The Difference Between Productive and Unproductive Communication: Episode 417
EmPowered Couples with The Freemans
Aaron & Jocelyn Freeman
5.0 • 589 Ratings
🗓️ 8 October 2025
⏱️ 15 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Many times in marriage, you can start what you think is a simple conversation and have it turn into a miscommunication or even a conflict. It is frustrating when you are trying to simply communicate something and it isn't received by your partner.
In this episode we talk about the difference between productive and unproductive communication and what makes partners good communicators vs poor communicators. You will be surprised by the simple shift you can make and the massive difference it will make in how you each speak and listen to one another.
To dive further into the source of conflicts, attend our FREE LIVE Marriage Webclass on Oct 23rd: Navigating the 5 Root Causes of Conflicts. After this date you will be able to watch the replay as well.
For all of our resources visit: https://www.meetthefreemans.com/links
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to the Empower Couples podcast. We're here you get modern, non-boring |
| 0:04.9 | relationship advice for you and your partner to communicate like pros, fight smarter, and stay |
| 0:09.7 | on the same team no matter the challenge that you face. I am one of your hosts, Aaron Freeman. |
| 0:13.8 | And I'm Jocelyn Freeman, but you all just know us as the Freeman's. |
| 0:16.9 | And this episode comes off the back of finishing our in-person couples workshop here in Arizona. |
| 0:22.5 | And what really stood out from those in attendance, one of the main things, is really the difference between productive and unproductive communication. |
| 0:33.1 | It really is such a key word because you can be speaking words, you can be focused on your tone, |
| 0:41.6 | you can think you're, you know, being intentional about the timing, but it still feels like you |
| 0:46.7 | walk away thinking, did we get closer from that conversation? Did we learn about each other? |
| 0:53.9 | Do we feel like that moved us |
| 0:55.6 | forward? Or do we walk away really feeling frustrated, disconnected, misunderstood, unheard? And |
| 1:03.4 | when couples come to the workshop, they're really looking for practical tools. Like they know |
| 1:09.8 | they're stuck in certain cycles and patterns. |
| 1:12.2 | And it feels really personal when you're in it. And one of the big things we want you to take |
| 1:17.3 | away from ever listening to us, watching our content is that you aren't alone. That things that |
| 1:23.2 | feel very personal to you are really patterns that all of us can fall into. And we're going to simplify |
| 1:30.1 | in this episode, and it's going to be a quick one. We are going to simplify the simplest, wow, |
| 1:36.1 | simplify the simplest mistakes that we can all make that has your communication be unproductive |
| 1:43.3 | and what you can do instead so it feels productive |
| 1:46.5 | and connecting because many times you can feel as if you're trying to communicate something |
| 1:52.3 | it's benign it's pretty basic it's logistical or just about details and functioning and yet you |
| 2:00.7 | find yourself in this place |
... |
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