Your Marriage together Communication

Marriage needs care and attention, to encourage growth and commitment together for the future. There will be times of excitement, stress, enjoyment or challenge and a joint approach will be essential in dealing with whatever life brings.

The essential element for a successful marriage is good communication. This means more than just talking but discussing the things that really matter.

Issues raised by couples at marriage preparation Where do we live, do we move? Finance - one or two wages? SEX - when, where, how often? Holidays- where, when, how much do we spend? Children - how many and when? Who looks after the children? Work pressure and careers? When we disagree? Difficult Times Know each other's expectations!

What’s so hard about being friends?

The problem with treating your spouse as a friend is that you’re more than friends. There are issues that complicate matters, such as:

Sex and Money Sharing sexual intimacies and pooling economic resources are powerful bonds between spouses, but they are also fraught with stress. It’s easy for a friend to urge you to buy something - it's not their money - but it’s a different rule for couples. Daily proximity The intimacy of marriage can actually encourage teasing, tactlessness or insults. You might repeat an embarrassing story about your partner without really thinking, but you’d consider it disloyal to do that to a friend. Deep identification Friends aren’t identified with each other’s quirks, but spouses are and the more our individual boundaries blur, the more we’re likely to insist that our partner follows our rules. Often we marry someone for who we think they should become.

All these issues can be obstacles to friendship but they don’t have to be. You may not be friends automatically, but marriage provides opportunities to develop and deepen the bond.

Random acts of friendship It’s a cold world out there and we all need friends, and nowhere so much as at home. You’ll see how appreciative your partner is if you make one or more friendly gestures e.g. stop criticising! Try a criticism cease-fire for a day a week or a month. Let him/her know that you’re listening Married people tend to tune out of each other. Effective communication is about listening as well as talking. Be on his or her side Help him to get something that he wants instead of telling him why he shouldn’t want it. Agree with her publicly when you think she’s made a good point and stick up for her if someone is critical of her. Brag about him to other people when he can hear you doing it. Pay attention to your personality differences If one of you is a saver and the other spends, stop arguing get your issues out in the open and come to an agreement. Fair play also means declaring certain sensitive areas are off limits Know what your partner is sensitive about. Say what makes you touchy too. Don’t assume that the other knows what hurts!

When you treat each other like friends - with support, loyalty, affection and acceptance, you’re also likely to deal with the difficult areas of your marriage.

Find out more about Christ Church's marriage preparation courses.

Other useful sources of information:

2-in-2-1 - a website with everything about marriage

www.marriageencounter.freeserve.co.uk - Marriage Encounter and Engage Encounter weekends

About Weddings - an official page by the Church of England

www.confetti.co.uk - lots of wedding ideas