The Importance Of Communication In Marriage
We all know that communication in marriage is necessary to hold the union together, or to at least make it a happy one, but until a marriage gets into difficulty and perhaps a marriage counselor comes into the picture, we often don't have a clue as to how we should be communicating. We know we need to, but that's often the extent of it.
When in the workforce we sometimes attend seminars or take classes that teach the importance of communicating with fellow workers, bosses, clients, and customers. We usually don't take what we've learned home with us and apply it to communication in marriage, although there's absolutely no reason why we couldn't. Admittedly, some bosses, or would-be bosses, communicate at home the same way they communicate at the office, buy being domineering or just plain bossy. Others make the mistake of believing that communication is a one-way street, I talk - you listen.
Share Feelings - Your spouse deserves to hear what's on your mind, even if it sometimes might be something he or she would rather not be hearing. That doesn't mean that complaining is OK all the time, but simply, if something is bothering you, it can help if your spouse is aware of it. Your spouse has to be in the mood to hear what you have to say however. You don't just blurt things out. Sometimes you have to set the stage.
Good commiseration in marriage is especially important when there are problems to be solved, which very often takes the form of money problems. Not all money problems are avoidable, and not all are solvable, but if two heads can get together and agree on how things should be worked out, a lot of money problems will eventually go away, and those that don't could at least be intelligently dealt with. All too often, major issues in a household are worked by one partner or the other, but not by both, and the one partner understandably feels that he or she is being taken advantage of, that the spouse is somehow blissfully ignorant of the efforts being made to hold things together.
Communication Implies Accepting Responsibility - Communication in marriage is more than just talking to one another, it involves taking and sharing responsibility for whatever is going on that affects the marriage It is all to easy to fall into the trap that basically places the two partners in separate worlds much of the time, each attempting to work his or her "assigned" responsibilities, and expected to do so without the help or encouragement of the other. A man who can be trusted to do the grocery shopping on occasion is a valuable asset, as is a woman who has no problem in fixing a flat tire. The idea that "I'm not supposed to be doing that" may be embedded in parts of our culture, but is really a negative way of thinking, and a way of thinking that good communication can do away with.
Good Communication Can Be Hard To Maintain - If there is one thing about communication in marriage, and here we're talking about both partners communicating, and not just one doing all the talking all of the time, it's that communication can be very difficult to maintain. It's something both partners have to continually work at. It's easy for some, not so easy for others. Maybe there should be classes on communication in marriage that prospective couples could attend. For some reason, we don't have a problem attending such a class in an office environment, but as far as the home environment is concerned, it seems a little out of place.