Love listens.

One of the biggest challenges in marriage is communication. Here’s an example: in the past husbands went to work and wives stayed home to raise the children. Now, someone has estimated that the average man speaks about twenty-nine thousand words a day and the average woman speaks about thirty-three thousand words a day. That may not be accurate, but let’s use it as an illustration. 

He’s been out in the workplace all day and by the time he gets home he’s used up twenty-six thousand of his words, leaving only three thousand he feels no need to say. But she’s been locked up all day with the dishes, the diapers and the drudgery. She has talked to her mother, to friends and neighbors and used up about eight thousand words. So when he gets home she has twenty-five thousand words waiting for him. 

After a silent supper he spends the evening watching TV, then they go to bed. As he’s about to fall asleep a voice says, “Are you awake?” If you are wise, you will be! If not, tomorrow night there will be fifty thousand words lying beside you. 

Do the math; in ten years there will be enough words to fill the central library. But maybe not; maybe there will be no words. A frequent reason given in divorce is: “We just got to where we had nothing to say to one another anymore.” 

The Bible says, “Husbands, love your wives.” Love listens when we have nothing particularly interesting to say. It listens because only when we have been heard and validated, do we feel cherished. So, “How’s your communication?”