This is the last post about communication in a Christian marriage but this doesn’t mean that this is all we can say about communication.

Communication is a big topic and we promise to come to it again and again.

As we’ve said last time, for a communication to be healthy and nurturing for both the parties involved, the husband and the wife, it should have three equally important “pillars” and these pillars are honesty, respect and love.

We’ve touched on the first two pillars in the previous posts. If you haven’t read the previous posts, please do that now so this post will make sense to you.

Love is the third pillar of healthy communication. Note: These so-called “pillars” are not listed according to their importance. Three of them are equally important. If one pillar is missing, a couple cannot have a healthy communication.

As we’ve said in the past many times, healthy communication means healthy marriage and not-healthy communication means not-healthy marriage. Remember, marriage is an institution established by God for our own good. Yes, marriage between one man and one woman carries with itself an eternal seal, it shows or reflects the only marriage that is going to be in heaven, the marriage between Jesus Christ and the Church. That being true, it is also true that marriage is designed to benefit us in countless ways. If the marriage is not healthy, it actually destroys our health and total well-being. And communication plays a big role in making the marriage healthy and nurturing to the couple.

According to the word of God, love is personified and presented in its many features:

“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends.” 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a ESV

It is very hard for us to read this passage and not be able to see the person defined in the feature of love. It is God, Jesus Christ Himself.

So, as we’ve said last time about respect, how we can only respect another human being by knowing God and finding the origin of man in God, the same is true with love.

The Bible says, “God is love” 1 John 4:16 ESV. If God is love, a person who didn’t enthrone the Lord Jesus Christ in their lives doesn’t know how to love another human being.

Love according to this dark world is nothing but lust, running after or wanting to have something that is not legally ours. That means lust is selfish and love is self-sacrificing, love seeks the good of others while lust focuses on self. Love cares for the feelings and emotions of others. Love is not dismissive. It considers others’ needs as its own.

So, if this love is missing between married couples, communication cannot be healthy and nurturing. The marriage actually will be a source of pain and hurt.

Love thinks this way, “Will what I say and do benefit my spouse?” And if the answer is “No,” love changes its direction, words and acts, until it aligns them all to benefit the spouse.

One great Scripture we, married people, can hold on to as a rule of thumb in our marriage is this:

The word of God says,

“Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” Ephesians 4:29-32 ESV

It beautifully lays out the attitude we need to heed in our minds and heart before we open our mouth. Some people, while they are talking to their spouse in anger and bitterness, they claim that they love their spouse. This cannot be true. Love cannot coexist with malice, anger, bitterness and wrath. It just can’t. And when the Bible tells us to “put away” these hurtful things from us, it knows that we have the ability to do that. We are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, aren’t we? If we’re followers of Jesus Christ, this is true of our life according to Scriptures (1 Cor. 6:18-20). Through the word of God, being empowered by grace and truth, we can put away all those things which corrupt our love for our spouse.

As we consciously train ourselves to always keep our spouse’s best interest at heart, this becomes our second nature. We only say and do things which give grace to and build up our spouse. When we stumble and fall, we apologize and restart in the right way.

If your marital communication is missing any one of or all of those pillars, honesty, respect and love, please seek counseling. Most of the time counseling helps us to rebuild our communication and marriage starting from us. Counseling does not allow pointing fingers to others. Rather it helps a person to see and evaluate themselves first. When this happens to both the couple, they can joyfully restore their communication and marriage. ///