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
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