The power of communication

My grandmother always tells us the story about how she found out after 40 years of marriage, that my Grandfather hated custard slices. My grandmother used to buy him a custard slice as a treat every Friday thinking he loved it, meanwhile he was eating it with long teeth and in an attempt to not hurt her feelings, he never said a word and simply just ate his dreaded custard slice for 40 years until one day he came out with his little secret. She was naturally upset, hurt and taken aback by this revelation that he for so many years endured something only to make the situation worse. Now, 7 years since his death, when she tells us the story, she always says, “If only he said something”. It may sound like a small issue but the bottom line is that he never said anything and instead made her believe he was happy, it served no purpose in the end for neither of them as she was hurt and he had failed to communicate, what could have been a little incident ended up being something unnecessarily big. She now is also left wondering what else there was he wasn’t telling her.

Why are we afraid to communicate with our spouses? I believe the answer lies with us and our fear of the reaction, we would rather tolerate something we don’t like or enjoy than to deal with the reaction after being honest, a moral we are taught from a young age. I strongly believe that my Grandfather was afraid of how my Grandmother would react. This only makes matters worse as the issue at hand will only fester and boil to the surface eventually which will most certainly cause a volcanic eruption of emotions. We hope the problem may go away or solve itself but it normally does not. We are afraid of hurting our spouse so we don’t tell them how we are feeling, but in the end you are only hurting yourself……that does not make sense!

When my husband confessed to having an affair the first time, one of the many things he said was that I didn’t care and that there was something missing in our marriage. Im not disputing that this is how he felt but I am disputing the authenticity of this claim, he only assumed this based on his own feelings. Not once did he come to me and tell me what was bothering him, or how he was feeling, instead he fell for another women’s charm and blamed me for is actions. If only he said something………..things could have been so much different. More so, what about me? Am I innocent in this whole communication thing, definitely not, firstly, if he had come to me, I may have opened up about my feelings too, I was feeling neglected too but neither of us opened our mouths, we just carried on, well I carried on and he moved on to what he thought was greener pastures. The counselor straight out said that we lacked communication in our marriage, and that hurt (amongst other things) as there was a part of me that knew this was true.

Going through what I our marriage went through was the most painful experience in my life, but there are always lessons to be learnt. The most valuable lesson I learnt was that without communication in your marriage, you will ultimately get hurt. I learnt that we must open up, we must talk to one another, we stopped doing that. If there is something on my mind, I speak my mind, regardless of the reaction I may get, it needs to be said, the air must be cleared. I struggled with this at first, but I knew that if I wanted to save my marriage I had to be open and honest. So many times we sit with our friends and talk about our frustrations at home, we vent and carry on about how irritated or frustrated we are, yet we can’t even speak to the one person that’s causing it…….AGAIN, that does not make sense. Open your mouth and communicate, good or bad, tell your spouse how much you love them, tell them how much you appreciate them, tell them when you feel neglected and why, tell them when something they have done has made you unhappy……there should never be any mystery in your marriage, well some healthy mystery is always fun. Focus on positive behaviors such as listening, speaking openly, staying away from insults, affirmation. Try your best to not get condescending, patronizing and defensive, these are sure to get you nowhere.

So remember this:

• Make time to talk to one another – making the time to listen and understand will do wonders for your relationship. Just talking to one another about your day is a start. Make a point of ignoring your TV program and phone for at least 20 minutes and talk. Technology is a leading reason we don’t communicate.
• Don’t attack – look for diplomatic ways to approach the problem, make suggestions and use “we”. This may avoid defensiveness, assumptions and the famous “you implied that………”
• Get straight to the point – don’t beat round the bush, say what’s in your heart and mind
• Let them finish – I don’t know how many times I had to tell my husband “let me finish” don’t interrupt or make assumptions – LISTEN
• If you have a problem, do you have a solution? – it won’t help criticizing your spouse about what you feel is wrong, without at least making a suggestion to fix it, for example, instead of criticizing the fact that your spouse is working late, rather express your disappointment and understanding and then come up with a solution such as arranging a dinner together the weekend or a romantic picnic at home
• Express positive feelings – communication in your relationship is not always about a problem but also about good things, your spouse must know how you feel and I’m sure you would like to know too. After complaining to my husband about having trouble sleeping due to the fan making a noise, he didn’t just leave it as my problem but instead made efforts to improve the situation for me, he didn’t have to, but he did. I told him how thoughtful and considerate he was trying to make things easier for me. I love him for that. A compliment and an affirmation will always go a far way. I love to see my husband display his peacock feathers, it makes him feel good and it makes me feel good too.

You said you would be best friends forever so act like best friends and communicate

Just saying…..