The reasons for failing marriages vary from couple to couple; however, there is one common problem in those unhappy marriages – poor communication. Sometimes, what causes communication barriers in marriage are those annoying communication habits instead of serious relationship issues themselves. As your marriage jolts along a rough track, couples tend to make various mistakes and even repeat them again and again; so inevitably, negative feelings grow stronger and stronger, and a relationship issue may escalate over time.
Here, let’s focus on 4 annoying habits that create barriers to communication in marriage, and then talk about how to handle them accordingly:
(1) Yelling at your partner:
Probably, in a fit of anger, you can’t resist raising your voice. Anger produces tension and builds tension up. As a result, you have to seek a fast approach to releasing tension. In the heat of the moment, you may realize that yelling at your partner is the quickest option in spite of more serious trouble it can cause. In the beginning, you may feel good about transferring the tension to your spouse who upsets you, but such a sense of satisfaction passes soon, and then you still feel terrible.
Furthermore, while you are yelling at your spouse, your intemperate words may stoke up the fire. Surely, your overpowering emotions can capture your spouse’s attention, whatever you want your spouse to hear at that moment. However, your spoken messages are not smoothly delivered to your spouse, and he/she may misunderstand what you exactly mean. Initially, I bet that you want your spouse to be responsive and reasonable during communication; but such aggressive behavior only puts your spouse on the defensive.
Avoiding yelling does not mean that you must not express your strong emotions while speaking; after all, everyone has emotions, but yelling is out of the bounds, yelling just focuses on an exchange of extreme emotions instead of your communicated messages. Even though you only mean to express your emotions without communicating other messages, this type of purely emotional exchange can exhaust each other mentally; and if left unchecked, it tends to develop into a destructive communication habit. Even though you can’t help expressing your negative emotions, make sure to let those emotions go away as soon as possible rather than fuel them.
Only when your emotion is in your control, your communicated messages can shine through.
A proper channel of communication can go either of two ways below:
- When realizing that excessive emotions interfere with your expression, you might take a bit of time alone to ride the wave of your emotions and let them settle down.
- Another way is to call a halt to the current discussion and then focus some time and attention on talking about issues that make you emotional. Try to let him/her side with you on your point rather than push him/her away.
(2) Developing a competitive attitude:
In married life, it is healthy and natural to have competition between couples to some extent; however, any competition that isn’t playful or mutual can build a wall. Just like both of you join in a sports game, competition between you is hard to avoid, but such a mutual and playful competition generally will not cause negative emotions.
In fact, competition is all around couples. You may have to come ahead of your spouse in some areas, but there is no need to ask yourself to do better than your spouse in as many aspects as possible, and you can also not equate your marriage with a game. In particular, when one of you constantly always acts as a constant winner in the debate/fight, both of you will lose in the relationship ultimately.
If you get accustomed to preparing to build a “case” to back up your opinion once your spouse disagrees with you on an issue, most likely you can win the argument temporarily. But if you always attempt to win an argument in such an aggressive way, you are bound to demoralize and exhaust your spouse.
Figure out why you want to win:
Many times, staying on top symbolizes strength and confidence. But in your married life, you can’t escape from the fact – The more you try to compensate by making you feel superior to your spouse, the more insecure you emotionally feel. You may always struggle with being vulnerable in your spouse’s presence, because you may think the act of exposing your insecurities clashes your belief that you are stronger than him/her.
If you are the constant winner in your marriage, do you feel that your spouse has got bored of your victory postures and your urgent need to take the dominant place? If you feel this way, you need to change the mindset of unhealthy competition in marriage. Actually, your spouse will be more willing to stay around you if you can be open to show your vulnerable side; on the other hand, your marriage means you and your spouse have been teammates, and what you get is only the momentary feeling of triumph from winning your teammate, but it makes no sense to the relationship, and instead, it only creates more communication barriers in marriage – Put yourself in your spouse’s shoes, how would you feel if your spouse always made you feel like a loser; most likely, you would also try to avoid fighting/arguing or even communicating with your spouse.
(3) You focus too much on yourself:
“How do you think I feel when…?” If your spouse ever complained to you like that, it is necessary to introspect yourself. Reflect on what you often mutter to yourself? Probably, those words are mostly focused on yourself, such as what you want, how you deal with things, what you think about, and what you look like; this type of chatter is somewhat biased since you don’t get away from your selfish perspective. In your married life, you may still be lack of thoughts associated with your spouse, such as how much fun it will be the next time you stay together, what you want from him/her, what he/she likes and hates, what his/her mood will be if you do that, and so on
If you feel you are too self-centered, you should remind yourself to show more concern for your spouse:
Let go of those selfish thoughts and stick to doing those loving and kind things for your partner. Generosity and considerateness go a long way towards nurturing a harmonious marriage. So, you are supposed to develop a pattern of being thoughtful and generous towards your partner, for example, don’t dwell on his/her mistakes or wrongdoings, instead, spend more time on thinking about what you can do to make your spouse appreciate you.
During conversations, you might take the initiative to ask how he/she is feeling or thinking about an issue, it seems not difficult to say “What do you think about…”, or “What’s your opinion?”, but you may just have not got accustomed to saying that way. But as long as you stick to such a communication pattern, sooner or later your spouse will feel that you start to care more for him/her, and in return, you will also feel that your spouse becomes more open to communication with you.
In the beginning, your spouse may hold his/her comments/feelings back because he/she can’t tell whether your behavior is a new set of communication habits or a gimmick. Anyway, be consistent with your efforts to let him/her feel that you are indeed genuine. Feelings can follow actions; however, if you just started doing these generous acts, it is likely that you still feel reluctant or that you still don’t feel loving now; especially if your spouse doesn’t respond to you positively, you may be confused about whether you should go on to be kind and generous to him/her. Anyway, keep going. There must be a growing process for you to feel loving and generous toward your spouse; and meanwhile, it also takes time for your spouse to feel your genuine kindness and solicitude for him/her.
(4) You like “You” statements more than “I” statements:
Do you often use “You” statements like “Why don’t you listen?”, “You never understand me!”, “Why are you always so late?”, ”You just don’t love me!”.
In general, this type of statement sounds like blame and accusations; obviously, “You” statements put your spouse on the defensive and make him/her unwilling/unable to be open to what you want to communicate. It conveys the judgment, but no one (your spouse included) likes being judged, as a result, your spouse either closes down the communication lines or defend himself/herself.
Such statements can harm your marriage, especially when your relationship has already been marred with conflict before.
“I” statements are better than “You” statements:
“I” statements are typically used with the intention of being assertive without putting your spouse on the defensive. And “I” statements focus on taking ownership of your feelings, and meanwhile, they imply your problems are associated with your spouse. For example, you may try saying “I feel unheard” to skip saying “You aren’t listening!”, and you may try saying “I feel unimportant” to skip saying “You never care me”. In general, “I” statements are constructed in 3 forms like below:
- I feel … (insert your feeling)
- When … (tell the listener what caused your feeling), I…
- I’d like … (show what you expect to happen instead)
The final word:
In short, to overcome your communication barriers in marriage, it is advisable to start from changing those trifling habits. And it takes practice, time, and effort.
By the way, it is very necessary to improve and maintain the harmonious communication with your spouse in peacetime; but when a marriage is in trouble, the real issue is often not communication (when communication is hampered by disconnection and hurt, it can seem like an issue; and a lot of problematic couples just focuses on solving communication problems at that time), and improving “communication tricks” only inflicts more damage and even accelerates the deterioration of the marriage. Anyway, remember, good communication in marriage is always about having our needs heard and understanding our spouses’ needs. And the ultimate goal of communication between spouses should be to enhance the emotional connection that sustains a lasting relationship.
For more tips on how to develop healthy habits of regular, open, and honest communication with your spouse, you might go on to watch the video below to follow the comprehensive guidance that is offered by Brad Browning, a marriage coach with 12+ years of experience:
Maybe, you are also interested in the related post below:
How to stay emotionally connected with your spouse.
How to have effective communication in marriage.
How to survive an emotionally disconnected marriage.
What a healthy marriage looks like – How to maintain a marriage.
How to defuse conflict in marriage – Calm down a heated argument.
How to reduce arguments in a marriage – Reconnect your spouse.
6 tips on how to make up with your spouse after a fight.
5 warning signs of a toxic marriage – toxic relationship patterns.
How to mend the marriage when your husband says hurtful words.