Talk About Misunderstanding

In an effort to draw on the experiences of those who have lived together successfully as husbands and wives, we asked married couples to participate in an informal study. More than 600 people agreed to speak candidly to the younger generation about the concepts and methods that have worked in their homes. They each wrote comments and recommendations which were carefully analyzed and compared. €¦

[One] recommendation by our panel represents a basic ingredient for a good marriage good communication between husbands and wives. This topic has been beaten to death by writers of books on the subject of marriage, so I will hit it lightly. I would like to offer a few less overworked thoughts on marital communication, however, that might be useful to young married couples.

First, it must be understood that males and females differ in a way not often mentioned. Research makes it clear that little girls are blessed with greater linguistic ability than little boys, and it remains a lifelong talent. Simply stated, she talks more than he.

As an adult, she typically expresses her feelings and thoughts far better than her husband and is often irritated by his reticence. God may have given her 50,000 words per day and her husband only 25,000. He comes home with 24,975 used up and merely grunts his way through the evening. He may descend into "Monday Night Football" while his wife is dying to expend her remaining 25,000 words.

Erma Bombeck complained about this tendency of men to get lost in televised sports while their wives hunger for companionship. She even proposed that a new ordinance be passed that would be called "Bombeck's Law." According to it, a man who had watched 168,000 football games in a single season could be declared legally dead. All in favor say "Aye."

The complexity of the human personality guarantees exceptions to every generalization. Yet women do tend to talk more than men. Every knowledgeable marriage counselor knows that the inability or unwillingness of husbands to reveal their feelings to their wives is one of the common complaints of women.

It can almost be stated as an absolute: Show me a quiet, reserved husband, and I'll show you a frustrated wife. She wants to know what he's thinking and what happened at his office and how he sees the children and, especially, how he feels about her. The husband, by contrast, finds some things better left unsaid. It is a classic struggle.

The paradox is that a highly emotional, verbal woman is sometimes drawn to the strong, silent type. He seemed so secure and "in control" before they were married. She admired his unflappable nature and his coolness in a crisis.

Then they were married, and the flip side of his great strength became obvious. He wouldn't talk! She then gnashed her teeth for the next 40 years because her husband couldn't give what she needed from him. It just wasn't in him.

Lyricist and singer Paul Simon wrote a song entitled "I Am a Rock," which expressed the sentiment of a silent introvert. The person about whom the song is written has been wounded and has pulled within himself for protection. As you read these lyrics, imagine the special communication problems such a man and his poor wife would experience in marriage.

A winter's day
In a deep and dark December
I am alone,
Gazing from my window
To the streets below
On a freshly fallen silent shroud of snow.

I am a rock.
I am an island.

I've built walls,
A fortress deep and mighty,
That none may penetrate.
I have no need of friendship
Friendship causes pain.
It's laughter and it's loving I disdain.

I am a rock.
I am an island.

Don't talk of love;
Well I've heard the word before;
It's sleeping in my memory.
I won't disturb the slumber of feelings that have died.
If I never loved I never would have cried.

I am a rock.
I am an island.

I have my books
And my poetry to protect me;
I am shielded in my armor,
Hiding in my room,
Safe within my womb.
I touch no one and no one touches me.

I am a rock.
I am an island.

And a rock feels no pain;
And an island never cries.
© 1965 Paul Simon. Used by permission.

Unfortunately, the wives and children of rocks and islands do feel pain, and they do cry! But what is the solution to such communicative problems at home? As always, it involves compromise. A man has a clear responsibility to "cheer up his wife which he has taken" (Deuteronomy 24:5). He must not claim himself "a rock" who will never allow himself to be vulnerable again. He must press himself to open his heart and share his deeper feelings with his wife.

Time must be reserved for meaningful conversations. Taking walks and going out to breakfast and riding bicycles on Saturday mornings are conversation inducers that keep love alive. Communication can occur even in families where the husband leans inward and the wife leans outward. In these instances, I believe, the primary responsibility for compromise lies with the husband.

On the other hand, women must understand and accept the fact that some men cannot be what they want them to be. I have previously addressed this need for wives to accept reality as it is presented to them in my book What Wives Wish Their Husbands Knew About Women.

Can you accept the fact that your husband will never be able to meet all your needs and aspirations? Seldom does one human being satisfy every longing and hope in the breast of another.

Obviously, this coin has two sides: You can't be his perfect woman, either. He is no more equipped to resolve your entire package of emotional needs than you are to become his sexual dream machine every 24 hours. Both partners have to settle for human foibles and faults and irritability and fatigue and occasional nighttime "headaches."

A good marriage is not one where perfection reigns: It is a relationship where a healthy perspective overlooks a multitude of "unresolvables." Thank goodness my wife, Shirley, has adopted this attitude toward me!

I am especially concerned about the mother of small children who chooses to stay at home as a full-time homemaker. If she looks to her husband as a provider of all adult conversation and the satisfier of every emotional need, their marriage can quickly run aground. He will return home from work somewhat depleted and in need of "tranquility."

Instead, he finds a woman who is continually starved for attention and support. When she sees in his eyes that he has nothing left to give, that is the beginning of sorrows. She either becomes depressed or angry (or both), and he has no idea how he can help her. I understand this feminine need and have attempted to articulate it to men.

Nevertheless, a woman's total dependence on a man places too great a pressure on the marital relationship. It sometimes cracks under the strain.

What can be done, then? A woman with a normal range of emotional needs cannot simply ignore them. They scream for fulfillment. Consequently, I have long recommended that women in this situation seek to supplement what their husbands can give by cultivating meaningful female relationships.

Having girlfriends with whom they can talk heart-to-heart, study the Scriptures, and share child-care techniques can be vital to mental health. Without this additional support, loneliness and low self-esteem can accumulate and begin to choke the marriage to death.

This solution of feminine company seems so obvious that one might ask why it is even worthwhile to suggest it. Unfortunately, it is not so easy to implement. A woman must often search for companionship today. We've witnessed a breakdown in relationships between women in recent years.

A hundred years ago, wives and mothers did not have to seek female friendship. It was programmed into the culture. Women canned food together, washed clothes at the creek together and cooperated in church charity work together.

When babies were born, the new mother was visited by aunts, sisters, neighbors and church women who came to help her diaper, feed and care for the child. There was an automatic support system that surrounded women and made life easier. Its absence translates quickly into marital conflict and can lead to divorce.

To the young wives who are reading these words, I urge you not to let this scenario happen to you. Invest some time in your female friends even though you are busy. Resist the temptation to pull into the walls of your home and wait for your husband to be all things to you. Stay involved as a family in a church that meets your needs and preaches the Word.

Remember that you are surrounded by many other women with similar feelings. Find them. Care for them. Give to them. And in the process, your own self-esteem will rise. Then when you are content, your marriage will flourish.

It sounds simplistic, but that's the way we are made. We are designed to love God and to love one another. Deprivation of either function can be devastating.

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