Four Communication Barriers in Marriage (and Elsewhere)

The four basic obstacles to good communication between husband and wife are the same as between any two people. First, you speak different languages. Every language is constantly changing, and there are local and even family ways of speaking. To overcome this, spouses must learn each other's own word usages and ways of saying things, intonation and gestures included. Second, when one person goes deaf, that hurts communication, as many older couples discover. But there's a kind of voluntary deafness leading to the charge of “you're not listening.” To overcome this, we must learn to be “swift to hear (James 1:9).” Third, when one person is mute, there is a communication problem. Here, too, there can be voluntary muteness, as when the wife waits for her man to guess what she's wanting from him, or when the man punishes his wife with the silent treatment. Fourth, there is the problem of being too busy to talk. Couples should plan their lives as much as they are able, so that they have time to talk, with a date night, for example, or going to bed at the same time, not so tired that they fall asleep immediately. In worship we pray to God and hear his Word. Without those things we have no real relationship with God. So it is with marriage: we need to remove barriers to communication by working on a shared language, not being voluntarily deaf or mute, and making time to talk.