Mike Rutledge.CA

One of the main tasks of my job is to stand in front a crowd of people and communicate to them. Every week for about 45 minutes, I have to do my best to be clear, articulate, compelling, and honest. I have been told that I do this well, but the irony is, communicating to a crowd and communicating to your spouse are very different things – even though the skills are similar.  In my last blog I wrote about listening. Today, I want to talk about the other side – the art of communicating in marriage.

What gets lost in a lot of the conversation and discussions spouses have, is what you might call the ‘heart of communication’. Sure, there are a lot of words said, ideas shared, feelings seen and non verbal messages sent. But the question we have to ask ourselves really is: did I actually communicate or just speak?

At the heart of communication, in all regards really but especially in a healthy marriage, is not simply to say something that sounds nice – it’s to say something in a way that your spouse can actually receive it. At the heart of genuine communication sits the desire to speak not for my sake, but so that I am truly heard. This means knowing how to communicate in a way that will remain true to what I am trying to say, but will be understood by the who I am saying it to.

This is really easy to see when I preach on a Sunday. Most people in church don’t have a theological degree, nor really care at all about the theological jargon that I could speak with. And honestly, if I were to speak to sound really smart, that may impress for a day, but ultimately leave individuals unaffected and disconnected. The job isn’t to sound great, but to communicate. The same is true for your marriage.

In every marriage, there is going to be a gap of understanding, which takes work and time to overcome. You could even think of it like learning a new language. You probably don’t think like your spouse, hear like your spouse and speak like your spouse – you both may speak English, but ultimately, you are speaking a different language.  And the goal of a healthy marriage is to learn how to speak in such a way that your spouse will hear and understand what you are saying – yes, I am aware this goes both ways and I will refer you back to the listening blog.

So how can we do that?

1. Learn

This is the simple brute fact about marriage: it takes prolonged and steadfast effort to have a good relationship. In this case, you need to be genuinely interested and curious about your spouse or else you won’t pay enough attention to them and you won’t learn how to be the spouse they need.  You need to observe them, listen to them talk, see how they reason, and realize that just because it may be different then how you do it, it doesn’t mean they are wrong. A key time to do this is when they are hurt by you. If your spouse comes to you and tells you that you hurt them with something you said, or how you said it, your response shouldn’t be, “Well that’s not what I meant! You heard that wrong!”.

First of all, lets be honest, sometimes we do mean to hurt our spouse. We just got caught and are ashamed, as we should be, that we said what we did. Also, the point really isn’t that they heard it wrong, it’s probably that you communicated it wrong.

I can already hear the rebuttals – that’s not fair, where’s the grace, they need a thicker skin, blah, blah, blah. I get it, I have thought those things as well – too often in fact. But honestly, even if they may have been sensitive in that moment, this is a prime learning opportunity. The moment they say they are hurt, you have the opportunity to ask, ‘why?’ and the reasoning behind their hurt is key to understanding how they process and how they think. Even if it doesn’t make sense, and it rubs up against your pride and ego the wrong way, this is a lesson that will make your marriage stronger and better.

2. Love

At the end of the day, the purpose of communication in marriage is to make sure the marriage is healthy, that your spouse is loved, and that you are tackling life together. All the conservations about interests, likes, bills, dates, appointments, feelings, disappointments, wins, random thoughts, and big decisions, are done within the context of a goal – to have a great life together.

And when we peel back another layer into the heart of communication, we find love. The desire to care for, help, encourage, and strengthen the other. This we do in our communication – verbal or non verbal. Knowing when a hug is needed and no words should be said, knowing how to say tough but necessary things for the good of your spouse in a way they can receive it, or understanding how to truly encourage them in the way the need it – these are all ways to communicate in love. If I love my spouse, I will want them to truly hear what I have to say because I am saying it out of love.

Now, this does mean that communication can and will be abused.  If I know how my spouse processes things and hears me, than I know how to say what I want to say in a moment of anger or frustration so that she really hears it. But with intimacy, comes the risk of hurt, and so forgiveness is also paramount here.

The goal is always to love your spouse, which in this context, looks like saying what you have to say in way they are going to understand. It takes time and effort, but when spouses do this well, I believe that marriages will be exponentially better.