Communication in Marriage: Keeping Emotions in Check

Growing a marriage without a good communication system is like growing a garden without watering it.  Communication needs to flow freely without holes, breaks or blockages in the line, and without forgetting to do it.  Gardens die from lack of water.  Do you think your marriage can survive a communication drought?  Mine couldn't.  Restoring conversation helps revive all the rest of a dying marriage.  It takes some planning, lots of prayer, and loads of self-control.  You just don't throw garden seeds everywhere and drown them with water.  You prepare and you work carefully, attending the garden every day, in order to enjoy the fruits of your labor.

Communication in marriage is no different.  Let it go, and weeds will choke it, lack of water will scorch and wilt it, and sooner or later, you'll have pretty much nothing to show for what you started.


How Emotions Can Run Rampant in Communication

Emotions hold a place in marriage alongside communication, but they act more like roots in the relationship, running underneath everything we think and experience.   Our emotions depend on abundant communication opportunities to allow growth and to sustain the relationship with a strong system beneath the surface.

Communication covers every aspect of marriage, while emotions support marriage in a more systemic way and shouldn't come to the surface to have a say every time we attend to other matters.  Emotions, like roots, need protection, not fanning out on the surface where they won't do well when stepped on or twisted or cut.  They bruise easily.  Changes in the atmosphere (your marriage, life events, even the weather) affect them.

How can a couple handle emotions when communicating ideas or important matters?  It does take prayer, practice and good timing, but even in a discussion about where to go on a family vacation can go really well with a few choices to compare on a base of facts, pros, cons, and a good AAA Guidebook.  When a spouse has heartstrings attached to one of the choices and really dislikes another choice, allowing those emotions to broadcast freely may bring argument to an otherwise level discussion table.  Curbing those emotions by saying, "Before we get too far in the discussion, I want you to know that water parks scare the daylights out of me and I would worry the whole time about one of the kids getting hurt or lost and I would find it really hard to enjoy the trip," would allow for discussion of those emotions and maybe the couple would rule out that option, allow the husband a chance to calm his wife's fears, or talk it out and come to a conclusion that works for the relationship and family.

Feelings relating to a communication topic can come up for discussion beforehand, during, or even afterward.  What matters is keeping the emotions in check, not letting them take over and go their own way.

Big important point:  having strong emotions in a specific area doesn't mean you automatically win.  It does mean you need to discuss those feelings in order to move farther in your communication development.  It gets easier.  Some people discuss emotions very unemotionally.  Others need help putting a lid on their feelings in order to assess them and talk them out well.

No matter what, sharing those feelings as a couple brings you closer together in intimacy and understanding.  You will both win, even if one of you doesn't get your way every time.

We know a couple in which one spouse has no emotional control and gets her way most of the time and pouts, complains and makes life difficult when she doesn't.  Not a very mature way to behave, but that behavior happens quite a lot.  Maturing in life and marriage means learning to display an emotion with control over it, rather than the emotion controlling the individual -- and trying to control others, too.

Uncontrolled, emotions divert the topic of conversation and become the topic themselves.  Emotion can undermine, we just don't usually see it coming and many of us (raising hand) often react to it with equal emotion.  It's a Catch 22.  Don't let it go there.


We Can't Have Intimacy without Emotion

We need to share our feelings in order to feel understood and accepted.  Respect for the other person's feelings stands as the fence we sit on, and it's my choice and mine alone that allows me to hop down onto his side to listen and understand or to thump down on the other side and throw stones of contention at him in retaliation for having his own feelings.

When emotions barge into the room, they can create confusion and divert the topic of conversation to themselves, leaving the original conversation topic wilting in the corner.  Uncontrolled emotion undermines communication.  Controlled, carefully discussed emotion builds a couple into something stronger.  Without emotion, how would intimacy exist?

Good communication skills keep the emotional roots in place by taking the time -- separate, mutually-agreed-on time -- to understand the feelings within a person in many areas and many time frames.  This takes some patience and understanding, and willingness to listen and accept feelings from the past that may have nothing to do with the marriage, but have everything to do with each individual and his or her emotional strengths and weaknesses.

Is it any wonder that many people say a lifetime isn't long enough?  We married people need to buckle down and get to know each other, right down to the roots.

It's hard to wrap my mind around how diverse husbands and wives really are, and knowing the depths of my husband, alone, it's quite an undertaking to know him well. I know most of him, at least I like to think so, but he digs deep to share feelings from his youth or childhood and surprises me with the depth of those feelings.  We trade memories and observations that link to feelings and we extend our roots deeper still.

The emotions, the deep feelings exist.  As a wife, I need to take the opportunities my husband offers me to listen to his feelings without judgment, without voicing an opinion for any reason, without trying to assist him, without any of me in there at all.  I need to let him share.  When I do my part -- listening -- I grow closer to him, learn about him, and take that knowledge along with me into other conversations.

When we discuss an issue on any subject, I can feel or hear when one of his emotional roots has taken a hit.  I can do this because he has told me how he feels in many situations in life, and how he feels like reacting and why those reactions want to come out.

With each conversation, I learn more.  He does the same for me.  We each have to practice this skill and remember to think, focus, understand, empathize, and allow ourselves to bond with the person sharing, reaching out with our own emotions and creating a deeper intimacy.


Will We Ever Get Emotions Under Control?

We're getting pretty good at it, after many early mistakes that bring back those old feelings of futility and anguish that makes hearts hurt.

We make mistakes.  We have some not-so-proud moments during which someone gets unduly irritated and lets it show without any control whatsoever.

The good part, the reason I know we have changed and have hope for more, is that the other person always says, "Wait a minute.  We aren't doing this."  And the the other says, "You're right."

Admitting that is a huge step all by itself.


Can You Do This Alone?

Yes.  And no.  You need God through all of it, if your husband jumps in with you or not.  The supreme power and grace of the Father will show you the way and give you what you need to keep going.  Praying for your husband's acceptance and softened heart will do wonders, too, even if he joins you in this endeavor.  We can all use more acceptance and softening, I think.

Always keep in the forefront of your mind that you can change only yourself, and you can keep only your own emotions under control.  It happens by refusing to fight, refusing to take the bait, refraining from thinking, "He doesn't bother, why should I?"

The "why should I" sits right here in I Peter 3:1-2 --

"Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, when they see your respectful and pure conduct."

Respectfulness and purity leave no room for snide, rude comments or the silent treatment.  They require self-control, prayerful guidance, loving action, carefully tended thoughts of positive things, and thankfulness for all the small steps toward emotional maturity.

Without emotional maturity, what are we?  Nothing more than tall toddlers.  That's what.



Related Articles:
Bridging the Communication Gap with Your Husband
Disagreement Done Right IS Communication
How to Share Feelings in Your Marriage
How to Talk so He Will Listen, How to Listen so He Will Talk:  Deciphering Husbands
Ladies Before Gentlemen:  Making Marriage Changes
Think Before You ... 
Share Those Feelings ... Ante Up!
Ten Ways to Love: Listen without Interrupting
Your Wifely Approval Rating

Seven Marriage DIY Projects

Every marriage looks and feels different, both inside it and for those looking in from the street view.  We don't expect that, really.  As for me, I thought some sort of mold existed, and that my new husband and I would just snuggle right down into each role. Perfect fit, no trimming, no remelting.

We have melted and remolded.  It hurt a lot in some places and felt like a spa treatment (not that I've had one) in others.  Through all the valleys and at the top of every hill or mountain, we have changed.

In marriage, molds don't exist.  Instead, you have to take the DIY -- Do It Yourself -- approach.  You have a manual called the Bible, and you have an instructor we know as God.  He wrote the Book, so he speaks from it and about it with in-depth knowledge and a complete understanding based on experience.

In other words,  He has seen and done it all, and knows everything.  He doesn't practice, for He is perfect.  You can't have a better Contractor (Carpenter, Electrician, Plumber, Mason, and Lanscaper, too -- He does it all) than that.

In our marriage struggles and successes, for better or worse, in sickness and in health and for richer or for poorer, I notice some common projects that have a place in every union.  Yes, no marriage will ever perfectly match another, but every blessed one has some commonalities.

Seven Marriage DIY Projects

7.  Communicating.  Yes, we all talk, but we do not all know how to communicate our wants, needs, desires and reactions effectively.  Emotion must step aside and allow fact to stand as the measure of marital discussion.  Emotion has it's place, but not here in the framework.  Emotion plays an important role, but stands on its own, in a separate place.   I learned that the hard way.

6. Sharing emotions/feelings.  Knowing how each of you feels on a wide array of topics.  Not knowing precedes disappointment, discouragement and resentment, which build walls that shut out numbers 5, 4, 3 and 2.

5. Sex.  Having it often, scheduling it if necessary when life gets busy.  It's near the middle of the list because it's the glue that holds two the pieces of the project together. If you leave it out for long periods of time ... well ... the project will definitely become unstable.  Ask me how I know.

4. Friendship.  Many marriages begin with it, and some end without it.  Friendship needs to remain in to keep the common bonds, the connecting activities, and a general respect for differences each person will always have.

3.  Love.  It's the little things.  The fixtures that make the plumbing useful.  The paint and decor that make the walls beautiful.  The appliances that make the home functional.  The furniture that makes the home comfortable.

2.  Trust.  Trust runs through a marriage continually, like electricity.  Some switches or outlets don't see as much use, but in a pinch, you can count on them.  Trust maintains all the main functions of the build.

1.  Praying.  You can't successfully achieve Marriage without it.  I have tried.  We have tried.  Millions of people continue to try.  Use it well and constantly.  It will help you get where you need to go.

Get with your Contractor today to get started on the project that has been nagging at you for a while.  The interesting aspect of taking on a Marriage DIY project is that by handling one well, you sometimes ... dare I say usually ... work on some of the others along the way.  What better byproduct(s) can you ask for than that?

What kind of DIY plans do you have for your marriage?

How Surgery Healed a Marriage

As the wheels of the gurney squeaked toward the elevator that would take him to a place he did not want to go, my husband carefully pulled me near and whispered, "I love you."

Squeezing his hand and repeating the same words to him, I kissed him and sent him off to what he feared so much.  Surgery.  He needed some repair work, but did not sit firmly in the knowledge that he couldn't live "normally" without the surgery.  His physical limitations showed he needed it, but in his own mind and heart, he thought he could keep plugging along, enduring the pain.  How bad was it, really?  How much worse could it grow?

How many people go through marriage just like that?  When a marriage hurts, often the people in it prefer to remain in a state of suffering rather than approach someone to help them find healing.  No one wants to be a patient.  Such an admission equates, in many minds, to weakness.

Must. Not. Show. Weakness. EVER.

This was my husband and me.  Two stubborn first-borns battling it out on opposite sides of a marriage, each believing the other should "see it my way" and work harder to make everything right and good for ME.  We ignored the fact that a pair of "me's" made this marriage.  Each of us focused on one.  The wrong one.  As our marital health declined, we sought sources of escape or substitution, and remained in a decline until one of us managed to make a call to God, the Great Physician.  I believe His qualifications in that practice cover all types of healing, not only the physical.

In that hospital hallway, hearing "I love you" from the man on the gurney felt awkward.  He hadn't said those words to me in a while, completely convinced he didn't feel them because we didn't make the gestures of love that require time and effort.  Marriage is work, after all.  Having followed the easy drift apart throughout many years of marriage, creating the distance that many couples never notice until they feel it's too late, he felt sure that our marriage would end.

He came to this conclusion at about the same time his doctor suggested that surgery would really help.  Two horrible choices coming to him at exactly the same time.

What to do?

God knew, and didn't waste any time getting the scalpel and sutures ready for action.  He knew our past scars and our current wounds, he knew our physical, emotional, mental and spiritual make-up -- those four things must exist for success in marriage.  One or two of the four malfunctioning, misfiring or comatose ensure failure in marriage.

God placed this need for surgery at exactly the right time.  Knowing these four capacities in each of us, He knew which one of us needed what kind of repair and set everything up to start moving in varying directions, all planned to come out at this very time.  For His purpose.

Those plans began months and probably years prior to this day.  Our drifting in different directions had separated us from the ability to care deeply because we took care to manage outside responsibilities and not the most important inside responsibility, our marriage.  We focused harder on saving ourselves from the other person's inadequacy at fulfilling needs and wants and stopped focusing at all on acts of love.  We stopped doing the little things.

We complained silently as well as aloud.  We had a Cold War as well as heated arguments.  We suffered at the words and inaction of the other person, as well as felt vindicated when the other showed any hints of suffering.  Anger bubbled just below the surface most of the time.  Anger comes from misunderstanding, poor communication, and also from some misgivings about one's own part in the misery ... and avoiding the acceptance of that responsibility.

The alternate routes each of us took allowed God to work with us in specific ways, in different "zones" of our minds and hearts.  While I zeroed in on volunteering and keeping busy with children's activities, God began letting me see the time and energy I invested and what that investment provided our family and marriage.  He gave me a complete disinterest in any activities outside our home.  I wondered what had gotten into me.  Clearly, now that I can see ... God had gotten into me.  He meant business, and he wanted me to choose the right activity, by His standards.

We can be doing good, wonderful, honorable, helpful things in life and still be sinning. Even positive activities can take away from what God has in mind for us. Our own sense of keeping busy warps our sense of right and necessary.  God has a way of telling us "no".  Lack of ambition in outside activities was my "no."  He took all energy from me in those things.  All of it.  Not a scrap remained.  

My husband pointed himself in the direction of work, social media and an addictive secret life.  God battled with him the way I envision Him wrestling with Jacob.  Physical ailments prevailed in making him stop and make changes he would not have made on his own.  He struggled in his mind to keep all of his activities in check.  God wrestled with him there, too, and continued for quite some time to separate his fact from fiction, His Truths from worldly lies.

We had no idea at the time that these things were happening and that God had them all in His control in such detail.  No words can describe the amazing transformations that occurred in very little time.

Back at the hospital, several hours after I left my husband in the care of medical professionals, I had him in my care.  As he emerged from the fog of anesthesia and pain medications, he found himself at the mercy of those around him, unable to move independently for anything.  At my mercy, which he felt unsure of receiving.

We had spotty care from the staff at the hospital during my husband's stay.  I had God-given means for me to do the care-giving.  For four days, I lived in the same room, refilling ice packs, requesting medicine doses on time, adjusting body position for comfort, moving pillows, handling meals and assisting in physical therapy.  After four nights of sleep deprivation for both of us, the doctor sent us home, and for many weeks, the same care regimen continued.

The physical healing happened slowly and in the context of the surgical repair and its special needs.  In the meantime, faster and more direct in His work, God gave my husband mental, emotional and spiritual care, concentrated and practical.  He gave him exercises in the form of learning to depend fully on me and in letting his fear of losing control of situations relax.  He prescribed total rest from the outside world, which we accepted without question.  It allowed us to talk and listen effectively, and to tune in to each other in ways we had never experienced in our marriage prior to this healing time.  He promoted emotional and spiritual healing in the form of our entertainment choices and in the timeframe (Christmas Season), giving us opportunities to share our thoughts and feelings on varied subjects.

Strange as it may sound, this surgery provided a second honeymoon at a time when we believed an impasse existed, that nothing could change the direction of our relationship and turn it away from destruction.  We felt God's presence and see it more clearly in the rearview mirror as time goes forward.

God gave us the blessing of time.  Time does heal wounds, but not in the manner in which most of us understand that old adage.  Time heals wounds when people take the time to learn to communicate in better ways.  Time heals when we spend it together on activities that unite us and make memories to share, rather than squander it for ourselves on selfish activity.  Time heals when we manage it to the best of our ability and not fritter it away without discussing our options.  Time heals when we form bonds within it, using purposeful activities, communication and chance to learn about one another to make those bonds stronger.

Yes, surgery did play a central role in healing our marriage.  Only one of us experienced a physical change, but God used that opportunity to unite us in all the ways we had divided when left to our own selfish devices.

 The best news in any marriage illness is that the Doctor is always in ... He makes house calls and knows your history ... as well as your future.