I’m sitting at a coffee near my home.

I come here sometimes to write. To think. Plan. And clear my head.

I love their ‘London Fog’ tea. It’s just the right blend of ingredients for my taste.

Across from me is a guy reading.

I mention this because he is reading with his lips moving.

I find that strange.

Don’t you?

I mean, how many people move their lips when they read. Kids do. Sounding out the words. Learning to pronounce and enunciate new ‘sight words.’ It’s the whole ‘hooked on phonics’ thing.

I did with my kids when they were little. But an adult? Seems weird.

Not that it’s any of my business. I just find it strange.

I know he’s not just learning to read. He’s been writing emails and doing business work for the last 30 minutes. He just started reading.

But I’m watching him sound out the words.

By the way, I peeked. It’s not a book in a foreign language. I’ve studied this guy for the past half hour. Every thing seems ‘normal.’ He’s American. English speaking. (I heard him order his coffee). Everything seems absolutely, positively normal. Except he’s reading with his lips moving.

Why do I bring this up?

Well…

It made me start to think about learning. Processing new information. Taking in new concepts and ideas.

It’s my guess that as we learn new things we have to slow our brains down to take in the new information. We don’t ‘speed read’ when we are approaching a new topic.

At least I don’t.

You may. Not me.

When I’m learning new stuff, I have to intentionally put on the brakes. I consciously have to drop down into a lower gear so I can comprehend.

Maybe this is why the guy is reading with his lips.

What does this have to do with marriage?

Allow me to explain.

I meet a lot of couples who are desperate to make their marriage work.

When I say ‘couples’ I really mean individuals. Most of the time it’s one partner who is trying to make the relationship better. They are the one investing in books, resources and courses to learn how to have a better marriage.

It’s usually a little one sided.

I bring this up, because this is the plight – the problem – I deal with over and over with people. One party is trying. The other seems disconnected.

That leads me to the ‘reading with your lips moving‘ concept.

Because of the desperation… Because there is an intense struggle to try and turn things around, the pressure to change things is enormous.

They’ve read books, taken courses, been to seminars and counseling, yet things are not better.

There may be several reasons for this.

The relationship is one sided.

They have information overload.

The information is surface at best.

Take your pick. It could be a number of things. One thing we do know, is 85% of couples who go to marriage therapy say their relatonship got worse.

So it could be a number of reasons.

But there is one thing that seems to be a common thread.

The information is designed to inform but not transform.

That means it is not processed. Not on a deep level.

To really process the new ‘data’ we must slow down. This is not a sprint to see how fast we can find the solution. It’s a marathon. There is a lot of ground to cover. So you must set the pace and take it slow.

Let’s look at three ways slowing down can help your marriage.

1. It keeps you from operating in panic mode.
2. It gives you time to process what is happening in your relationship.
3. It helps you develop a strategy to move forward.

These three things work together, but I like to take them in sequence.

1. It keeps you from operating in panic mode.

When crisis happens we tend to kick our brains out of gear and respond instinctively and emotionally. The fight, flight or freeze mode kicks in.

Problem is, this rarely works in our favor.

When the situation is tense and emotions run high, we make mistakes. With our relationship on the line we can’t afford to complicate the issue with bad choices and missteps.

Fight, Flight or Freeze

Have you heard these before?

Almost everyone automatically responds with one of these ‘attitudes’ when faced with a crisis.

The fight mode is when we automatically go into a defensive mode and argue, debate and criticize. We fight because we are hurt and afraid. Not knowing how to properly deal with the situation we do what we think is best to guard and protect our heart – we fight back.

But fighting never solves the problem. Most of the time it only exasberates it. It gets worse.

The Flight mode is when we run from the situation. Instead of talking openly about our feelings, disappointments and struggles we simply run the other direction.

You’ll notice this is happening when you (or your spouse) stays away longer than normal. They work late. Hang out with their friends more. Or spend more time with hobbies than your relationship.

They are avoiding the issues by running away.

The Freeze mode is an emotional response that simply shuts down. It’s similar to ‘flight’ but it’s more emotional distance than physical.

I’m sure you’ve seen it (or done it). Your partner closes up and stares out into space. There is little or no conversation. Everything shuts down.

This is what happens when you are in panic mode.

It’s the reason you need to slow down…even stop…and get your bearings.

2. It gives you time to process what is happening in your relationship.

Reading with your lips helps you focus. – concentrate – on the information you are processing. It’s a processing mechanism. For some reason we retain it better when we ‘sound it out.’

It probably has to do with the fact we are engaging more sensory perception by mentally ‘saying’ the words as we read them.

Think about it.

We ‘see’ the words.
We ‘say’ the words.
We ‘hear’ (at least mentally) the words.

Three sensory inputs are taking place. Not just one.

The science of how we learn dictates that the more sensory mechanisms we use to learn, the greater retention we have. (Source)

Researchers from Boston University (BU) and UCLA have found that using multi-sensory training programs, a research technique that engages more than one of the senses, helps adults improve their performance of low-level perceptual tasks — such as visually detecting the motion of an object — significantly faster than methods that use only one stimulus.

Bottom line: We learn better when we use more than one of our senses.

So reading with our lips moving actually helps us retain more of the information.

Let’s apply this to marriage…

Slowing down and contemplating what is happening helps us process the situation. It takes us out of our default mode of resonding to situations in negative ways.

Example…

I was taking my son to school one morning. We were engaged in conversation, listening to music, laughing and thinking about the events we scheduled for the weekend. We were caught up in conversation.

Before I knew it I was pulling into the parking lot of my office.

My son looked up and said, ‘Hey dad, Am I not going to school today?’

I had totally forgotten to drop him off at school because my ‘autopilot’ had kicked in. I drove to work because that was my normal activity. My brain was operating on autopilot.

We do the same thing in our relationships. I’ve written about that here.

Slowing down intentionally helps us get out of the autopilot cycle.

It helps us engage.

It gives you time to process what is happening in your relationship.

3. It helps you develop a strategy to move forward.

Three things come to mind…

First, slowing down helps you get a clear head so you can think through the real issues. Doing this allows you to get a clear perspective and develop a positive plan to move forward.

Let’s face it, it’s hard to think straight when you are emotionally tangled up in the problem. Slowing down (reading with your lips moving) allows you to think properly.

Second, when we read with our lips moving we ‘sounding out’ the new information. Much like a child learning to read by pronouncing the new words out loud.

Putting the breaks on our emotions works in a similar fashion. It helps us process the events and filter out the negative emotions.

Third, as we ‘sound out’ the problem we get clarity over the real issues. It helps us weed out emotional garbage that poses as the real problem, but is merely a distraction from what is really happening.

When we see clearly we can develop a strategy to move forward.

Wrap Up

I began with the story of a guy in the coffee shop reading with his lips moving. While I thought it was strange, I do see the value. Especailly when processing new information.

I can relate this to marriage conflict in a number of ways. Primarily, it triggers something that makes us slow down.

The three benefits of slowing down are:

1. It keeps you from operating in panic mode.
2. It gives you time to process what is happening in your relationship.
3. It helps you develop a strategy to move forward.

Learning to slow down is a key in resolving marriage conflict.

Practice ‘reading with your lips moving’ when you encounter conflict in your relationship. As you do, you will discover the value in pausing…slowing down…so you can catch your breath emotionally.

Your Turn

What is your biggest takeaway from this article?

Leave a comment below.

Click the social media icons below to share this article.