Why Improving Your Communication is Vital To Your Marriage

By: Peggy Ferguson Click author's name for more of his/her articles

Communication is not only the life's blood of a marriage, it is the cornerstone that the foundation of relationship skills rests on. You have to have good communication skills to be convey your love, affection, and commitment to your loved ones. You can not effectively problem solve without good communication.

Without appropriate communication, relationships struggle to maintain the affection, the connection, and the sense of belonging and acceptance that are so important to all individuals.

With around half of all marriages ending in divorce, it is especially important to take steps to maintain the individual and family benefits of a marriage. A pro-active stance in maintaining the good will, good feelings, and individual happiness of partners goes a long way toward keeping marital stability.

The least vulnerable marriage is one in which both partners are satisfied. Both partners in a marriage must be happy or the marriage is vulnerable.

One of the major causes of divorce is conflict and ineffective communication/problem solving. Another is infidelity. There is help and resolution for both issues.

Many couples believe that they have good communication, yet find themselves falling short of their own expectations when the conversation gets heated. You cannot really be communicating well when you spend very little time together, and when the time that you do spend is devoid of interaction.

Often one partner will want and need more interaction and communication time while the other needs less, which puts their needs in conflict. This is a relationship issue that often finds its way into discussions that are seemingly unrelated. When you do not problem solving about emotional relationship issues, those same issues will be projected onto other areas, like taking out the trash. Taking out the trash is the issue for one partner. To the other, the meaning of repeatedly asking someone to take out the trash, means "s/he doesn't love me" or "I'm not important".

When you identify that you need more quality time together, without distrations, and you take action to accomplish this goal, good things begin to happen.

Partners, secure in their commitment, feel confident in their ability to weather the changes that their marriage will go through over time. Change leads to stress. People experience stress as individuals and as part of a marriage. Couples can use the relationship as a strength to deal with shared and individual stressors, or they can individually problem solve and try to sell their individual solutions to each other, thereby setting themselves up for more conflict and more stress. Effective communication makes it easier for couples to help and support each other with stress.

Effective communication can be learned in many ways. Couples counseling, marital enrichment programs, and structured or semi-structured communication exercises are all possibilities.

One of the common goals of couples counseling is to learn to identify when you are trying to problem solve on different levels, and how to move to the same level for solutions. Couple's Feelings Meetings and The Honey Jar, a couple's conversation starter, are examples of helpful communication exercises.

If you want more from your marriage, take action now. It is not a good idea to do nothing, hoping that something will change. Change is inevitable, but it may not be the type of change you are hoping for.

Copyright (c) 2009 Peggy L. Ferguson, Ph.D.

Article Source: ABC Article Directory

About The Author: A multitude of resources are available to you on the website of Peggy L. Ferguson, Ph.D. at www.peggyferguson.com You can also sign up for Dr. Ferguson's Newsletter there. To download (for purchase) The Honey Jar, a couple's communication exercise, go to www.honeyjarcommunications.com Peggy L. Ferguson, Ph.D. is a therapist in private practice in Stillwater, OK. She is also a writer, trainer, and consultant.