from The Donelson Fellowship
Message 4 Communication: How To Stay Married Without Staying Miserable We have spoken freely to you, Corinthians, and opened wide our hearts to you. We are not withholding our affection from you, but you are withholding yours from us. As a fair exchange - I speak as to my children - open wide your hearts also (2 Corinthians 6:11-13). We're midway through a series of messages entitled Down the Aisle and Up the Creek. Last week's message was "How To Turn Your Bedfellow into Your Best Friend." One guy approached me afterward and asked if I would preach a sermon entitled "How To Turn Your Best Friend into Your Bedfellow." Well, perhaps today's message will help that husband, for we're going to deal with the subject of communication. How do we communicate our needs and wants and feelings to each other? How can you get some of these subjects on the table? And how can you draw meaningful conversation out of Sugerbaby or Old Snookims? In Leo Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilyich, the key character of the book, Ivan, a lawyer, married his sweetheart. Tolstoy wrote: The preparations for marriage and the first period of married life, with its conjugal caresses, new furniture, new dishes, new linen - the period up to his wife's pregnancy - went very well... But then, things seemed to change. It seemed to Ivan that his wife became moody and irritable. Ivan, frustrated, didn't enjoy her as much as before, so he began seeking ways to avoid being at home so much. He found his diversion at work. Tolstoy wrote: To the degree that his wife became more irritable and demanding, Ivan Ilyich increasingly made work the center of gravity in his life. He grew more attached to his job and more ambitious than ever. Very soon, within a year after his wedding, Ivan Ilyich realized that married life, though it offered certain conveniences, was in fact a very complex and difficult business... Then Tolstoy offered this interesting paragraph: Of married life, (Ivan) demanded only the conveniences it could provide - dinners at home, a well-run household, a partner in bed, and, above all, a veneer of respectability which public opinion required. As for the rest, he tried to find enjoyment in family life, and if he succeeded, was very grateful; but if he met with resistance and querulousness; he immediately withdrew into his separate, entrenched world of work and found pleasure there.... (Finally) all they had left were the rare periods of amorousness that came over them, but these did not last long. They were merely little islands at which the couple anchored for a while before setting out again on a sea of veiled hostility, which took the form of estrangement from each other. Tolstoy possessed the ability to creep into homes and take snapshots of marriage and show people their own hearts. Many couples can identify with the home of Ivan Ilyich. The missing link in their marriage is communication. Ivan and his wife didn't sit down and talk through things. They ran into stresses and just withdrew from each other. They didn't do those things necessary for keeping the lines open. When I was a boy, I used to watch my mother sew. She draw a needle from a pin cushion, took it the window, put the end of a piece of string into her mouth to wet it, and threaded it through the eye of the needle. Then she joined two pieces of cloth, inserted the needle through them both at once, and began stitching them together, winding the thread back and forth in a pattern guaranteed to make a tight seam. The more stitches, the tighter the union. Communication is the needle and thread of marriage. Without it, you have only two pieces of cloth that may live in the same house and occasionally touch one another or rub against each other, but without actually being joined as one. But if there is communication, the stitching process begins, and the more communication, the tighter the seam. Every meaningful conversation is like a stitch holding the two together. Communication, in other words, is the only means by which two people become one. I once sat in a lecture by marriage professor James Hatch. He claimed that communication is the only process by which two people become one. Hatch used this passage from 2 Corinthians to teach us that four elements are necessary for good communication in marriage. Four Elements Necessary For Communication The first is an open heart. Ivan and his wife ran into stress, and they just withdrew from each other, closing their hearts to one another. There was also conflict and estrangement between Paul the Corinthian church. The letter of 2 Corinthians was an effort to bridge the gap. In verse 11 Paul said, "We have spoken freely to you, Corinthians, and opened wide our hearts...." And in chapter 7, verse 2 he appealed, "Make room for us in your hearts." He was saying, in effect, that our hearts have doors on them with automatic closing devices. Our hearts tend to close easily. We feel hurt or disappointed or disillusioned, angry or offended. The doors of our hearts slowly begin to close. Or sometimes they slam shut with a bang. When that happens, communication virtually stops. The Apostle Paul was appealing to the Corinthians to open their hearts again, to make room for him in their hearts. This goes back to what I was saying a couple of weeks ago about compassion. Sometimes we just have to make up our minds that we're not going to be so easily offended. We're not going to be overly concerned about our own needs. We're going to look beyond that to recognize the hurts and fears and problems being experienced by our mate. We're going to have compassion and open our hearts to him or her. The second necessary element is open mouths. Verse 11 says, "We have spoken freely to you...." When I was a college student, I traveled on weekends and summers with a ministry team, and I stayed in many different homes. It's very interesting to step into a home for 24-hours. In some of those homes, the husband and wife had an easy relationship in which they chatted and talked as comfortably as old friends. But in other houses, the husband came home from work, sat down, pulled the newspaper to his nose or put his face to the television, and the couple hardly spoke two or three words. Why is that? Well, sometimes we blame our personalities. Some men say, "I'm the strong, silent type. I'm just not very comfortable opening up." Sometimes we blame our culture. We say that men are raised so as not to show their emotions or open up or become vulnerable. Those things may be true to an extent. But on the other hand, most of us learned to talk when we were two and three years old, and there's really little excuse for not being a conversationalist in marriage. When there's little meaningful communication, we can often mark it down to selfishness and laziness. We must resolve to open our hearts and our mouths. The third requirement for good communication is open ears. James wrote, "Everyone should be quick to listen...." Proverbs 18:13 says, "He who answers before listening - that is his folly and his shame." Several months ago, I told you of a man who frustrated his wife because every time she shared a problem or a burden with him, he had a ready answer. He was a real fix-it man, and no matter what the problem or how deeply his wife felt about it, as soon as she shared it he would offer his solution, give his advice, then return to his reading or to his work. Not only did he fail to enter into her feelings, his quick advice made her feel inadequate. Pretty soon she stopped sharing her problems with him, choosing to suffer silently rather than to expose herself to another fix-it-up solution. I have a problem here myself because through the years I've learned to do two or three things at once. If I wash the dishes, I use that time to make phone calls, cradling the phone against my shoulder while I use my free hands to do the dishes. If I'm driving across town, I'm probably listening to a book on cassette tape at the same time. If I'm working on sermon in my office, I'm often on the phone or approving paperwork or jotting down notes for a magazine article at the same time. So my tendency, when Katrina wants to talk to me, is to listen while I'm doing something else - maybe surfing the cable or thumbing through a magazine or puttering with a hobby. That isn't good. Who wants to talk to someone who only listens with one ear? But the other night I fixed a pot of coffee after supper, and Katrina and I sat a few minutes on our front porch and talked awhile as the sunset filled the sky with scarlet colors. Just chit-chat. Those were good moments. We all need frequent times like that for giving one another our undivided attention. That leads to the fourth element: Open schedules. We need to plan times for talking. Katrina and I have breakfast together every Monday morning, and we go out for donuts every Saturday. When our girls are grown and gone, I'm quite sure we'll resume our habit of going out on a date one night each week, trying out different restaurants. We look forward to times like that. Every couple needs a routine that brings them together for talking. You don't just need a spasmodic, hit-or-miss pattern for being together. You need to routinize it. Every Wednesday we'll have lunch together. On the first Friday of every month, we're going to an expensive restaurant. Every couple needs open hearts, open ears, open mouths, and open schedules for communicating with one another. Five Types of Necessary Communication But what do we say during our talking times? Five things. There are five types of necessary communication. The first is Small Talk. I'm determined that Katrina and I aren't going to be like the couples you see at restaurants sitting there like granite with nothing to say to one another while waiting for the arrival of their food. (I know that couples must be comfortable enough to sit together in silence. Nothing is more pleasant that a couple sitting by the fire, the man with his book and the woman busy at her needlework. They don't feel the need to be chattering away all the time.) But unless the restaurant has a little game with golf tees on the table, there's not much you can do while you're waiting except to talk. That's where small talk comes in. That's when I ramble on about something I've been reading recently. Just this week, I've finished the biography of Queen Elizabeth I. Every morning I read the newspaper. I have various experiences day by day - all of which provides fodder for small talk. Sydney Smith, 19th Century English Essayist, said, "One of the great pleasures of life is conversation." Laurie Chock of Chock and Goldbert, a communications consulting firm in New York, said, "Small talk is a misnomer. Those little conversations probably have more impact than any other." Pam Druger, another communications expert, said, "For many of us, small talk is hard work... (But) if you have comforted yourself by saying small talk doesn't matter, think again. It builds rapport and often leads to bigger things." One of those bigger things is Serious Talk. There's a place in marriage for sitting down and discussing tough problems, emotional issues, and serious subjects. Many of us guys are not very good at that. We feel squeamish and awkward and uncomfortable. For many years, I avoided difficult issues by engaging in a communications technique that my wife calls "beating around bush." But I'm slowly learning to go ahead and put things on the table and deal with them. That includes the third kind of important talk - Self Talk. Several years ago, I grew depressed, and much of my despondence was connected with my work in the ministry. I suffered a sense of discouragement so strong that I really couldn't describe it. I didn't talk about it with Katrina. I kept it all inside, for I didn't know how to tell her my feelings in a way that she could understand. But things grew so bad that I scheduled an appointment with a career counselor in California, and Katrina and I flew to Arrowhead Springs. She really didn't know what the trip was about, but the weekend we spent with the counselor was invaluable. He listened as I tried to describe my frustrations. He helped to interpret and explain them. Katrina realized much better what I was going through, and it proved a turning point in my thinking. It also significantly enriched our marriage. Do you know that a big part of marital counseling is getting the couple just to start talking - with openness, civility, and hopefully a growing sense of empathy? Sometimes you need a counselor as a catalyst, but often couples can learn to do this on their own. "Honey, I need talk to you about something that's bothering me..." There are few issues that cannot be resolved if two partners will discuss them openly and pray about them earnestly. A fourth kind of necessary communication is Soul Talk - talking about matters of the soul, talking about the Lord Jesus. Katrina very often says, "You know, I found an interesting thing in my Bible study today..." When was the last time you said something like that to your spouse? When was the last time you said, "Let me tell you how the Lord answered this prayer of mine..."? The Bible has a word for this kind of conversation: Fellowship. Malachi 3:16 says: Then those who feared the Lord talked with each other, and the Lord listened and heard. A scroll of remembrance was written in his presence concerning those who feared the Lord and honored his name. "Then will be mine," says the Lord Almighty, "in the day when I make up my treasured possessions." Finally, there's another kind of talk important for healthy marriages: Sweet Talk. This categories includes things like: I love you, Sugerbaby. You're the whipped cream on my sundae. You're the bubbles in my Pepsi. You're the feather in my cap. Things like that. Brenda Evans said that her husband Bill often tells her that he loves her. Not every single day, but frequently. I appreciate hearing the words I love you most when they come spontaneously. For me, one of the most exciting events of our marriage occurred once when I was preparing supper. My hair was a little tousled, and my nose was shining. My house dress was less than chic, though it matched my lace-up shoes nicely. I wasn't wearing perfume, but I did have a flick of mascara on my lashes. I was cooking. I don't remember what, but I do know it wasn't veal parmesan or turkey tetrazini. Bill came into the kitchen, put his arms around me, and said, "Babe, I'm so glad to have you for my wife." "That's great!" I answered, laying down the ladle. "I'm glad you're glad. Have you just now decided?" "No, I've been glad. But today I just realized how glad I am. I'm just glad you're my wife." After that conversation he picked up the newspaper and I went back to the ladle. I sneaked a peek into the living room. Reading the paper, he looked the same. But I was different. Still unperfumed and uncombed, but different. My heart was skipping along, and my mind was in high gear. Never in all our years of marriage had Bill so eloquently said I love you. And never in all those years had I so definitely believed him. Communication is the needle and thread of marriage. How are you doing at it? Do you need to open your heart? To open your mouth? To open your ears? To open your schedule? And what kind of communication do you most need right now? Small talk? Serious talk? Soul talk? Self talk? Sweet talk? Start stitching your marriage together with the treads of good communication, good conversation. A stitch in time is divine. For, as the Lord says in Colossians 4 and Ephesians 4 - Let your conversation always be full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you can build others up according to their need and that you may benefit those who listen.
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