Communication

"Your most important friendships should be with your own brothers and sisters and with your father and mother. Love your family. Be loyal to them. Have a genuine concern for your brothers and sisters. Help carry their load so you can say, like the lyrics of the song, 'He ain't heavy; he's my brother'." (President Ezra Taft Benson) This week we discussed the importance that communication has in marriage. I believe this quote not only applies to us children but to husbands and wives as well. Your spouse should be your best friend. It is important that you maintain a good relationship with one another. Although this is important, it is no easy task. Just as all friends share great moments with one another, they also experience bad moments. Disagreements, misunderstandings, or fights all happen in a marriage and in a family for that matter. The way we deal with those issues is just as important as fixing those issues. For example when you fight with someone, how do you typically handle the situation? Do you become so frustrated that express your emotions by yelling? Or do you often hide those emotions and instead of letting them out, you keep to yourself and do not even bother arguing with whomever you’re upset over? Personally this reflect on I handle situations such as those. I would have to say that I am more like the second stereotype. Whenever I get upset with someone I tend to use the silent treatment to get my point across. My reasoning for doing this consists of two things. First because I don’t like bothering people with personal things. And second because I don’t like opening up to people. I recognize this is probably a really bad habit to get into. If I’m like this now with other people, just imagine how my marriage is going to like. It’s going to be a struggle most likely. Although I do give myself a little credit for recognizing this. In order to truly resolve an issue, you must communicate with your partner or whomever in order to have true peace. I am an awful example. I do the complete opposite of fixing the situation. Communicate! Don’t be like me! Now touching on the other stereotype they do communicate. But the way those people tend to communicate is not the right way of going about things. Yelling and screaming will never solve an issue. People ultimately struggle with this habit because they often do not know how to control their feelings as opposed to their counterparts. Whatever sort of problem comes up, you need to be able to communicate with your partner and express your feelings and a civil and constructive way. I had an experience not too long ago that relates to this topic. Last semester I got really close to my roommates and was able to gain great friendships with each of them. Towards the end the semester I got upset with one of them over something that they had down. Instead of talking to this person about it, I gave them the silent treatment and did not express this issue. And because of that, I ultimately lost him as a friend. Do not make this same mistake. I really cared about this person and I still do, and I’m ashamed of myself for not saying something and not being able to continue the friendship that we had. I learned from this experience however. Take it from me it’s best to communicate, because you might end up losing a lot more than you think. Be mature with whatever situation comes up and you will be grateful that you did make an effort to communicate.