Sunday, October 26th 2008
“What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.”
Ben Stevens over at the South Carolina Family Law Blog wrote here about a communication workshop to be held soon in his area. This brought to mind the following quote by Paul Newman’s character in Cool Hand Luke:
“What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.”
In relationships, there are often immediate issues such as finances, daily scheduling, and even possibly infidelity, which can give rise to daily problems and may even lead to divorce. Underlying most of these issues, however, is usually a fundamental difficulty in communication by the couple.
To communicate effectively, people need to be both good transmitters (able to verbalize their thoughts, feelings, ideas, and desires), and good receivers (able to listen and hear others’ thoughts, feelings, ideas, and desires). Sometimes a communication breakdown occurs on the transmission side, because either the person does not know what their feelings and desires are, or they are unable to verbalize them, or they are unable to verbalize them in a way that the other party to the couple can hear and understand. Sometimes a communication breakdown occurs on the receiving side, because the listener has not heard the speaker, or because the listener does not understand the verbal (and non-verbal) communication of the speaker, or because the the listener filters everything they hear through their own individual filter based upon their mental state before they can process and understand the speaker’s message.
Successful couples have learned how to communicate effectively with each other so that they can both express their own feelings and hear and hold onto the other’s feelings. Communication workshops can help with this, as can marital therapy.
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