Have you ever considered the question “What are you afraid of?” when talking to your spouse. In some cases, they may actually be afraid of you, yet in most cases, they are afraid of spontaneity. They are afraid of being out of control of the communication between the two of you. I will give you more on this later, but first some background.
I have been working on some exciting projects at Restore The Family recently that I believe you will find helpful. As with any project dealing with relationships, when you dig in, you find more questions than answers. I find new insights on areas that I had not previously considered. One of those projects involves communication between spouses.
Communication is critical to any relationship. Communication is the foundational for intimacy, trust, problem solving and a host of other areas. With communication being so foundational, when there are problems in this area, it impacts many other areas of your marriage.
One area that many couples struggle with is spontaneity, especially after the advent of the smartphone. With the smartphone, many people have developed a mindset of wanting instant information and control over the flow of information. When you are dealing with real people, you have neither. Spontaneity in relationships takes over control of what gets talked about and when it gets talked about.
What this means is that your ‘communication problems’, is not that either one of you can not talk or communicate. It means that there may be a fear of spontaneity. This is something that you will want to investigate. Some spouses may tell you that they have trouble with ’emotions’ and talking about them.
What they call trouble with emotions may be nothing more than the fear of being out of control of the conversation and the spontaneity of the conversation when the focus is on emotions. Emotions have a way of being spontaneous and being out of control once they come out.
What is the likelihood that you will recover emotionally, when you can never discuss the emotions? That likelihood is small if at all. When you can not get the emotions out (e.g. emotional constipation), there will be consequences. When emotions, food, or pain are kept inside too long, they always have toxic effects, on either your body or your relationships.
Best Regards,
Jeff Murrah
