Old-fashioned Communication is still Best for your Marriage

By Burrow Hill

The concept of communication is, of course, as old as mankind. To communicate, the dictionary tells us, is “to express thoughts, feelings, or information, easily or effectively.”

Easily or effectively? Judging by that definition, none of us can communicate: An Internet search finds 54,500,000 entries under “communication skills,” 924,000 entries under “communication skills in marriage,” and 8,160,000 entries under “communication workshops.” Clearly we do not find it easy, nor are we effective. After thousands of years and despite all our technological wonders, we are still trying to learn how to communicate.

We find ourselves Twittering away our precious moments at 40 characters per tweet. Many phone carriers limit text length to 160 characters. Texting is done regularly by more than 82 million people, according to Netlingo. On Netlingo’s website are thousands of abbreviations to use in your texts.

CNET reports in the Nielson survey 2008 that U.S. mobile subscribers sent/received 357 text messages per month compared to making/receiving 204 calls a month. (One of my sons sent out 5,092 text messages one recent month.)

Today’s average news story on television is fifteen seconds long. Once a year, the ever-popular Super Bowl commercials are discussed and dissected. Their average length: thirty seconds. ZDNet says the average business cell phone conversation lasts 3 minutes and 15 seconds.

If I receive an email that is over a paragraph, I consider that to be very long. It seems that only junk mail comes via snail mail these days, and letter writing is a lost art.

Looking at all of these so-called improvements in communication, what do I see? I see the average person’s attention span reduced by conditioning. I see less meeting of the minds “and more mining of your pocketbook.” I’m paying more to communicate, but my complete communication is less. Maybe I ought to figure out when and where and how I should and should not be using these earth-shattering improvements.

In any case, many are conditioned to get their information in the shortest, fastest method possible. But, what if I want to sit down and talk? Do I have to talk in sound bites so folks will listen? How is all this affecting marriage?

Sadly, it seems all the modern means of communication have affected our ability to communicate within our marriages; but successful marriages are still built on successful communication. Your level of knowledge, information and caring concern about your spouse and theirs about you provide an indicator of the status of your marriage relationship.

To have an old-fashioned, long-lasting marriage, turn off the tweets and really listen to your spouse; and when it’s your turn, don’t hide your feelings. There’s an old song with a line, “To know, know, know you is to love, love, love you.” The song is true about almost every married couple; so get to know your marriage partner and have a more successful marriage.