Share your feelings, but let him know that’s what you are doing. For example, you can say, “Just sharing a feeling here, but I think it’s significant to the point being made.”
  • Try to communicate the point of your conversation earlier in the discussion. For example, you could say, “There is a decision we need to make, but first it’s important to look at what is going to affect this decision.”
  • You can really draw him in with this conversation starter, “I need your input on ___________.” Then you could go on to discuss the issues. 
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