Unregulated Self-expression – Members Content

Common Traps When Speaking

Generally, men are less dependent than women on verbal expression to establish connection and emotional intimacy with their spouse. This imbalance means that a typical wife will seek more verbal communication than a typical husband, leading to the common dynamic of frustration on his part and hurt on hers. He thinks that she just can’t get enough talking, and she thinks that he isn’t interested in her or doesn’t love her.

Our culture affirms that verbal communication is foundational to a marriage, and that couples need to communicate more openly if they want a happy marriage. This is certainly true but it shouldn’t be taken as a licence to indulge in unregulated self-expression. This is a common practice, particularly among women, who can mistakenly believe that marriage obliges their husband to satisify her every desire for verbal expression.

On the husband’s part, he can often misinterpret his wife’s ‘prattle’ as just another (boring) activity in which he has little interest. He doesn’t readily recognise her recount in minuscule detail as an attempt to connect with him. Nor does he appreciate how much she values his self-revelation, and conversely, how anxious she becomes when he is habitually withdrawn.

Vibrant communication needs self-discipline. This means:

• being respectful about the timing of our conversation,
• being sensitive in the way we express ourselves,
• being selective about what we express, focusing on topics that are of interest to our spouse and,
• being responsive and available to our spouse’s need for emotional connection through verbal communication.

In other words, good communicators are ‘other-centred’. They do not make demands of each other, but rather, seek to make it easy for the other to participate in the communication. They are also respectful of the other’s needs and desires and seek to respond to them with generosity.

One of our deepest desires as human beings is to be known and accepted. When a couple’s verbal communication is intimate and regular, it fills an important emotional need and draws the couple deeper into love. In the absence of such communication, husbands and wives may turn to other relationships to meet this need and their marriage can become vulnerable to breakdown.