Communication Dilemmas

[00:00:05] Welcome again to Become A Competent Biblical Counselor.

[00:00:23] I'm Dr. Dave Jones and today's episode is entitled Communication Dilemma.

[00:00:30] I'm going to give you just a slice of a case, a kind of a problem situation that a person

[00:00:36] like you might very well eventually and easily identify with out there.

[00:00:41] Here's how it begins.

[00:00:43] No, I won't.

[00:00:45] So don't ask me again.

[00:00:48] But Sally, how can I do anything about it if you don't tell me what's wrong?

[00:00:53] If you don't know Robert D. Jones, then that makes it all the worse.

[00:00:57] But how can I?

[00:00:59] I just walked into the door from work and I found you this way.

[00:01:02] How can I possibly know?

[00:01:04] Well, it didn't start today.

[00:01:06] You're so insensitive about my feelings.

[00:01:09] You probably haven't even noticed how you've made me suffer all week long.

[00:01:14] Buried in your newspaper, watching your favorite TV shows.

[00:01:19] How could you know?

[00:01:20] You don't care anything about me.

[00:01:22] Just so I'm here to have sex.

[00:01:25] Make your meals, keep house, wash the clothes.

[00:01:29] You're happy.

[00:01:30] That's all it comes to.

[00:01:32] Well, I'm through.

[00:01:34] See if you can find out for yourself.

[00:01:35] Maybe that will make you pay a little bit more attention to me.

[00:01:40] Honey, we're Christians.

[00:01:42] We shouldn't act like this.

[00:01:44] Christians, yes.

[00:01:45] I'd like to know where your Christianity has been all week long.

[00:01:49] Anything like that ever happened in your home?

[00:01:52] Well, anything like that ever happened to you?

[00:01:55] Have you ever been the one who acted that way toward your husband?

[00:02:00] Have you ever been the husband who tried to respond to that kind of treatment?

[00:02:05] Both what we see in the husband and what we see in the wife here are very typical.

[00:02:11] I think maybe as you heard that, you recognized a number of things right away.

[00:02:16] Let me try to analyze what's going on here.

[00:02:19] First of all, there's a lot of climbing up going on

[00:02:23] in which the wife has been holding in bitterness and resentment for a long while.

[00:02:29] She talks about beer at least a week

[00:02:31] and he hasn't even noticed how she's been suffering all week long.

[00:02:36] Well, she's been suffering all week long.

[00:02:38] That's true. So whose fault is it?

[00:02:41] He may have been doing wrong things and that's his fault.

[00:02:45] But if she didn't tell him a good while ago, that's her fault.

[00:02:51] It's not his responsibility to know what's going on deep inside her heart.

[00:02:55] God looks on the heart.

[00:02:57] Man looks on the outward appearance.

[00:03:00] The only thing we can know about another person is what he tells us about his insides

[00:03:05] by what he says and what we see him do on the outside by his behavior.

[00:03:11] If there are any other things happening down inside,

[00:03:15] the only way anyone will ever know is if somebody opens up and shares it.

[00:03:21] So the wife's fault here has been communication.

[00:03:25] She has been bitter, growingly getting bitter and bitter each day of the week

[00:03:31] and perhaps for a good while before that.

[00:03:34] And now all of a sudden something else has happened, whatever it may have been.

[00:03:39] It's almost irrelevant what it is at this point.

[00:03:42] Something finally happened which was the straw that broke the camel's back

[00:03:47] and so she clammed up completely.

[00:03:50] Wouldn't talk, wouldn't let him know what was wrong,

[00:03:54] trying somehow or other to get him to give attention.

[00:03:58] He on the other hand probably hasn't been insensitive as he charges him with being.

[00:04:04] If all he is interested is in his newspaper, watching favorite TV shows, sex,

[00:04:12] eating the meals and so on, then of course he's been terribly remiss

[00:04:17] as a husband and as a leader of his home.

[00:04:19] Her husband should have been planning things that brought joy and happiness to his wife.

[00:04:24] That brought pleasure and excitement in the home,

[00:04:28] that put her first before even his TV shows and that made her feel like she was someone

[00:04:34] for whom he cared.

[00:04:36] So from both sides of this picture things are wrong.

[00:04:40] Things need to be dealt with.

[00:04:43] How can this whole pattern change?

[00:04:45] Well is there any hope for this family?

[00:04:49] Or is it going to get worse and worse and worse?

[00:04:53] Well the first thing I want to suggest to you is that whenever a family member

[00:04:59] is in a situation like this, unless both parties eventually can come to the place

[00:05:05] where they find they are able to sit down and resolve problems together from the Word of God,

[00:05:10] they are usually in a communications bind, a communication dilemma.

[00:05:15] You see, because they don't know how to communicate with each other

[00:05:20] because the wife has never learned how, when things are going wrong right away,

[00:05:25] to begin to talk about problems as it says in Ephesians 4-6,

[00:05:29] be angry yet do not sin, do not let the Son go down on your anger.

[00:05:35] How to breast these problems?

[00:05:37] How to get them out?

[00:05:38] How to share them with her husband?

[00:05:41] How to deal with them?

[00:05:42] Because she's never learned how to do that.

[00:05:45] She has kept things sealed up inside, which have begun to ferment and eventually bubble

[00:05:52] up into this kind of a response in which she tries to get even and spitefully makes it impossible

[00:05:58] for her husband to respond.

[00:06:00] Well, she's going to have to learn how to do that.

[00:06:04] And unless she has learned how to do that, the chances are that even the attempts that

[00:06:09] she will make will again fail.

[00:06:11] The husband is so insensitive on the other side because he is interested basically in himself

[00:06:19] and in his own interest if her accusations are anywhere in your target that he hasn't learned

[00:06:25] how to meet her needs or how to get through to her, how to talk to her, and so from his side

[00:06:30] communication is not going to be a started either.

[00:06:34] Yet there is hope.

[00:06:36] If these two people go to a pastor who knows how to counsel from the Word of God,

[00:06:42] let me say a word about that today.

[00:06:44] More and more pastors are becoming concerned about their obligation to meet the needs of their people

[00:06:50] and they are studying long and hard in these questions.

[00:06:54] My suggestion here is that you find your pastor,

[00:06:58] you probably will find your pastor if he's an evangelical man who loves the Word of God

[00:07:02] and he was up on what's going on in counseling today.

[00:07:05] You'll find him not only willing and anxious but ready and able to help you deal with these problems.

[00:07:12] If he's unable, then maybe you need to ask him to refer you to another pastor or biblical counselor

[00:07:19] who is able.

[00:07:21] There is somebody near you, there usually is, who can help you out of this mess

[00:07:26] that usually is going to take a third party.

[00:07:29] Somebody, because communication is broken down and because you need communication to deal with the

[00:07:35] communication problem, that's the communication dilemma.

[00:07:40] You see you're going to need somebody who can get the communication flowing once more

[00:07:45] or for the first time and that usually involves some counseling.

[00:07:50] It need not take a lot of sessions.

[00:07:53] I don't work longer than 12 weeks with anyone in counseling.

[00:07:57] No matter what the problem, how serious it may be,

[00:08:01] most people get out in eight weeks or less and in a problem like this,

[00:08:05] often the situation may be radically changed in three or four weeks and in about six weeks

[00:08:11] dramatically different.

[00:08:13] And so there's a lot of hope but it's going to take somebody holding both parties to their

[00:08:19] biblical responsibilities.

[00:08:22] Neither to clam up nor to be unconcerned but to learn to understand a wife or a husband

[00:08:29] and when they begin to do this quickly the change can take place and dramatically.

[00:08:36] So Lord we pray that you will work with families today that are in this situation

[00:08:40] that are having critical problems of communication that you'll raise up pastors

[00:08:45] all over this country who know and who are able to know how and are able to solve problems.

[00:08:53] And may people turn to those pastors or biblical counselors and find those answers.

[00:08:59] We pray in Christ's name, amen.

[00:09:02] So there's a communication project for you to think about.

[00:09:07] It is not as difficult as people make it appear but there has to be change

[00:09:13] and both people have to have a plan of what they need to change.

[00:09:19] And very easily it's to the point of just asking the one spouse what do you need in this marriage

[00:09:26] and once that spouse mentions what is needed in the marriage then the other person does the

[00:09:32] same thing. Now the communication has already started now each person has heard what the

[00:09:38] other person wishes in the marriage. So the homework and the assignment is work on those things

[00:09:45] and see life from the other person's point of view and that's them from time to time.

[00:09:50] How am I doing? Am I doing all right? I'm having a difficult problem with this

[00:09:54] can you help me with this part of it and that part of it.

[00:09:58] They'll be glad to do so. Work on the communication.

[00:10:02] It's easier than you can imagine. Thanks for listening and be blessed.