🌿 Life Project | Better Partner, Better Parent · 🌏 Life in Korea | Living as a Foreigner
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Multicultural Couples Program “Beautiful Days” · Session 2 Review
1. Workshop Overview
2. What We Learned
1) 3 Questions to Check If You’re Having “Happy Communication”
- Q1. After talking with your spouse, do you feel calmer and more at ease?
- Q2. After that conversation, do you want to talk to them again?
- Q3. After talking, do you feel like the problem was actually addressed?
If you can say “YES” to all three, you’re already having healthy conversations.
If any answer is “NO,” that’s a signal: something in the way you talk to each other needs care.
2) The Basic Structure of Communication
Speaker → Message → Receiver → Feedback
- Nodding, making eye contact, leaning in — that feedback is not optional. It’s part of communication.
- If you avoid eye contact or give no reaction, the speaker starts to think, “Are you even listening to me?”
- So even if you’re not ready to answer yet, you still need to show with your face and body, “I’m here, I’m listening.”
3) Verbal vs. Nonverbal Communication
- Nonverbal signs often matter more than the words.
- Example: Saying “I’m fine” while sighing — your partner will believe the sigh, not the words.
- Trust in a relationship comes from words and actions matching.
Mehrabian’s principle: When we communicate, what the other person receives is shaped only partly by the literal words (about 7%).
Tone of voice and other audio cues make up more, and facial expressions / body language make up the majority — often summarized as “93% is nonverbal.”
💬 If your partner comes home exhausted, don’t immediately ask, “What happened? Tell me.”
Sometimes what they really need first is a quiet hug or a gentle hand on the back.
[Activity] Nonverbal Communication Check
Q1. Which nonverbal gesture from your partner do you love the most?
Q2. Which nonverbal behavior from your partner is the hardest or most uncomfortable for you?
Share your answers with each other.
The point: strong marriages aren’t built on big dramatic moments.
They’re built on consistent, everyday effort.
4) Why We Talk: Emotional Sharing vs. Problem Solving
- In marriage, the most important kind of conversation is emotional sharing — not fixing.
- Humans move in a chain: emotion → thought → action.
- When your emotion is calm and seen, your thoughts become clearer, and then your actions follow in a healthier way.
So how do you help your partner feel calm inside?
By recognizing and validating their feelings — not judging, not correcting.
Outside the home, most people don’t get that.
At work, no one says, “Wow, that sounded really overwhelming. Are you okay?”
So the only place we can truly be emotionally held is usually at home — especially between partners.
If my mind is settled at home, I can function better outside.
[Activity] Share Your Feelings With Your Partner
- Q1. In the past month, what feeling have you felt most often? Why have you felt that way?
- Q2. What feeling do you like the most? In what situations do you feel it?
- Help your partner feel this more often. That’s love in practice.
- Q3. What feeling is the hardest for you? When does it come up?
- These “hard feelings” are often deep and old — sometimes rooted in childhood, and hard to regulate alone. Your spouse needs to know this and handle it gently.
- Q4. Choose one feeling you want to give your partner. Tell them why you chose it, and let them tell you how it felt to receive it.
To build a good marriage, you have to know who your partner really is — and you also have to know yourself.
What overwhelms you? What do you dislike? What is hard for you?
Notice it in yourself first, and then share it honestly with each other.
5) Final Message: Move from “WHY” to “HOW”
When something about your partner doesn’t make sense, try shifting from
“Why are they like that?” → “How can we live better together?”
3. My Thoughts
At the beginning of the class, we were asked those three questions above.
Our answers, luckily, were all YES.
A part of me thought, “Okay, so maybe today won’t be anything new for us.”
That was… a little arrogant.
This session included a lot of direct conversation with my husband.
We actually said out loud what we like, what we’ve been feeling, and why.
And I realized I don’t know him as well as I thought I did.
One moment surprised me:
When he chose “carefree / light and unburdened” as his favorite feeling.
He said the best feeling for him is “that moment when the worry is finally gone.”
Of course that’s a good feeling, but I didn’t expect it to be his number one.
In that tiny detail, I felt again: we’re really different.
In the last activity, we each chose which feelings we wanted to give to our partner.
I chose “safe and supported,” “confident,” and also “deeply moved / touched.”
(It reminded me of when we were dating and I made him a ‘Perfect Moment’ calendar — basically a wish for us to collect perfect little moments together.)
He chose “reliable / I’ve got you” and “proud.”
I honestly thought he just picked nice-sounding words.
But then he explained why.
He said, “I want to be a husband you can rely on. I want you to feel proud of me.”
Hearing that hit me very hard — in a grateful way and also in a guilty way.
We both teared up, because we were both thinking about the same time earlier this year.
When I first found out I was pregnant, I was overwhelmed.
New job stress, hormone changes — emotionally I was not in a good place.
Everything felt heavy and impossible.
I said some really harsh things to him, because I was scared.
I kept thinking, “We’re in Korea, I’m going to have to handle everything, and I don’t know if I can do this.”
He just stayed with me, quietly, steadily.
He believed in me and kept supporting me, and honestly, that’s what helped me come back to myself.
I’ve always carried this little regret — “I shouldn’t have said those things to him back then…”
I thought maybe he’d already let it go.
But he still remembered all of it.
Sitting there in class, I realized again how thoughtful and genuinely mature he is.
This workshop reminded me how important “emotional conversations” are between partners.
The question prompts we practiced today?
I actually want to reuse them regularly with him.
And I also loved that these activities will work later with our baby, too.
I literally ordered a set of bilingual (Korean/English) emotion cards before the class even ended —
because I want our family to grow up asking, “How are you feeling?” and actually listening to the answer.
🌿 Life Project | Today 1 Step
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a collection of personal journeys in creativity, growth, and mindful living.
From family and parenting to self-reflection, I’m documenting small, honest steps toward a life that feels like mine.
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