There is a proverb that says, “Familiarity breeds contempt,” and simple as this may be, familiarity is one of the silent killers of marriage if we are not careful to pay close attention to it. Couples get so familiar with one another and then begin to take each other for granted, and then a loss of respect for each other creeps in.
With time, they begin to lose value for each other, and this
loss of value is evident in the way they communicate with one another. They
begin to throw piercing words at each other, and verbal abuse begins to
surface. And I will tell you that verbal abuse is as emotionally damaging as
physical abuse is to the body.
In today’s blog, I want to discuss the issue of
communication and conflict in marriages. Still, I am most interested in the
root cause of negative communication and conflict in marriage.
When Familiarity Begins to Affect Communication in Marriage
It is common knowledge that when you are so close to someone
for a very long time, chances are that you will get very familiar with that
person, and the probability of taking that person for granted is high. When
they are supposed to come first, they come last, with you telling yourself that
such a person would understand.
And this even gets worse if, for any reason, you perceive
that the person isn’t adding much value to you. Let’s take an example of an
executive director of a multinational firm whose wife is a stay-at-home mum. To
such a man, the probability of him taking his wife for granted is high if his
measure of the value of the wife’s contribution to the home is quantitative.
For a man like that, if she is not contributing in monetary
value, she might be considered not contributing at all. The familiarity they
share, along with his inability to see the value of her contribution, will
cause him to take her for granted and erode the respect he has for her. His
lack of respect begins to show in his communication with her, causing verbal
abuse and conflict.
The Connection Between Value, Respect, and Communication
Proverbs 16:24 says, “Pleasant words are like a honeycomb,
sweetness to the soul and health to the bones.” This is one of my focus
scriptures when I consider the issue of communication in marriage. I hold on to
the fact that what to say, when to say it, and how to say it matter a lot when
dealing with communication in marriage.
But in the course of writing this blog, the Lord is taking
it deeper for me. One truth is that there is a correlation between the value
you place on your spouse and the way you communicate with them. When you hold
your spouse in high esteem, you care about their feelings, and in turn you pay
attention to how you communicate with them.
So, what I am learning and sharing is that there is a chance
that the way your spouse values you may have a quiet impact on the way they
communicate with you. The value your spouse places on you impacts the level of
respect they have for you, and the way they respect you impacts the way they
communicate with you.
If your spouse respects you, they will speak with you
respectfully, and vice versa. Now, for those who are having communication
issues in their marriage, one thing to consider is the level of respect your
spouse has for you.
I strongly believe that the level of value your spouse has
for you determines the level of respect you get from them, and this shows in
the way they communicate with you. I know there will be little bouts of
conflict, but the respect they have for you often makes the conflicts
short-lived.
How Do You Restore Value and Respect in Your Marriage?
So that brings me to the thought: how do you make your
spouse value you? The value and respect your spouse gives you cannot be
demanded or forced, or it will not be genuine. This is something you earn based
on what you offer them.
To explain my thought properly, I want to use an
illustration that I hope will help me get this across effectively. When you
give someone a gift they don’t need, no matter how expensive that gift is, if
it does not meet a need, it is not valued.
When you give a gift that is highly needed, even if it does
not cost much, such a gift is genuinely appreciated, and the one who has been
gifted the item would most likely hold the giver of the gift in high honor and
respect.
So, one of the easiest ways to earn the respect and value of
your spouse is to meet an important need in their lives. When you have
positioned yourself as an indispensable and invaluable part of their lives, you
become respected and spoken to with respect.
But there is a caveat to this assumption: a spouse may be
trying their best to position themselves as an invaluable part of their
spouse’s life but still not meet the mark. And this is where prayer becomes
very important.
Earlier, I shared an illustration of giving an expensive
gift that is not needed. A lot of times we assume we know what our spouses
need, but if they have not told us, “This is what I want from you,” what you
think you know is still an assumption with margins of error.
But when you pray and follow the leading of the Lord, He
will lead you straight to the center of your spouse’s heart and teach you what
to do and how to position yourself as an invaluable component of their life.
God's Rules of Engagement in Marriage — discover God’s principles for restoring value and respect, communicating with love, and building a marriage where both spouses feel seen, appreciated, and deeply valued.
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How God Changed Communication in My Own Marriage
Communication in my marriage was an issue I dealt with for a
long time. I am a stay-at-home mum, and this has been so for 85% of the time in
my nearly 23 years of marriage. I take care of the house diligently, manage our
four children, and do the household chores, but these are activities that my
husband cannot quantify in figures and, as such, concluded I was not bringing
any value to the home.
This eroded a large chunk of the respect he had for me and
the way we communicated. My self-esteem was at its lowest. And I honestly
contemplated a divorce because I was tired of putting up with the disrespect.
And the honest truth was that my husband didn’t realize he
was doing anything wrong. But I took my hurt to God and allowed Him to lead me.
The first thing I discovered was that I found myself taking an interest in
online courses.
I quietly began to take my career seriously and began to
grow myself. This was not me waiting for my husband to value me, but allowing
God to teach me to pour value into myself. I began to take certification exams
and started growing.
The moment my husband noticed that I was taking all these
courses, his perception of me started to shift. I took courses in business
analysis and moved towards web development. I started learning programming
languages and how to code. And even though I am still a stay-at-home mum, the
way my husband sees me and respects me has improved greatly.
I would not miss the fact that, by divine grace, he got a
job relocation to another country while the children and I live in another
country, and he found himself having to do the household chores all by himself.
This made him appreciative of the things I was doing for him that he took for
granted.
We are in a better place in our marriage now, and we share
strong respect for each other. I am not removing the bouts of conflict, but
because of the value and respect we have for each other, we are quick to
apologize. Now, my husband does not mind saying sorry when he is wrong. He even
apologized for taking me for granted in the past years.
What to Do When Your Spouse No Longer Recognizes Your Value
Although I will not generalize this assumption, I would
rather say that the first place to begin tackling a communication problem in a
marriage is the place of weighing the value you place on your spouse. Have you
gotten so familiar with your spouse that you begin to take them for granted?
If you believe that your spouse is beginning to communicate
with you in a disrespectful manner, the solution is not to fight them, nor is
it to demand respect. Let’s begin to seek the solution from a place of prayer.
It is so very possible that you are doing so much that your
spouse is yet to appreciate, just because they are yet to put a value to it. In
some cases, they get so familiar with you taking care of that concern that they
begin to take it for granted and lose its value.
That is a problem you cannot solve on your own; that is an
assignment for God to handle. This is because you cannot force your spouse to
appreciate your contribution if they have yet to see its value. It’s only God
who can restore such lost value and make them appreciate your efforts again.
Let God Lead You into Personal Growth
The second thing I would encourage you to do is to continue
building yourself with the help of God. Your spouse may fail to recognize your
value, but that should never stop you from growing. Allow God to show you the
areas where you need to develop, not merely to earn your spouse’s approval, but
to become everything He has called you to be.
Achieving this does not necessarily mean throwing yourself
cheaply at the beck and call of your spouse. Doing that devalues you more. The
answer is to go to God for a strategy on how you can improve yourself in the
area of need of your spouse that will make you an invaluable component of their
life.
Sometimes this does not require you to do more for your
spouse, but to do more for yourself and improve your self-worth and self-esteem
to the point that you begin to earn their respect. People value what they need,
and they respect what they value. So, becoming who they need makes your spouse
respect you more and communicate with you with respect.
Doing this achieves two important goals. You become a better
you in the long run and achieve the goal of earning the respect of your spouse
without conflicts or negative drama in the home.
And in this pursuit, your strategy is not arrogance or
vengeance. It is doing what you are doing in love and humility. In working
towards a better marriage, you should never neglect your God-given role in that
marriage. The wife submits to her husband as unto the Lord, and the husband
loves his wife as Christ loves the church.
Today’s post is the eleventh of a
three-month series on the big topic of marriage. If this message is speaking to
you, then you need more than just a blog post—you need a guide. My book God’s
Rules of Engagement in Marriage walks you step-by-step through building
a marriage that stands strong, even in difficult seasons.
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