Author: Jeff Anderson
Does your marriage feel like it’s in trouble and you don’t know why? There may be many reasons – too many to ever list comprehensively. But the most common reason marriages get off track is a lack of meaningful communication.
When you first got married, things were probably much easier. The thrill of the new relationship made the small, unwanted parts of your spouse’s personality seem inconsequential and they most likely were. But did you tell your husband or wife about those things that bothered you then? Did you talk about them and come to resolutions about them. Did he or she talk about the things that bothered them?
If not, those inconsequential, little things may have grown to unhealthy proportions. It might not be so much a matter of those little things being so bad. It might just be that they’ve gotten on your nerves for so long they seem worse than they need to be. The monster has gotten out of the box and is running out of control.
So what’s the solution? Communication, and lots of it. Those who learn the skills of communication early in their relationships are far more likely to enjoy successful and happy marriages. We grow, we change and our values grow and change with us. Those little things that bothered us in the beginning might not have been part of our sense of self or our sense of values. But the monster may have changes that sense. The values might not just include honesty, family and a strong work ethic (as examples), the values may now be a sense of eradicating the annoying monster that’s grown in your mind.
As we change and our sense of self changes with us – an inevitable consequence of being human – we have to realize that our husbands and wives are changing, too.
If we don’t pay attention to the directions we are changing and the directions our spouses are changing, those changes which are almost imperceptible in the moment, might lead us in different directions over time. That’s when marriages find themselves suddenly in trouble – even though it wasn’t so sudden.
Learning the skills of communication and practicing those skills every day (or almost every day) is vital to a healthy relationship. It might seem hard or awkard at first, but as the practice becomes routine, you will likely find that communication is the taproot of a happy marriage and those talks every day become something that you crave.