Are Your Communication Habits Saving Or Sinking Your Marriage?

Being in a committed relationship is something that most people prize. The majority of Americans people believe that they will marry and stay married. When you ask people what they want from their marriage, they list trust, love, respect, honesty, faithfulness. The bottom line is that they just want "to be happy" in their marriage.

But what does that really mean? Many couples that come in for counseling say they have love, respect, honesty, commitment, and faithfulness (as well as other positive characteristics), but that one or both is just not happy. What does it take for a marriage to be a happy one?

What keeps couples happy in marriage? Most people have some understanding of the need to feel loved, and to communicate with each other. Many people understand that to feel loved, to communicate meaningfully with each other, that they must spend some time together focused on the relationship. Distressed couples come into counseling knowing that they need "quality time together" and communication, but don't know how to accomplish it. They may have made some attempts, but continued to frustrated without an accurate roadmap on how to accomplish it.

It is easy for your relationship to get lost in the process of living day to day. When you do consider the state of your relationship and intimacy you yearn for that old "closeness". You entertain the notion of actually sitting down and talking about feelings and your thoughts about the nature of your relationship. In the "old days" you spontaneously talked about your dreams, goals, ambitions, feelings, and childhood experiences. Once upon a time, it felt natural to just spend time together, just "being" and loving each other.

You may have even made some effort at having a date night, only to find that the conversation was short lived and that you rather quickly resorted to the "weather report", the "kids report", and the "chores list". After a while the date nights didn't seem worth the bother. Maybe you are just a little bored with your relationship. It is easy to simply drift apart. Nobody notices that they have started "sleep-walking" through their marriage.

To move from your marriage being on "autopilot", take pro-active steps. If in the past, when you have carved out time to spend together, but struggled to find something out of the ordinary to talk about, you can take it one step further. There are some things that you can do to "jump start" the interest and passion in your marriage. You can rekindle the spark by carving out a "special time" for your relationship?and making it a priority.

Setting aside a "Sacred time" for couple communication or relationship enrichment is highly rewarding. You can bridge the gap between yourself and loved one by taking action now. There are couples enrichment weekends that are sponsored by local churches, and structured or semi-structured communication exercises such as "Couples Feelings Meetings" and "The Honey Jar".

The "Honey Jar" is a conversation starter for couples, that assists in opening up those lines of communication and restoring the sense of "Us" that may be eroding. It consists of sentence stems, printed separately on business-type cards, and fitting neatly into a one quart mason jar?thus "The Honey Jar". It is designed to generate conversation about oneself and about the relationship in a non-threatening way. It has been found to be very helpful to couples at any stage of their committed relationship.

A simple communication exercise that is established as a "Sacred event" can be tremendously helpful in assisting in creating the desired changes in your relationship. "Sacred event" can be defined as something over which nothing else takes priority. You decide on the day(s), time and place for the get together and let nothing derail you from spending this time together in sharing. A healthy relationship is more easily maintained by attending to it now, rather than trying to mend it later.

When spouses feel taken for granted, unimportant, shoved aside, or even bored with their spouse, these feelings can set the marriage up for conflict, a mindset of negative perceptions, hostility, rigidity, infidelity, and even divorce. Revitalize your marriage by restoring open, caring, interested communication. Something so simple can restore a sense of partnership and renewed interest in the relationship.


Copyright (c) 2009 Peggy L. Ferguson, Ph.D.