The One-minute Marriage?

The One-Minute Marriage?

There is more hope for a fool than for someone who speaks without thinking.

Proverbs 29:20

The scene? Our counseling office. The clients? Rick and Amy, a married couple of less than a year.

“I hear the words coming out of your mouth, but I just don’t understand what you mean!” Rick’s frustration was unmistakable. “It’s like you’re speaking a foreign language.”

“Well, you’re the only person I’ve ever known who didn’t understand me when I talked,” she replied angrily.

“What you say sometimes just isn’t logical,” he countered.

“I’m not like you, Rick, analyzing everything, picking apart every word.” Amy was close to tears.

“I know. I just wish you weren’t so emotional when you talk. I don’t get what you’re saying. We just can’t communicate.”

That’s it, the number-one complaint in marriage: we just can’t communicate. The truth is every couple communicates whether they want to or not. Saying nothing is communicating. What most couples mean by this complaint is that they don’t understand one another.

Like Rick and Amy, many of us have difficulty talking to each other from time to time. He answers a question simply and succinctly; she says he’s not “listening” to her. She tells him she knows exactly how he feels; he thinks she’s trying to put him in a box.

In order to understand better and communicate more effectively with our partner, we have to slow down and think. Good communication takes time. When the bestselling business book The One Minute Manager was popular, there were a hundred spin-offs, including “The One Minute Marriage.” Give me a break. Maybe managers can accomplish their goals through quick contacts, but a husband and wife? Not likely.

When we slow down the conversation with our partner, we are less likely to give hasty orders, snappy solutions, and thoughtless comments. When we slow down, we are more likely to listen to the emotions that underlie our partner’s words and pay more attention to the nonverbal messages. Taking care in these ways helps us avoid foolish conversations and brings about true understanding.

Talking can happen on the run, but understanding requires less hasty intervals. Listen again to the wise message of Proverbs: “There is more hope for a fool than for someone who speaks without thinking.”

The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.

—George Bernard Shaw