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Marital Communication – Part 1

By: | Tags: | Comments: 0 | June 14th, 2023

One of the famous lines in movie history came from the movie “Cool Hand Luke”.

What we’ve got here is… failure to communicate.” spoken by The Captain, the arrogant, domineering prison warden (Strother Martin) to Luke (Paul Newman).  This line is applicable to the couples who walk into my telling me they don’t why they can’t talk to each other. 

 

I have witnessed in my office married couples ripping each other apart, totally ignoring their spouses feelings, calling them names I can’t repeat here, saying how much they hate them.  I have also seen couples too scared or don’t care to speak up for reasons I just described.  He or she remains stonewall silent, totally avoiding eye contact with the other. As confirmed by my clients, neither method works.

 

When husband and wife are not seeing eye-to-eye and resort to these unloving behaviors it is because they simply don’t understand or can’t see what the problem is.  They are too caught up defending themselves.  No one wants to take responsibility for the problems.  Eventually, the loving, caring, and respect that was displayed earlier in the marriage is now replaced by feelings such as guilt, hurt, jealousy, resentment, and even contempt.

 

I’ll talk more in a future blog about what can be done to turn things around so that the loving, caring, and respect between husband and wife can be nourished and revitalized and dominate the emotional climate.
 
 
Linda Luecke  MA, LPC

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