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18 Barriers To Communication In Marriage You Can Fix Today

When couples struggle with communication, the relationship suffers. There are 11 common barriers to communication in marriage (and 6 that are not talked about but are critical!). Not only are they common, but they are also simple to correct! Yeah!!!!!!!

What Are Barriers To Communication?

When I talk about barriers to communication in marriage there could be some confusion. To make sure we are on the same page, we will define terms before we begin.

A good ‘communication barriers’ definition:

  • Communication barriers refer to anything that stands between two people understanding each other.

On a larger scale, things that breakdown communication could include:

  • Cultural barriers
  • Physical barriers
  • Language barriers
    • Language barriers of communication include language of origin but also, worldview language differences.
  • Psychological barriers
  • Systemic barriers

Affiliate Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Types of Barriers Of Communication

Clearly, there are many types of communication barriers. For our time today, however, we are going to narrow our focus. This article assumes you have acclimated or are working to overcome the larger potential barriers.

  • If you married someone with a different cultural background, or whose language of origin was different, by now we will hope you enjoy the way this broadens your worldview.
  • If physical barriers exist, such as military deployments or long separations related to work or interests, we hope you have found ways to make quality time overcome distance.
  • Where there are mental health concerns, you are seeking professional help and resources.
  • Suppose there are political barriers (systemic barriers) in some way, such as immigration, criminal justice, or prejudice outside the home. In that case, we know you are praying and loving and seeking wise counsel.

Yes, these are issues that impact communication in marriage. They are serious and need to be addressed intentionally. They are not the most common communication struggles that find their way into my email, however. For that reason, they are not our focus today.

Today we will focus on the smaller ways communication breaks down for everyone… Including those who deal with the 5 larger communication barriers above.

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What Are The Most Common Barriers To Communication in Marriage?

Over the past decade of ministry, it has been a pleasure to counsel and pray over marriages from around the world. The most common struggle to enter my inbox has been the issue of communication in marriage.

I have kept a record of the barriers of effective communication. These are the 11 most common areas where we all struggle regardless of race, religion, or country.

  1. Blame
  2. Expectations
  3. Unintentional thinking
  4. Negative thinking
  5. Too much talking
  6. Reacting
  7. Defensiveness
  8. Assumption
  9. Disrespect
  10. Toxic words
  11. Ignoring the issues

Today I will give a short summary of each. Each area is something we have covered in depth through a 10 day self-paced Marriage Communication Workshop online:

Marriage Communication Class Online, marriage communication workshop, marriage communication exercises to improve communication #MarriageCommunication #MarriageAdvice Christian Marriage advice, Marriage advice, #hopejoyinchrist

1. Blame (Most Common of The Barriers to Effective Communication)

Acceptance vs blame in relationships is at the top of our list. It is common to blame our partner even within a Christian marriage rather than work to get to the heart of an issue.

For example: If I am bent on being right and he is set on winning we are headed for a humdinger of a night.  Our attitudes are barriers to effective communication in marriage. Blame is 100% an attitude problem… a sin problem.

Barrier #1 is refusing to own my part in our communication problems. Accountability in marriage looks like me being honest about my faults.

2. Expectations

We KNOW expectations destroy love in a relationship, but we all fall into the trap of setting unrealistic and even unhealthy expectations in marriage. ALL. You do it. I do it. It is a temptation that has destroyed many good, godly marriages.

The reality is that behind expectations you will find a spouse that does not accept their partner as they are. Ouch.

The second barrier to effective communication in marriage is not accepting him as he is. How do you stop trying to change your husband and accept him as he is?

  1. Understand Biblical expectations.
  2. Learn how to overcome expectations.

3. Unintentional Thinking

You have heard that our mind is a battlefield for the enemy, right? The battlefield of the mind is where most Spiritual warfare is won or lost. That applies in marriage maybe more than in any other relationship.

The seasons when we lose the battle are most often the seasons when we are not engaged at all. Every single thought you have matters.

Every

Single

Thought

Matters!

When you allow your thoughts to wander and you find yourself in communication struggles you have failed into this trap!

Barrier #3 to effective communication in marriage is denying the power of thoughts.

You must mind your thoughts. You must stop unintentional thoughts that lead to negative patterns, discontentment, discouragement, and despair. These are barriers to effective communication in marriage!

4. Negative thinking

Unintentional thinking often leads to negative thinking. It is tempting to believe that our thoughts do not matter. When we get angry or discouraged we can fall into this cycle of destructive thoughts that shift our relationship.

Barrier #4 to effective communication in marriage is allowing negative thoughts to linger in my mind.

Communication Barriers Examples:

I know this can feel confusing so I will give you an example from my thought life in my marriage.

When I married Bud I was running from the Lord. He was not a Christian and I was not acting like a Christian. When I returned to the Lord there was such conflict in our marriage. It was ugly.

In those years, I would often allow my mind to rehearse things to say, and ways to respond to his hostility. I would play out the worst-case scenario… letting it play out to the end of the world (anyone else do this?). Or, I would zone out in romance novels, imagining a life where I made better choices and was not facing the consequences of those unwise choices.

Losing The Battle For Your Mind

The result of not taking every thought captive in that season was extreme and not flattering. I was either distant or not intentionally fighting for our marriage. At other times, I was divisive, waiting for the worst case to play out in real life.

No one was winning. Well, actually, the enemy was winning because Bud and I both wanted out.

It wasn’t until I learned to control my thoughts that things began to shift!

Your thoughts matter!

Negative thinking creates barriers to effective communication. You must learn how to shift those negative patterns in your mind to get the victory.

5. Talking Too Much

Sometimes, when communication has broken down in marriage, more words make things worse. Shockingly, at times, to repair communication we must talk less. Fewer words of complaint, fewer criticisms, less grumbling, and less comparing go a long way toward helping your spouse hear your heart.

Let me clarify, we still need to express our hurt, frustration, and needs. We just need to take those things to the LORD first. First, not last. You will need to talk through issues (see barrier #11) but for a time, you may need to pause and pray.

Barrier #5 to effective communication in marriage is talking more than I pray.

Communication Barriers Examples:

As we learn how to overcome barriers of communication, I believe some of the barriers need a bit more context (though I am trying to keep this short).

I have a lot of words. They build up in my mind over time. Maybe that’s because I am female to maybe that is because I am a writer. The problem is that those words are not always loving or kind.

Earlier I shared that when I returned to my faith, my unsaved husband struggled. My thoughts were spiraling as I worried that marriage #2 was destined for divorce. My words, as a result, were like weapons.

Nothing he did was good enough. Nothing I did mattered. I wanted him saved and our problems solved through that change. My words pushed him further away from the LORD. I was constantly criticizing his best efforts. He was dying inside.

Prayer Changes Things

It wasn’t until I began to pray that things changed. Prayer is the power that undergirds all the hard work of a Christian marriage.

Through prayer, I saw areas of unforgiveness that had to be addressed (Learn about how to forgive ~> Free Bible Study On Forgiveness and Reconciliation: 10 Steps)

Through prayer, I saw that I was not accepting him as he was. I was not allowing the LORD – through the Holy Spirit – to lead him. Instead, I was controlling and demanding… while the Lord was trying to woo him to Himself.

Prayer allowed me to step back and let God do HIS work while I simply loved my husband.

6. Reacting Creates Barriers To Communication in Marriage

Those first communication barriers all dealt with the heart. The heart is critical! You can’t change the words if you haven’t addressed the heart issues!

The first ‘word issue’ is in the area of our reactions. To react is to let the first thing that comes to your mind come out of your mouth (or through your face). Learning to respond shifts this barrier.

The 6th barrier to effective communication in marriage is reacting instead of responding to situations.

To remove the barrier to effective communication we set a guard over our mouths and stop reacting. Instead of reacting to the drama we respond with Words of life.

7 & 8. Defensiveness & Assumption

The next two barriers to communication go hand in hand.

  1. Assuming the worst intentions.
  2. Defending myself.

We know how this plays out. Your spouse says something that hurts your feelings. Let’s say he walks into the kitchen while you are washing dishes.

He might say, “You are in rare form today.”

You assume he means you never clean or rarely clean the kitchen. Immediately you go on the defense. You remind him you are always in the kitchen while he plays on his phone. Furthermore, you cooked the dinner he just ate, you washed his clothes, and you kept his children from killing each other all day.

He walks away, head hung low. Communication has been stopped.

How could this scene have played out to keep the lines of communication open? We must stay curious rather than allow assumptions and defenses to rule us. I prefer a method of playfulness and curiosity when my spouse says or does something hurtful.

9. Disrespect

By now, you may be feeling overwhelmed by information. Don’t worry — I will share a PDF on barriers to effective communication to help you narrow down the struggle and easily access resources!

A lack of respect is the 9th barrier to effective communication in a Christian marriage.

We all understand respect, but I wonder if you know that the Lord does not mean respect must be earned? Respect is due to certain people in specific stations. One specific station that is owed respect is marriage.

What about when your spouse has done something (or some things) that make him feel unworthy of respect? Well, that causes a barrier to communication in your marriage.

10. Toxic words

I talk a lot about words that cause red flags when working with couples. Red flags are signs you need to go back to the heart work we started with in our list.

  • They show areas of hurt that have not been worked through.
  • They show unforgiveness.

These toxic words inflict pain and deepen barriers in our relationships.

Toxic words are the 10th barrier to effective communication in marriage!

What are the toxic words that send red flags and destroy communication in marriage?

  1. Should
  2. Always
  3. Never

11. Ignoring the Issues

Lastly on our tour through the most common communication barriers: saying nothing. Ironically, as surely as too many words can kill communication, too few words can do the same.

This is an especially tempting cycle to fall into for Christians. We somehow believe that prayer alone will cure all our marital problems. Prayer is critical, don’t misunderstand me, but prayer alone will not be the answer!

You must talk about the problems. Sometimes those talks will be difficult. At times they can feel overwhelming or frightening, especially if you have become accustomed to not talking.

You can do this! You must do this to bring healing!

Faith Issues That Act As Barriers To Communication

I know I said we would keep this short and just talk about the most common communication barriers in marriage, but I can’t leave out faith.

Faith issues can become huge barriers that stop communication in our relationships. If one spouse is not saved or is not growing in faith, you will struggle to express things well. Period.

It is not even enough if both of you are believers. You must both be growing in your faith! All too often I have counseled wives whose spouses walked away from the LORD and from their marriage as a result. It happens. You must be intentional to safeguard against these threats to your marriage.

12. Unequally Yoked

If you are married to an unbeliever or to an immature believer, communication will suffer. That is not all that will suffer, but it is the topic today.

I can not stress enough, how important it is to marry a person of like faith. However, as a woman who was unwise in this way, I share often about how to overcome this challenge and find hope and joy in Christ.

13. Spiritual Starvation is a Barrier to Communication

Are you both saved? Wonderful. Are you both growing in faith? How do I mean?

Time alone with the Lord, in the Scripture, is critical for Spiritual growth.

Imagine it this way… To be a healthy human being, you must eat every day, several times a day, in fact. If you go without a meal you will not starve, but you will become irritable and struggle to focus or think clearly.

What would happen if you only ate a balanced meal on Sunday morning and Wednesday evening? You would begin to lose weight rapidly, muscle tone would reverse, you would be tired, slow and sickly.

If you continued to live this way, eventually you would die.

Feed Your Soul

Your Spiritual life functions in the same way, except that you can’t see it physically. You can feel the effects, or others around you may feel them. Many of us survive off of one Spiritual meal for our soul a week. One meal! Some of us only slide into a pew once or twice a year.

Spiritual starvation is not an over-exaggeration.

When your soul is starving you are irritable, searching for anything to fill that ack. You are easily offended, you are not loving, you are selfishly striving for your life. Rightly so. No one looks down on a starving child for eating everything in sight… leaving nothing for others.

Your soul needs food!

Daily Bread

The Word of God, the Bible gathering dust on your shelf, is referred to as the Bread of Life. Reading from it each day feeds your soul. When your soul is nourished, you are better able to love your spouse and others in your life!

Make a habit of feeding your soul every day!

14. No Prayer Life

Similarly to starving your soul, you can starve your relationship with God. The Lord is all about relationships. He doesn’t set out to-do lists or demand religious activities. Nope, He longs to spend time with you.

Now, spending time with you will probably include times of serving others, which you may call religion, but it will not be limited to that.

He wants to talk to you (through the Bible, worship, teaching, etc.) and He wants you to talk to Him through prayer. Prayer is vital for your Spiritual growth!

Are you talking to Jesus?

You can’t have a healthy relationship without talking.

Prayer and Marriage

How does growing in prayer keep communication in marriage healthy? Over the years, I’ve learned that I am my best self in marriage when I talk to Jesus first about my struggles.

Before I blow up at Bud, I blow off steam with the Holy Spirit. When I am offended, I filter it through God first. If I have been hurt, I first take the pain to Jesus and ask Him to fight the battle ahead of our difficult conversations.

Prayer is the key to a healthy marriage. Prayer should undergird all the hard work you are doing to invest in your relationship! It is not the only work, but it is the first work!

15. Not Serving

If we were to narrow down all the barriers to communication we would see selfishness, pride, and laziness at the heart. Yes, that is an oversimplification, but it helps narrow our focus.

We are called to serve, to have the mind of Christ, which was that of a bondservant. He washed feet, fed the hungry, healed, and preached; Jesus served.

While it is tempting to speak to the need to serve in the Church, I will resist and focus on communication in marriage.

All too often, we are selfishly seeking our own needs, wants, desires, or preferences and we miss the needs of our spouse. Serving each other sets self aside. Serving each other opens doors for healthy communication.

At the heart of how to overcome barriers of communication is the need to serve each other!

When one or both parties are not serving the other, you will find a lack of communication somewhere along the way.

16. Distraction

This feels like the opposite side of the serving coin in a way. When we are focused on serving others outside of our home, we can neglect to serve within the home. This may be a job, hobby, or even the church, but anything that leaves us too exhausted to serve at home should be examined.

As a wife and mom who also leads a ministry, I can attest to how tempting it is to serve everyone else first… all the while the people in my home need me.

This is when keeping our priorities straight comes in handy!

17. Isolation is a Barrier To Communication

In addition to all of these ways, we can create habits that make it easier to fall into the barriers of communication. That’s right, we must be intentional to guard our communication.

One way to guard our marriage – communication within our Christian marriage – is to set up accountability and avoid isolation. Anything goes when no one knows the real state of our relationship. When there is godly accountability there is pressure to work things out.

Godly accountability should be outside your family (so no one picks sides). This can be as simple as both husband and wife having a friend who will ask real questions. This can be a friend who comes for dinner and sees the real side of marriage. Or it could be a Sunday School where you open up and allow others in.

Don’t isolate yourself from others. Let them see the real you, the real marriage you live in rather than the Instagram version.

18. Quietly Quitting Tops the List of Barriers to Communication

The last barrier (I promise it’s really the last) is quitting. I don’t mean divorce. What I mean is when one or both of you just stop trying to fix communication. When one of both of you decides it’s hopeless, you give up, essentially quitting on the marriage.

In our culture, we call this the “Quiet quit”. You are still physically present, sure, but you aren’t there mentally. You ignore the issues, you are counting time until you feel free to actually walk away. Or maybe you feel like you can be roommates with benefits while protecting your heart with a wall of indifference.

If we were sitting face to face I’d hug you and tell you I’ve been there. In fact, in this season, it is the biggest threat to my marriage.

What can we do about this?

It’s too big to address here… but as I wrestle through this with the Lord I will share it with you. This astrix * is my way of marking a topic to write more about later (if you ever see them and wonder what they mean). So let’s just pray into that for now and revisit it later.

A Prayer About Quietly Quitting

Lord Jesus,

You walked this earth. You know how hard life is at times. When I married, I was sure it would be easier… not that life would be less hard… but that having a partner to share all the hard with… to hold each other up through the hard times… that this three-strand cord would make it easier to bear up under the hard. It hasn’t.

I was wrong. In some ways, it’s harder being married in the midst of all the hard parts. And I want out of this piece of the hard at times. I could do this badly all by myself… or so I imagine.

Forgive me when I am selfish, lazy, and prideful here. Forgive me for not keeping a bigger-picture mindset. Help me lay this feeling that I want to quit at Your feet. Help me intentionally fight for this marriage today. And tomorrow if it’s still hard, help me get back up and fight again.

You didn’t quit. Help me not quit, quietly or really. Empower me to keep putting one foot in front of the other until we are on the other side of this difficult season.

To You be all the glory.

Amen

18 Ways to Overcome Barriers to Communication In Marriage

Eighteen? Did we get to 18 barriers to communication in marriage today? Wow! And that didn’t cover them all!

Crazy how hard the enemy fights to keep us from unity and love in marriage. Right?

In the article, you will find links to resources to help you overcome each.

  1. Blame
    • Accept your part and get help.
  2. Expectations
    • Accept your spouse and learn Biblical expectations.
  3. Unintentional thinking
    • Take every thought captive.
  4. Negative thinking
    • Replace negative thoughts with godly thoughts.
  5. Too much talking
    • Pray about it more than you talk about it.
  6. Reacting
    • Respond instead of reacting.
  7. Defensiveness
    • Be playful.
  8. Assumption
    • Be curious.
  9. Disrespect
    • Find ways to show respect even when he/she is not acting respectable.
  10. Toxic words
    • Use I statements.
  11. Ignoring the issues
    • Have difficult conversations.
  12. Unequally yoked
    • Pray for salvation and spiritual growth.
  13. Spiritual starvation
    • Read your Bible!
  14. No prayer life
    • Talk to God about it!
  15. No service
    • Serve each other instead of expecting to always be served.
  16. Distraction
    • Set your priorities.
  17. Isolation
    • Get accountability
  18. Quietly quitting
    • Be intentional and keep your eyes on Jesus.

Need more than a list? Get the barriers to effective communication PDF free below to help keep you intentionally working on each area until your breakthrough.

in HIS love,

If you enjoyed this, you will love these articles:

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Tiffany Montgomery

Tiffany of Hope Joy in Christ inspires Christian Women to grow in faith, live out Biblical Marriage Principles and raise Godly Children.  Join the Wives Only Facebook Group here or keep up with her through Pinterest.