Dr. French O’Shields My theory: 98 percent of the problems in interpersonal relationship are due to lack of or poor communication. This is true in all relationships: parent-child, employer-employee, teacher-student and siblings, but especially husband-wife. A marriage without good communication skills seldom succeeds, and if it does it is experienced in frustration, pain and anger.

We are not born communicators. We are born selfish and self-centered as every baby confirms. Our communication begins with and is limited to getting our own needs met. Good communication is an acquired learned skill. We must put forth effort to understand and improve our communication.

Good communication involves listening as well as talking. It is more than exchanging words. It is sharing both information (facts, thoughts, beliefs, opinions) and feelings (emotions). It needs to be shared at the time of and in the context of the situation that caused the emotion or to which the facts relate to future actions.

Two true stories prove the point.

1.) In a Birmingham, Ala., residential area one of the September hurricanes caused a 4-day electricity outage. Afterwards a housewife dutifully removed all the semi-thawed bags from the freezer and placed them in the trash where they were picked up that day. Several days later when she told her husband what she had done, more explosives went off than July 4th. It was only then the husband revealed he had months before hidden $5,000 in a zipped plastic bag in the freezer. Now it was gone. A costly mistake in more ways than one. Peace and tranquility in their relationship was off longer than the electricity had been. All because of lack of communication.

2.) Friends of a good friend of ours also live in Alabama. After retiring from the military they bought a RV. Ten years later the aging husband had grown weary of all the effort and expense the RV required. He wanted to sell it but was reluctant to tell his wife because he thought she really enjoyed the RV.

Finally, on a surge of courage, he asked her what she thought about selling the RV. Much to his surprise she was overjoyed. He was even more shocked when she said, “I never wanted the RV 10 years ago when we bought it, but I went along with it because you wanted it.”

“What! No I didn’t,” the husband replied. “I only bought it because I thought you were so eager to have it.”

So, after 10 years of owning, maintaining, the expense and all the effort required for a retired couple to use the RV, they discovered it had been a classic example of failure to communicate their feelings. What a sad story! And it all could have been avoided by good communication at the proper time.

There is a sadder story of a lack of communication. The Bible encourages our communications with God, and warns us of our deprivation if we fail to do so: “ You have not because you ask not. ” (James 4:2). The words of the old hymn are right:

“O’ what a peace we often forfeit,

O’ what needless pain we bear,

All because we do not carry,

Everything to God in prayer.”

We knows what blessings we have missed from God and others for lack of or poor communication.

(Dr. French O’Shields is a Gaffney native and a retired Presbyterian minister.)