Communication in Marriage
By Makayla Wilson
Communications 121
Edison Community College
For
my written term project, I decided to write about communication
in marriage. What a lot of people don’t know about me is that my
parents are
divorced. Not many students at my school have experienced this
themselves. They
have been divorced for almost four years now. Since my parents are
divorced, I
have seen what no communication in a marriage causes and can lead to.
Even
though my parents are divorced, my father is re-married. I do not
associate
with my real mother. Therefore, I live with my father and step-mother
full time
and they have allowed me to see how you should communicate in marriage.
They
have also allowed me to see the positives that come out of
communicating.
In
marriage, there is verbal communication, but there is also non-verbal
communication. The definition of verbal communication is sending a
message
verbally to whoever is receiving the message. In the case of verbal
communication, your spouse is the one who is receiving your messages.
In a
marriage, the two spouses need to communicate about things such as
money, what
they buy, children (if they have any), and what they are feeling or
thinking.
These
are all things that don’t need to be kept as secrets or
hidden from one another. When spouses start hiding things from one
another,
lying also starts. Lying is a very bad thing in marriage. Once your
spouse lies
to you, you begin to lose trust in them for everything. You begin not
to
believe anything they say. Once that starts happening, tension between
the two
spouses begins to occur. Once tension becomes so much, a lot of people
either
go to counseling to try to resolve the issues or just go straight to
divorce. According
to the one website I looked at, they say, “Frustration, mistrust,
tension, and
defensiveness can make this a source of great conflict.” (If Your
Marriage…). I
think this statement is so true. All of these can cause conflict that
can lead
to huge arguments. That is why I think spouses need to watch for these
things;
that way if they can occur, they can be addressed and fixed.
Verbal
Communication is a very important part in marriage. A lot of
people don’t realize what not communicating can do to their
relationship. Some
personality traits of people in marriage can be mood changes. Your
spouse may
not want to talk about something. Keeping their problem in can lead to
them
being very grumpy or mad, and then they could possibly take it out on
you. That’s
why it needs to be expressed and/or solved before they become an even
bigger
problem that could have huge consequences.
The
other form of communication in marriage is non-verbal
communication. This is usually understood as the process of
communication through
sending and receiving wordless cues between people. Some types of
non-verbal
communication are facial expressions, gestures, paralinguistic, body
language,
posture, and eye gaze (Cherry). Sometimes, these types of non-verbal
communication can be taken the wrong way. I know this personally
because I
always get told my facial expressions are completely opposite of what I
am
feeling. For example, it can look like I am mad at the world, but
usually I’m
not. I’m usually just focused on something. This could eventually
become a
problem in marriage because my facial expressions could be taken the
wrong way
and cause tension or an argument.
In
one research article I read, the author said, “If you don’t know
much about nonverbal communication, then it may be causing issues in
your union
without you even knowing about it.” (Don’t Let…). The author also says,
“If
couples don’t communicate properly, then they likely won’t have a good
relationship that they enjoy being a part of.” (Don’t Let…). I think
that this
is most certainly true. Negative non-verbal communication and
misinterpretation
of the types of communication can lead to tension and arguments just as
much as
verbal communication can. I also believe that a person needs to be
happy and
enjoy being in their relationship. Tension or arguing all the time
tends to
lead your spouse, yourself, or both of you to not be happy in a
relationship.
Once
people stop communicating, their marriage or relationship can
begin to fall apart. There are some things you can do to save your
marriage/relationship. One thing you can try is marriage counseling.
When you
go through marriage counseling, both of you have to want to make your
relationship better, it just can’t be one person trying to make the
relationship better. Something that is really important to talk about
before
going to counseling is to see where the person stands, how they feel,
and if
they are willing to work and try to move forward in the relationship
(What Can
I…). I also found that you can work on things between the two of you on
your
own, but you would be taking the risk of making things worse (What Can
I…).
Sometimes
it is too late to save a relationship no matter how hard
you try. Usually that is when you have gone through all your options to
save
the relationship and it still hasn’t improved. This is normally when
people
decide it is time for a divorce. Divorces are hard, especially if there
are
children involved. You both have to go through a lot trying to decide
who gets
what, having to change the billing of some stuff, and one spouse trying
to find
a place to live on short notice. If there are kids involved, then
custody has
to be decided by the courts and visitation with the other person.
Divorce can
also be hard on the children. It’s extremely hard when you have had
your
parents together for a long time, but with time it does get easier. You
get in
a routine, and then sometimes you don’t even think about what it was
like for
them to be together. At least that was my case.
Overall,
I do think communication in marriage is important. I don’t
want to have to see children go through what I had to go through.
Although it
has made me a better person and I am so happy with my life now, it is
not something
I would wish to happen to someone. Seeing my dad go through a divorce
and be in
an unhappy marriage showed me how not to communicate in a marriage and
how I
don’t want my marriage to be. With him being re-married, he and my
step-mom
have showed me what it is like to be in a good, happy relationship.
They have
also showed me how important it is to have good communication skills
and how to
communicate with your spouse. I am so thankful for what they have shown
and
taught me.
While
some editing may have
been done for grammar or clarity, the choice of topic and discussion in
this
and other Communication 121 student Term Projects is solely the result
of the
research completed by the student. Read the County News Online
introduction for
these papers here.
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