The man returned home from work that day, still upset from the argument he had just had with his superior; His wife hadn’t had a good day herself because the washing machine had stopped working while she was on her third load of clothes, and on top of that, the two of them had not settled an argument that they had two days earlier.
As he entered into the kitchen area, not speaking to his wife at all, nor showing any kind of affection. He immediately dropped his briefcase on the kitchen counter and headed for the refrigerator for a cold beer.
Although her back was turned, she still knew everything he was doing. She knew that he was standing behind her, staring her down and wondering if she was going to be the first one to speak. But she wasn’t, and she wasn’t going to tell him about the washing machine either because she felt that he’d never get it fixed or buy another one anyway. Thus, they went for two months without a washing machine…Tragedy!
The most common reason for drama in relationships aside of finances is lack of communication. I have witnessed this on so many occasions, where the couples literally refuse to be the first to express themselves and talk about their feelings. Another instance I’ve witnessed is how couples tend to have what we call ‘miscommunication’, and this can be very deadly to a relationship, if not dealt with.
It’s always been proven best to speak your feelings; Share with your mate how you feel about certain situations in your relationship. Once you make that first step in speaking your ‘peace’, the rest of the communication between the two of you should flow. It’s always a first step to take, and the question is who will be the first to recognize it and deal with it? It may seem like a big, hard step to take, but once it’s taken, everything else will fall into place.
Picture how majority of the failed relationships witnessed, or heard about are from lack of or mis-communication, right..? Right. It’s always that dreadful thing of ‘if only he/she would have told me..’ or ‘they never listened to me’…
I believe if we all take the time, to listen to what our partners are actually saying, and not take the first few words and run with them, we may just have a chance at a wonderful form of communication. Another thing to do is to be open-minded and considerate of the other person’s feelings and perspectives; we all have our own opinions, which should be respected. Which leads me to another point-respect; If we value and respect our partners, there would be no problems with communicating with one another.
It’s so often that we have the men refusing to express things that they dislike about their wives for fear of the wife lashing out, when as long as he is holding his dislikes inside, he’ll gradually lean onto his dislikes, and end up only seeing what he dislikes about his wife…which is not good; Then we have the wife who has doubts about what the husband is doing everyday after work. She never asks him, and therefore creates her own reasons being, and persuades herself to think that he is having an affair…and we all know how that will turn out.
One of the best ways to keep a relationship healthy is to keep strong communication lines. And not only have them, but keep them open! I’ve learned firsthand, how lack of communication can literally destroy a good, wholesome relationship; and even a marriage can be destroyed by lack of communication. This is usually true when the spouses don’t agree on certain things, thus keep their disagreements inside, which ends up tearing their relationship communication lines up; thus, leaving a shattered dilemma.
How open are the lines of communication in your relationship? Do you make sure that your mate knows how you feel when things are not sitting well?
