The Purpose of Marriage and Communication

Dr. Chapman – The Marriage You’ve Always Wanted
Part 1 – The Purpose of Marriage and Communication(my title not his)

A couple weekends ago I got the incredible opportunity to learn from the wisdom of Dr. Gary Chapman. He graciously accepted our church’s offer to come speak on “The Marriage You’ve Always Wanted”. Sounds cliché, huh? Well, it’s not. When you are centering your life around God and how HE designed marriage to work, you will most definitely have the marriage you’ve always wanted. I got to talk with him and his sweet North Carolina accent and he was kind and just smiling. I like people that smile. It’s like you could see the goodness of God just oozing through him. I am so grateful for the time that I got to spend diving in God’s word and learning how to better my marriage. And because I think it is such valuable information, I would like to share some of the things that I learned, my notes and thoughts, to do with it what you will. Maybe you can use this to help better your marriage or help your idea of how a God-centered successful marriage should be.

First, I thought it was interesting to hear that 50% of women say that they have un-communicating husbands and 86% of divorces people admit that it was mostly because of deficient communication. When it all boils down, they say, “We just couldn’t communicate” or “We didn’t have anything to communicate about (or in common) anymore”.
What is the purpose of marriage? According to Gen 2:18,24 it is Unity and Intimacy. This passage says vs 18 “The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” And vs. 24 “That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.” Well, I can’t imagine someone saying that the have perfect unity and intimacy and never communicate. The two automatically intertwine.

How do you communicate? 2 Corinthians 6:11-13 says “We have spoken freely to you, Corinthians, and opened wide our hearts to you. 12 We are not withholding our affection from you, but you are withholding yours from us. 13 As a fair exchange—I speak as to my children—open wide your hearts also.” So the answer is to open your hearts and listen to others. This is two-fold. You can’t listen to others and get to know them if you are always talking. And likewise for the other portion – you can’t just be silent and never open up and expect a connection between the two. I know from a personal level that it makes me feel so special when Brian shares with me something that happened in his day or even something that made me mad. He is opening up and letting me in to see how he feels and thinks about the events in his life. It makes a huge difference. Communication is an act of the will. It is not a factor of your personality. You either choose to communicate or you don’t. Yes, this just popped the bubble of the excuse “I’m just not a talker”. If you want to please your significant other and have a better relationship, communication is KEY.

There are 3 levels to communication:

1. Day to Day Events – This is the most simple form of communication. Dr. Chapman cracked me up when he gave an example of the normal daily conversation. “How was your day, honey?” “Fine.” “How was yours?” “Fine.” Dr. Chapman became more animated than I expected and said FINE?!?! You have been apart for 10-12 hours and the only thing that you can sum up to describe that time apart is FINE?! When I really thought about that, it sank in. I leave the house at 6:30-6:40ish to drop off Ryot and I don’t get home after picking Ryot up until around 6:30-7:00ish. When I talk to Brian it sometimes is easier to say “Good” when he asks me how my day was. A suggestion that was given for bettering communication of day to day events was this: Tell me 3 things that happened today and how you felt about them. Dr. Chapman made me laugh again as he explained that it didn’t have to be profound. It could be as simple as, “Honey, I got a drink of water today. And it made me feel refreshed.” The look on his face and his demeanor when he said it just made everyone crack a smile and chuckle a little. It really is a simple concept. And what he said next really struck home. He said “Husbands, if you do this daily with your wife, you will not have simply told her about your day, but given her 20 minutes of your life.” I would love if Brian told me about his day and how he felt about it. The key is making sure that you include how you FELT about it. I know, people don’t like talking about feelings or some men think it is too girly to talk about how you feel. But I can tell you right now that when Brian takes time to tell me how he feels about a certain subject, it lets me in to who he is. It pulls me closer to him and makes me feel like we are connected and intertwined together not just merely coexisting.

2. Decision Making – This is the 2nd level of communication. This can be as easy as what you want to eat or as difficult as where to live or how to raise your children. This step is pretty straightforward until it turns into a conflict.

I did say that there are 3 levels of communication and I’m stopping at #2. This is because the 3rd level is about conflict and there are still thoughts and notes that I have to go through to compile them and don’t want to bombard anyone with crazy amounts of information that I haven’t even really sorted through. I just wanted to get this out because I’m super excited about it and how it is already shaping and changing my marriage.

Be back soon!