For Good Conversation Skip the Text and Speak Face-to-Face

Texting makes communication quick and easy. These days you don’t have to talk, call, or even email people if you don’t want to. Just send them a quick text or FaceBook message with an emoticon and life continues at a runner’s pace. This may work for a friend or a sister, but when we use these forms of communication to express real needs in a marriage, life can unravel quickly. 

Recently, I counseled a couple that was going through a hard time. When I probed further I realized they were texting one another–from inside different rooms in the house–instead of speaking face-to-face to communicate. The wife was trying to say she missed her husband and wanted him to come into the bedroom at night, but he was always busy playing on the Xbox and  texted back with one-word answers. But the wife wasn’t clear about what she needed. She didn’t text him saying she wanted his company, she simply asked, “How long are you going to play?” He responded, “Not long.”  She grew frustrated and shutdown. The couple didn’t speak to each other for a day. When I asked them to talk to one another in our session, and they looked into each other’s eyes and saw one another’s facial expressions, they worked through the situation in a matter of minutes. The husband had no idea she wanted him to come into the bedroom, he thought she was just asking how much longer he was going to play his game. 

For clear communication, it’s important to see the person with whom we are conversing. We need to see facial expressions, body language, hear the tone in their voice because all of this tells us something. Words alone are only one component of communication. Someone in the texting world realized when they created emoticons, which help us get some sense of context and tone. Why? We need those additional indicators to understand one another. We are complex human beings that function best with face-to-face communication.