The three C’s of a loving, lasting, happy marriage; commitment, communication, and consistency.

Communication is huge in a loving, lasting and happy marriage. Good communication helps a husband and wife trust each other completely and have a strong marriage. Communication unites a couple and makes their love grow.

Why is it hard for a couple to communicate and to communicate well? People are imperfect and have different personalities. We come from different cultures, backgrounds and we are all raised differently. These reasons can contribute to different ways of communicating. Since this is the case, we have to be willing to work very hard if we want to communicate well and have a lasting marriage.

Men and women communicate in different ways. Most women like to talk about their feelings, people and their relationships. Men on the other hand, and not all men, of course, don’t like to talk about feelings. Men like to solve problems!  So often they talk about a problem and what they think the solutions should be. Women like to know they are being heard; they want their mate to listen, and they desire to be understood.  A loving husband will listen and let his wife know she is important. What she thinks and feels is a priority to him. A woman needs to do the same for her husband. I am not saying this is easy, but it sure works out to our advantage when we work hard to do this.

Timing: There are good times and bad times to communicate difficult subjects. When a wife or husband is overwhelmed with work or other responsibilities, it is preferable to wait for a better time. In the early days of our marriage, I had not learned this. I chose the wrong times to bring up a touchy subject or a bad time to be upset. I have to smile because a lot of those times were on game day! It took me a few years to realize that my husband was stressed and needed to think about the game and not about the sometimes silly things I was upset about.  My husband would say, “I don’t need this right now. I have to focus on playing in an NFL game in front of thousands of people. Can we discuss this later?” Granted there may be subjects that can’t wait, but that was not the case early in our marriage.

We know a good marriage takes hard work, and that work pays off in a happy couple. Learn to talk about your thoughts and feelings in an honest way. Each person in the relationship needs to have love, respect and be humble. These will help when there are problems in a marriage that need to be worked out.

Speaking respectfully is key to good communication. Even in the heat of anger, we can use kind words with each other. Yes, it can be hard, but it is so worthwhile. A good sense of humor helps when times are stressful too. Egos are best left out of the marriage, being able to say “I’m sorry” is just as, if not more important than “I love you.”  When one or both mates are prideful, that makes it very hard to have good communication. Making excuses for what we have done or blaming the other person solves nothing! Besides these things I have also learned after many years of marriage and growing together we have found that it is best to not “Let the sun set with you in a provoked state…”  We work hard to solve our issues before we fall asleep. I remember horrible nights of sleep or actually no sleep early in our marriage when we were not following this. Also, don’t try to solve heated issues until you have had time to calm down. That will help you come together in a kind loving way to solve problems quickly and peacefully.

It takes time and practice to change poor communication in your relationship. But with hard work and patience you can.

“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”
– George Bernard Shaw