If it is true that 86% of broken marriages fail because of a lack of intimate communication, why don’t we all do something about it? Why don’t we all make a greater effort to communicate with each other at a level that would deepen our relationship? The problem is that even if we make the effort, set the time aside and avoid negative ways of handling conflict, we still come up against several psychological barriers that make it very hard for us to share our deepest emotions in spite of the fact that we want to. It is therefore important that we recognize these barriers and actively seek to overcome them.
Pride
The major barrier is pride — or inversely a sense of shame. When we share our feelings we invariably expose some of our weaknesses — so our pride often prevents us from doing so. Six months after we were married I was fired from my job. I was so ashamed that I could not tell Joy about it. For a whole week I “went out to work as usual”, but in fact I went job hunting. During that time I experienced a great deal of anxiety about the future, and sharing it with someone would have been a tremendous relief — yet I did not tell her until I had found new employment.
Husbands especially find it difficult to admit their emotional weaknesses to their wives. Men are expected to maintain the adequate male image and any emotional weakness suggests a questioning of their manhood. The idealising of the “strong silent type” has not helped to improve a man’s willingness to share his fears at all.
People like clergymen, psychologists, teachers and others in positions of leadership find it particularly difficult to share some of their struggles and inadequacies, for fear that they will lose the respect of those who look to them for guidance.
Yet it is when we acknowledge our own shortcomings that we open the way for the other person to share his innermost being. For example, Joy and I have found that when we share our own marital problems with other couples they are more ready to open up to us and in this way they are helped and encouraged to work at their own relationship. In fact when we only present an ideal picture, it actually tends to discourage those who are having problems, because they begin to think that there is something seriously wrong with their marriage.
Vulnerability
When we share our deepest longings, fears and ambitions, we make ourselves very vulnerable. We may be laughed at, or ridiculed, or our feelings may be minimised. Joy recently shared some of the frustrations she was experiencing with her domestic servant. Rather than try to show understanding for the problem I tried to show her how she should have handled the situation. This didn’t help her at all. In fact she felt hurt, and accused me of siding against her. Obviously next time she is going to be far more reluctant to share such frustrations with me, unless I begin to change my responses.
As mentioned previously, John Powell entitled “Why am I afraid to tell you who I am?” on which one person commented, “I am afraid to tell you who I am, because if I tell you who I am, you may not like who I am, and it’s all I have.” That’s why the breaking up of a relationship is so painful — it implies being rejected. And the pain never quite disappears until a new relationship is formed.
We cannot experience personal growth without taking the risk of exposing our real selves. It is not very difficult to protect ourselves emotionally, using all kinds of defence mechanisms — but this leads to artificiality and will prevent us from becoming the kind of people that we have the potential to become. We could never be ourselves and life would be a continual coverup — living behind a mask. The result is that those weaknesses, those emotions, those feelings are not dealt with because they are not faced up to — and so they will always be a hindrance to personal development.
