Communication In Marriage

Hello people, how are you doing? I believe by the grace of God we are all doing great. On behalf of everyone reading, I thank God for the grace to see another week. It’s not a right to be alive, it’s a privilege that we shouldn’t overlook.

And so, we continue on issues that I had to deal with in the course of my writing break and while having my one-on-one discussion with couples with troubled marriages. And the next prevalent trouble we have in marriages is communication. One of the major killers of marriage is communication; either total lack of communication or partial lack of communication and then interestingly the evil of assumption.

The husband assumes that his wife should know his dos and don’ts without first highlighting them to her and the wife also has her assumed set of qualities that a man should possess and then imposes her own expectations on her husband that he is not even aware of. If for any reason he doesn’t meet these expectations, she becomes gradually resentful.  

In this post, we will look at the effective communication that yields success in marriage and then take on a practical illustration to help us understand better.

For us to be able to communicate effectively in marriage and even in any environment we find ourselves, these three keys need to be constantly put into consideration. And they are: What you say, how you say it, and when to say it.

Often, we believe that we need to express ourselves in marriage and not bottle-up issues, and to this, I will say that those who hold this mindset are not totally wrong but then there is the need to use this approach with wisdom. Expressing yourself in marriage is not wrong if and only if you express yourself at the right time and in the right manner. Proverbs 16:24 says, “Pleasant words are like a honeycomb. Sweetness to the soul and health to the bones,” so if pleasant words can heal the soul and even the bones how much more will it heal the marriage. Whether for the husband or for the wife, it is important that you express yourself in a manner that brings healing to your marriage.

Proverbs 18:2, 6, 7
A fool finds no pleasure in understanding but delights in airing his own opinions. 

A fool's lips bring strife, and his mouth invites beatings.

A fool's mouth is his undoing, and his lips are a snare to his soul. 

Proverbs 17:28
Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent, and discerning if he holds his tongue. 

Proverbs 21:23
He who guards his mouth and his tongue keeps himself from calamity. 

The passages above clearly shows that there is a time to speak and there is a time to be quiet. Even though it's so good to express yourself in your marriage but that expression should not be at all times. They should be selective and well thought over before spilling them out in order to secure the peace and prosperity of your marriage. So it's not just important to know what to say and how to say it, it's also important to know and understand when to say what you want to say. 

It’s important to understand that it is dangerous to act in marriage under the influence of emotions. When you are angry or happy do not act hastily. Pause on your action and think it through properly, taking into consideration the consequences of your action before taking that action.

Another interesting communication flaw in marriage is on the issue of sex between the man and his wife. Several couples find it hard to communicate with each other when it comes to sex between them. The wife thinks it's shameful to express her sexual desires or preference to her husband and thus hold it in and in more than one occasion this has led to extra-marital affairs. And the same goes for the husband, some men are either insensitive to the sexual desires of their wives or find it hard to express their own sexual desires to their wives. They adopt coded languages in the hope that their spouse will decode and understand what they are communicating with signs rather than words and when that does not happen, frustration and extra-marital affairs sets in.

What beats me in some of these cases is that the husband or wife finds the nerve to express their sexual needs to an outsider who is not their spouse but find it hard to express same to the God-ordained husband or wife that they have. Your wife or husband should be the closest person to you, yet he/she is the one you seem farthest away from and that should not be. Genesis 2:26 says, “And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.”

As a wife, you should know your husband more than any other living being, otherwise, you are not fulfilling your purpose in his life. And if you know your husband well enough you should be able to understand when and how to express your wants and desires to him that yields maximum result. Several times, some wives think they are in the lives of their husbands to correct them when they are wrong, unfortunately, it’s not so. Most men see such a wife as controlling and nagging and that results in resistance which is accompanied by fights.

In the same manner, the language of effective communication for a wife is love. Whatever a husband desires from his wife, he is sure to get it through the medium of unconditional love for his wife. Couples need to speak up what they want from their spouses in a manner that they are certain their spouses would understand and when to make the request and how to make the request determines how well they will have their request granted. There should be no shame in marriage and so coded language and assumptions should be reduced to the barest minimum or eliminated entirely.

I have written several times on the issue of sex in marriage, but I am trusting God to help me revisit the issue again. I look forward to sharing with you soon.