Marriage And Communication: How Do I Know?

Marriage should be considered not an institution but rather a state of being. Relationships, hopefully intimate, tend to have the most challenges as they are managed from the outcomes and events of the world rather than the collaborated efforts of the pairing. This pairing, by today’s standards, means that there is balanced and open communication to deal with issues from family, economics, and well-being. But what happens when those challenges overwhelm and collaboration and communication becomes static?

General solu­tions tell us that cou­ples ther­a­py is the start to help to reignite trust in a rela­tion­ship. Trusting a part­ner is the work in rela­tion­ships. The opin­ions that part­ners have comes from those expe­ri­ences that have shaped and mature each indi­vid­ual. As issues arise and a solu­tion must be arrived at; trust in each oth­er’s thoughts and actions have to be respect­ed in order to come to a res­o­lu­tion. Here is where the work comes in. Resolutions need a goal set for it to be com­plet­ed. Knowing what mile­stones need to be com­plet­ed and focus­ing on them is what most peo­ple do not have or lose sight of while in the process of the plan. Recently, a plan which may have been in the works seems to be slow­ing or is becom­ing increas­ing­ly hard­er to start. Instead of com­mit­ting to the plan and work­ing toward that 1^st goal, we failed to focus and fell back into a place of pan­ic. Panic leads to fear, then a dis­con­nec­tion, and final­ly no com­mu­ni­ca­tion. It is not so much the one that hurts but the many. Does it mean one gives in to the easy and remains sep­a­rate in think­ing and action? Would the right path be that of the fear­ful just allow­ing issues to destroy or the tired to give in to sep­a­ra­tion in growth but what of the hope­ful? Hopeful?

Psalm 121, 5 – 6.

The Lord watch­es over you—
the Lord is your shade at your right hand;
6 the sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.
7 The Lord will keep you from all harm—
he will watch over your life;
8 the Lord will watch over your com­ing and going
both now and forevermore.

Marriage is a bond on the sur­face by a record, but what of those fun­da­men­tals that we hold dear in reli­gion. We look at each oth­er as indi­vid­u­als sort­ing this per­ilous adven­ture of life day by day and then see­ing how to nav­i­gate to the next. There is the ques­tion. Is it to be left to God’s will as to a posi­tion or cir­cum­stance or is a belief the aid for the day and then the choice is our own? Knowing that we have steps is under­stood, do we know what those steps are or go with the prover­bial flow? The for­mer means we should write down goals, set our mile­stones and adjust. The lat­ter has goals but God has our steps already defined so allow the instances to lead one. There is a 3^rd sce­nario a com­bi­na­tion of the two. The bal­ance and dis­ci­pline to com­mit is the chal­lenge and fol­low thru the process. We woke to face the day, God’s bless­ing has anoint­ed our steps.

Write it down. What are our goals? When are the mile­stones? Who are the stake­hold­ers? What are our the con­tin­gen­cies? It is a belief that visu­al­iza­tion is the best way to record a plan. Graphically or a wordy plan can help with that focus that is need­ed to com­plete tasks. Many busi­ness­es, insti­tu­tions, and plans rely on the writ­ten word to imple­ment plans to make the par­tic­i­pant reach what­ev­er the goal is. Then part­ner­ship in a mar­riage can do the same, as both part­ners, need to com­mit to the focus.

Looking at the sci­ence and the reli­gious aspects, it is evi­dent that with every moment, deci­sions are more com­plex and need a thought­ful­ness to make it worth­while and sus­tain­able. Simple and quick is based on a feel­ing and not in ratio­nal dis­cov­ery to a resolve. Openness to change is a cul­mi­na­tion of patience and under­stand­ing of part­ners in a rela­tion­ship. A will­ing­ness to try and fail togeth­er, rather than fall into one’s fear and close off the connection.