Relationships are a part of our lives as humans. However, there are several things that are capable of making a relationship healthy or unhealthy. One of the things capable of making any relationship unhealthy is lack of proper communication. As much as it is often said that “Silence is golden“, an unreasonable silence can ruin the best marriage or relationship.
For anyone in any form of relationship, you will agree with me that “That he or she loves me and cares about me does not make me free from periodic feelings of not being loved or appreciated enough“. It does not take too much for either a man or a woman to feel unloved and hurt in a relationship. As little as leaving matters unaddressed or unattended is, it is capable of building up the wrong feelings and eventually producing the wrong reactions.
Marriage like every other relationship requires constant, deliberate and clear communication.
Sadly, a lot of us take this for granted and expect our spouse to know what we intend to say or need at every point in time. Hubby’s signature statement whenever I choose to stay silent or refuse to communicate as he expects of me is – ” Babe, I am not a spirit, I am human, I can not read your mind to know how you feel. Speak out and let me know what’s on your mind.”
Having been around for 35 years as a daughter, sister, mother and friend to quite a number of people, as well as a wife to an amazing man for almost a decade, I have come to realize that several issues in all kind of relationships come from the place of not clearly expressing ourselves, our needs, our pains, hurts and desires in such relationships.
Not taking the time to clearly express ourselves could stem from being nonchalant, too busy, insensitive, unnecessarily arrogant and inconsiderate, as well as being unwilling to express how we feel for the sake of letting peace reign so as not to be tagged as “the troublemaker”.
Unfortunately, bottling up feelings of anger, dissatisfaction, tiredness, fatigue, weariness, etc, does not help a marriage or any kind of relationship in the long run. Rather than making peace reign, it open us up for negative feelings of anger, bitterness, displeasure and irritation. ( Meanwhile , life is too short for unnecessary dramas)
My take on the issue of lack of communication is that there is usually a trace of pride in either or both spouses( in a marriage relationship for example), where by one person or the two people in such a relationship is / are not willing to humbly address the unpleasant or dissatisfying development.
Rather than humbly confronting what is affecting a relationship, pride pushes us to spill out the fault of the other person, which of course only makes that person more defensive confrontational, resentful, rebellious and unwilling to settle whatever the issue at hand is. Humility is the key to having a good and fruitful communication or relationship.
As humans, we are wired to have needs. Sadly, we find it difficult to live with the truth that no one is capable of meeting all the needs of the other person. The best we can do is to voice out our needs and trust that the other person will do their best to meet those needs as God helps them.
Compiling the feeling of hurt, dissatisfaction and displeasure points at lack of the right attitude towards good communication and it ultimately bring about the destruction of even the strongest of marriage or any other kind of relationship.
Stop putting yourself through avoidable pain, hurt and feeling of dissatisfaction all because of your desire to prove a point, which is -“I will not bow to you because I can do without you.” When in the real sense, you know you are hurting on the inside and long to be at peace with your spouse or whoever it is you are in a relationship with.
The way out of unreasonable strife, anger and resentment in marriage or any other relationship is to sincerely, humbly and lovingly speak up about your feelings of dissatisfaction and trust God to work on your spouse even as He work on you to be the considerate and loving partner the other person also wants you to be.
Bonus Tips:
- We all have our flaws but it is not a justification for intentionally hurting our spouses or loved ones.
- Start a beautiful, fruitful, edifying conversation plan that will produce amazing results in your marriage/ relationship.
- Be humble enough to admit your wrongs/ accept your own fault rather than focusing on the other person’s fault.
Keep Loving ! Keep communicating! Keep living !
Cheers!!!
Sent from my iPad
Author Profile
- Temitope is the founder of thesoulmeal.com, an online platform that she shares with her God-given spiritual family and friends. She is a speaker, teacher and youth counselor. She is passionate about inspiring people to find their identity in Christ. Catch her interviewing inspiring leaders on Tongue of the Learned Podcast
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