Communication Gap between couples and how to improve it
Suresh is getting ready to go to office and Smitha is getting kids ready to send to school. They have two kids, one 10 years old boy and 8 year old girl. Kids are teasing each other and talking about school. Once they got ready Suresh took them to drop at school and then go to office from there. Smitha said bye to kids and closed the door. She just dropped tiringly on the sofa. Tears rolled down her eyes, she thought it’s been weeks since Suresh talked with her. Even whenever they talk, it’s just about kids, if something happens in the neighborhood. She has been trying to talk to him and get close to him since she got married. He seemed ok but whenever she wants to discuss about family issue, or anything he would say, ‘that’s ok I’ll take care of it.’ Lot of times she confronted him about his not opening up to her, sharing everything with her because she had her doubts, maybe he didn’t like the marriage, or he was in love with another woman etc. but he says there is nothing like that and he is not good at expressing himself from the childhood. Smitha always tried to compromise comparing him with other husbands. He doesn’t have any bad habits, he doesn’t beat, he is a good father, he is good husband, handsome etc. Of course she feels very lonely when he doesn’t show any kind of response or affection for days or he doesn’t notice whether she is happy or not. If she is not happy and looking gloomy never tries to find out the reason. He takes all the decisions, Smitha feels left out as he doesn’t consult her or include her in taking any kind of decisions and for Suresh it’s not a big issue. Maybe other women will be happy that the husband takes care of everything but Smitha believes in equal life partnership between couples. She was becoming lonely even though she was totally involved with the two kids activities, she misses that companionship which she thought will be there in the married life!
There are so many women or couples who are living like Suresh and Smitha. This is a widespread problem but in the name of family, kids, and most importantly the idea which binds them forever and that is once you got married, you have to adjust or compromise whatever life you get especially among the Indian couples they try to stay married even though they do not get along, suffering emotionally, suffocating in the name of our traditions and customs etc. This kind of life will have great effect on the health of women who learn to suppress their feelings, not supposed to share with either family or friends. If the husband is drinking, hitting, violent, demanding more dowry, harassing there is a chance of talking about these problems with others. In most cases women do not even talk about these problems too where they can get help if they are facing with any one of the problems, that’s why we read women committing suicides or in-laws killing daughter-in-laws and try to prove them as suicides.
Women who suffer with an invisible problem like communication gap between couples it is very hard for them to live adjusting with their husbands or they cannot get out of the life in which they are not at all happy. Women usually love to have husbands who are good at communication, share their feelings with them, share the responsibilities, love to spend time with wives in spite of so many responsibilities try to take some time either every day or make sure to spend some time in a week to sit down with wife, find out what’s going on with her, how is she doing, if she is working talk about her work, throughout the week they discuss about house problems, kids, in-laws etc. if husband and wife take some time to spend with each other that marriage is going to be a very happy one.
Many couples do not realize that the family starts with both of them and once the kids come their life revolves around only the kids, their total attention will be with the kids, enjoying the kids, how they are smiling, how they are growing up every single day, how beautiful they are becoming, how smart they are, taking care of their allergies, taking care of their colds, fevers, stomach aches, then the kids go to school, by this time the distance between husband and wife slowly becomes widened. They do not know what to talk anything else as they got used to talk about their kids so much, and spend so much time with them. When the kids start going to school women start feeling lonely little bit, as they feel they have so much time on their hands and do not know what to do. Everyone thinks that life is going smoothly but as the children start growing up and they become independent and don’t need parents that much that’s when the couple start feeling something is wrong or accept it as the part of life.
There are different reasons why this communication gap develops between husband and wife. Couples observing their grandparents, parents, relatives what kind of relationships they have, what kind of behavior they have with their spouses also has an effect on the couples. If the fathers treat their mothers with respect, take their opinion into consideration in all the decisions, spend time with mothers – then the children also try to follow in their fathers’ footsteps. There are some fathers who take care of the family doing everything by themselves. Mother’s duty is confined to raising kids and taking care of the family members and household. In such families the boys try to follow their fathers sometimes after they get marry unless they love their wives very much and want to give them importance in the family life then they tend to do things together, some men like to change and some do not like to change their behavior at such times the conflict arises. When wives coming from the families whose parents are open minded and has friendly relationship and they try to have same kind of relationship with their husbands but the husbands coming from families where fathers control everything it’s hard for them to change according to their wives wishes.
When two people get marry with two different personalities it’s so hard to make the relationship work out. It doesn’t matter whether it is arranged marriage or a love marriage all the issues start once they start living together. After the honeymoon phase is over it is the girl who came to a new family, leaving everyone needs to adjust with everyone, their way of living etc. As long as the girl tries to adjust and not complain about anything even though she finds some things totally different from the way she was brought up thinking everything will be fine. Problem arises when all the women cannot adjust the same way. The wives start sharing about the problems with their husbands and if the husband wants peaceful home he should take the responsibility of becoming a bridge between his parents and his wife and try to remove misunderstandings and make them understand the situation from the beginning before the situation gets worse. In most families we see that either husband takes one side, either parents or wife’s or just ignore both of them and stop communicating with wife who is supposed to be his life partner and both should share their feelings, happiness, sadness etc. If the husband does not respond to wife’s problems then she gets frustrated and irritated. The relationship starts getting into trouble. Indian couples no matter what whether they get along or not they have to make adjustments and live like a couple, have kids, raise them and act like a normal couple in front of everyone.
In some families where the parents are separated it does affect their children’ relationships or their marriage lives. In the small nuclear families or joint families if the husband happens to be evasive kind then it is hard for him to communicate, have intimacy with wife as he doesn’t think they are very important for a couple to live together. Naturally most of the wives expect friendly, romantic, communicative, intimate relationship from their husbands. The evasive husbands are those who try to avoid any kind of conflict and they have the attitude of, ‘you leave me alone and I leave you alone, you do your chores and responsibilities and I’ll do mine. What’s there to discuss, talk and take decisions together?’ Wife expects husband’s moral support, as most of the women are educated they want to participate in discussions of so many topics; they want to feel close to husbands, have fun with them. Especially when the kids grow up and they are busy in their college studies, planning for their careers etc. at that time women feel they need to spend more time with their husbands, even though they always had that longing for husband’s attention. The evasive husbands do not behave deliberately avoiding wives, what they are trying to say, try to maintain a distance than try to become close etc. they do it subconsciously, sometimes they do not know why they are behaving like that, also they don’t know that they are behavior is hurting their wives.
Wives in such families try to explain their small demands, the wish to feel close to their husbands, to do things together, in raising kids they want their husbands involvement too. Wives try as much as possible to connect with their husbands like even the physical needs, sex is not just a physical need for women it is a way of showing each other’s love and affection but for evasive husbands it’s just a physical need. These kinds of things some women try to explain to their husbands and some can’t but husbands do not even want to talk or discuss about the intimate things at all. For them it’s not a subject to talk about, especially women are not supposed to discuss all these things. So in such conditions when nothing works out it is better to look into options like marriage counseling. Husbands who do not like the idea of counseling and women who do not want to continue the same kind of life without any connection with the husbands sometimes they go for divorce and get separated. This happens mostly in western countries but after globalization even in the countries like India divorce rates are increasing.
As we noticed before in a marriage two different personality people are entering into a relationship which they agree to live together until death separates them. They do not have any experience or they do not learn how to live together when so many issues arise while living together. No body learns these things anywhere, watching parents is one way of learning but with the changing times we have to face so many challenges so that’s just not enough. Pre-marital counseling is much helpful for the couple who are going to get married. Marriage counseling helps people with different problems. When there are opportunities to fix the problems and continue as couple then they should get the help. Finding a good counselor, going to counseling regularly and following the suggestions of the counselor is more important. Some counselors ask the couples to come together, or meet few weeks separately with both of them and then meet with them together. It helps them to know each of their personalities differently and then look into what are their problems, how to pursue them, they try their best to keep the couple together. In some cases the couples go too late and in such cases after trying their best if it is not working out then counselors suggest to get separation. For some couples going to counseling living separately helps and once all the issues are resolved then they live together again. Sometimes after working hard too if there is no positive result then the counselors suggest for the divorce.
Now many researchers who are studying the relationship problems are suggesting that it will be better if the schools, colleges introduce a subject of family relationships, especially man and woman relationships from the emotional point of view then it will help lot of couples to lead a happy life and avoid break ups and divorces.
Let’s look into the tips to improve the communication between spouses and if these also don’t work out then you should definitely see a marriage counselor.
Try to set up a time to sit together and have tea or coffee together, talk about simple things like movies, or whatever you both are comfortable talking about. Do not start with serious talking and get into argument.
Try to leave notes each other before leaving to work, like ‘Thanks for nice breakfast,’ ‘You look lovely this morning,’ etc. Wife can leave notes in his office briefcase or with lunch where he can easily see them like, ‘Thanks for nice evening yesterday,’ or ‘Thanks for listening to me.’
Try to go to walks together and this way take care of health together and it also helps to open up with each other slowly. Plan a vacation without children and try to have fun together going to a nice place. Try to avoid serious discussions and arguments on your vacation.
Then slowly set up time to discuss one issue at a time. Set up some rules before you start the discussion. Listen to each other calmly, and then one after the other expresses their views. If one of you can’t agree try to explain slowly your point of view giving simple examples. The aim is to make understand the spouse without hurting his/her feelings and make sure to let him/ her know that you are not trying to hurt their feelings and how much it means to you if he or she agrees or make some changes to what you are trying to do.
Try to share the responsibilities together and help each other. The most important thing is listening to each other and try to understand each other from the other’s point of view which helps a lot.
Try to appreciate each other’s efforts. If husband does something nice to please his wife, she should appreciate it immediately by saying it, or leaving a note or by doing something special for him and vice versa.
Remember a family starts with a couple and they should keep working on their relationship by expressing their love for each other, and if something upsets and makes them sad both of them should feel free to share with their spouse and get moral support, love and affection in return. If you are able to do that with your spouse then there is good understanding, friendship and enough love for each other. Otherwise what is the point of living together if you can’t share your happiness and sadness with your life partner?
So if you have a problem with your spouse like communicating and if he is not responding whatever you may try then go and take the marriage counseling to save your marriage and also to live happily without hurting emotionally each other, suffering most of the time. This kind of stress also affects the physical and mental health. In order to avoid all this suffering, just like if you get sick you’ll definitely go to a doctor and get help in the same manner if you get some emotional problems and do not know how to handle them just go to professionals who are trained in giving counseling and help couples. Children will also be happy that the parents are trying to stay together not unhappily but happily taking help which will make the whole family very happy.
- Durga Dingari