The Long Conversation

The Long Conversation

Let everything you say be good and helpful, so that your words will be an encouragement to those who hear them.

Ephesians 4:29

The monks at a remote monastery deep in the woods followed a rigid vow of silence. Their vow could only be broken once a year—on Christmas—by one monk. That monk could speak only one sentence. One Christmas, Brother Thomas had his turn to speak and said, “I love the delightful mashed potatoes we have every year with the Christmas roast!” Then he sat down. Silence ensued for 365 days.

The next Christmas, Brother Michael got his turn and said, “I think the mashed potatoes are lumpy, and I truly despise them!” Once again, silence ensued for 365 days.

The following Christmas, Brother Paul rose and said, “I am fed up with this constant bickering!”

We chuckle, but truth is that some couples can carry on a conflict that lasts nearly as long. In our book Love Talk we devote an entire chapter to “When Not to Talk.” It may seem a bit unorthodox that in a communication book we are telling our readers to stop talking, but let’s be honest: Some conversations simply don’t need to take place. They waste our time.

If you’ve been telling your husband for eight years to not put his jacket on the back of the dining room chair and he’s still doing it, or you’ve been arguing for four summers about whether or not to buy an expensive barbeque grill, it might be time to take a permanent break from the conversation. At some point you’ve got to realize that talking is not going to provide the solution. You might simply have to agree to disagree. You may be able to work out a compromise that will at least partly satisfy you both. Or maybe you agree to table all discussion on the matter for, say, the next six months.

If your conversations are getting you nowhere, give it a rest and reclaim the time you’ve been wasting on them. Of course, in some cases there are actions you can take that do speak louder than words. If you’ve asked, cajoled, threatened, and analyzed your man on the subject of not hanging up his coat in the closet, and he keeps promising to do so but never does, you have a couple of options. (A) You could decide to hang it up for him and say no more about it. Or (B) You could leave it there and say nothing. The only option not available to you is to keep talking about it.

The bottom line is that you need to give up the conversations you keep having that grind both of you down and steal precious time from talks that could be much more meaningful. So take a moment to identify what one of those “long conversations” might be for each of you.^a

Marriage is one long conversation, chequered by disputes.

—Robert Louis Stevenson

^a 181