Marriage Builds Bridges or Walls

Published April 23, 1981. Recently I’ve been reading an interesting book by Richard B. Wilke. It is about communication in marriage and is titled “Tell Me Again, I’m Listening.”

Communication or dialogue between husband and wife, he claims, is the key to a fulfilling marriage. In addition, Wilke believes that effective dialogue in marriage is not easy to attain.

The author notes, “Trying to understand each other in marriage is tough. It’s a goal that has to be pursued relentlessly. The task is one that never ends. It’s like golf. Just about the time you think you have got the game in hand, you slice one into the trees or blow a simple putt. You never totally win. You work at it. As in most other important things in life, you may succeed today, but you have to do it again tomorrow.”

To illustrate his point, Wilke related, “Some friends of ours, who have a great marriage, are keenly aware of the difficulties of dialogue. He is a busy doctor, she is the mother of several small children. They have had to work at it, but they’ve succeeded. Just to remind themselves of the importance of communication in marriage, they have a motto on their kitchen wall which reads: I KNOW YOU BELIEVE YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU THINK I SAID, BUT I AM NOT SURE YOU REALIZE THAT WHAT YOU HEARD IS NOT WHAT I MEANT.”

In “Tell Me Again, I’m Listening,” the author states that dialogue is to love, as blood is to the body. “When dialogue stops,” he notes, “love dies, and resentment and hate are born.”

To be dialogical, according to Wilke, means to be willing and able to learn from each other. It assumes that someone else has something significant to say. Most of us are sadly monological and tend to be ready to give answers before the questions are completely asked or understood. Dialogue or communication simply mean we take the other person and what he or she has to say seriously.

Dialogue also means a certain kind of discipline. On occasion, a person may have to hold his tongue. Or, it may mean forcing himself to say something as a response when he doesn’t feel like saying it.

Communication in marriage means a certain openness. Since both husband and wife are constantly changing, understanding needs constant evaluation. As marriage partners change, they are symbolically shooting at moving targets while they are on the move themselves.

Wilke concludes, “Marriages in which individuals build impenetrable walls around themselves are sick. ‘I just can’t get through to him (or her)’ are words of frustration.”

Marriage partners have before them the bricks and mortar of communication. With these materials, however, they can either build bridges to or walls between each other. What they build is up to the couple. Richard Wilke ends his book on this theme with an insightful poem:

Precaution

They say a wife and husband, bit by bit,

Can rear between their lives a mighty wall.

So thick they cannot speak with ease through it,

Nor can they see across, it stands so tall.

Its nearness frightens them, but each alone

Is powerless to tear its bulk away:

And each, heartbroken, wishes he had known

For such a wall the magic word to say,

So let us build with master art, my dear.

A bridge of faith between your life and mine –
A bridge of tenderness and very ear –
A bridge of understanding, strong and fine;

Till we have built so many lovely ties,

There never will be room for walls to rise.

-Anonymous