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Gracious words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.
- Proverbs 16:24
Where love is lacking, sow love and you will soon gather love.
- St John of the Cross
Loving words
The playground rhyme, ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me,’ is only true in a physical sense. The Bible often reminds us of the power of our words: ‘The tongue has the power of life and death’ (Proverbs 18:21).
Studies have shown that words can affect a person’s behaviour and achievements to an extraordinary degree. If children are told that they are useless at maths, they are likely to do very badly in that subject. Conversely, if they are told their creative writing is brilliant, they are likely to become aspiring novelists overnight. People will live up to the expectations they are given.
This has enormous implications for the way we speak to each other in marriage. We need to maintain love, gentleness and respect in our tone and avoid getting into the habit of putting each other down. We need to build up our partner both at home and in public; it is highly destructive for them to be made the butt of our jokes.
The way to make each other feel loved through our speech is by affirming each other. This will include how we give compliments, how we say thank you, how we encourage, how we show kindness and how we make requests. The failure to do these things skilfully and graciously leaves our marriage partner open to temptation from outside. The following extract from a poem, written more than a hundred years ago by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, is a wife’s explanation (though not her excuse) for having an affair:
Each day,
Our lives that had been one life at the start,
Further and further seemed to drift apart.
Dead was the old romance of man and maid.
Your talk was all of politics and trade.
Your work, your club, the mad pursuit of gold
Absorbed your thoughts. Your duty kiss felt cold
Upon my lips. Life lost its zest, its thrill
Until
One fateful day when earth seemed very dull
It suddenly grew bright and beautiful.
I spoke a little, and he listened much;
There was attention in his eyes, and such
A note of comradeship in his low tone
I felt no more alone.
There was a kindly interest in his air;
He spoke about the way I dressed my hair
And praised the gown I wore.
It seemed a thousand, thousand years and more,
Since I had been so noticed. Had mine ear
Been used to compliments year after year,
If I had heard you speak
As this man spoke, I had not been so weak.2
There are many different ways of using words to convey love to one another.
Paying compliments
People who have not been used to hearing compliments during their upbringing may not easily accept them, let alone give them. But we can learn. Compliments draw attention to what we admire and appreciate in our husband or wife. Many of us keep such thoughts locked up in our mind, thinking they are too trivial to verbalise or superfluous because our partner already knows that we love them. Yet the marriage service speaks of cherishing one another. Paying compliments is a great way to cherish each other, and we can all learn to do it. Try something as simple and direct as:
‘You look really great in that shirt.’
‘You handled that meeting brilliantly.’
‘I love the way you always think of the right thing to say.’
Offering thanks
Gratitude confers value and worth upon someone. When we live together day by day, we all too easily overlook the many things our partner does for us. Some are small and regular; others show great care and may require a lot of effort if we’re not used to saying, ‘Thank you.’
‘Thank you for taking out the rubbish,’ or ‘Thank you for taking my trousers to the cleaners,’ sound mundane, but it is important to give recognition for small acts of kindness. ‘I’m so grateful you remembered my mother’s birthday’ gives appreciation for what could easily be taken for granted. ‘Thank you for planning all the food for the weekend; it’s been such a busy week for me’ shows gratitude for the other’s support.
Being encouraging
Another way we can use words positively is by encouraging, that is, inspiring courage in each other. All of us have areas of our lives where we feel insecure: we lack courage. It is within our power to give the encouragement that will help our partner to reach their potential. Conversely, if we criticise, our words have the power gradually to rob our partner of their self-worth and self-confidence. When we encourage, we are saying to each other, ‘I believe in you.’
Sila:
There have been many areas in my life since we’ve been married where Nicky’s encouragement has spurred me on to do things that I might otherwise not have done. Both looking after our children full-time at home and then gradually transitioning back into employment had their challenges, and his words often made all the difference, giving me confidence I could do it and helping to build my self-esteem.
Being thoughtful
Thoughtful words build someone up, whereas untimely, thoughtless words cause much hurt in a relationship.
Sila:
In our own marriage, I have had to learn to be careful with my words. I like to discuss things immediately after an event and, when we were first married, I had little concept that I might need to choose a better time to voice my opinion to Nicky, particularly when he had made himself vulnerable.
It took me some time to realise that after he’s given a talk, he needs some encouraging words from me straightaway. I’ve learnt that Sunday lunch is not the right moment to give my analysis of his sermon and that it’s better to wait until at least the next day, when he is more able to be objective.
Even then I have to choose my words carefully. I am not advocating false flattery, but for me it requires a conscious effort to make sure that my words are encouraging, kind and affirming, and that they will build Nicky up. I have come to realise over the years how important these words are for Nicky. For him, affirming words are the key way in which he feels my love, and this gives him a foundation of confidence that affects all other aspects of his life.
Making requests
There is a world of difference in a marriage between making demands and making requests. When we make requests of our husband or wife, we are affirming their worth and their abilities. If we make demands, we become intolerant and tyrannical in our own home, often without realising it. That kind of person is not easy or pleasant to live with. We can become demanding when we start to take our partner (and their gifts and abilities) for granted.
Sila:
Nicky is very practical and capable of turning his hand to anything that needs mending in our home. Yet there are times when I can be complacent about that. I’ve heard myself say, ‘You haven’t mended that puncture yet, have you? I need my bike by tomorrow.’ A better way of saying it would be, ‘Nicky, would you be able to mend the puncture on my bike before tomorrow?’ A request like that creates the possibility for him to express his love for me by responding to it. Demands exclude that possibility.
If verbal affirmation is deeply important to your husband or wife and they have not received any for some time, they will probably be feeling low. To hear positive words from you again will be like reaching an oasis in the desert. As we learn to build our partner up with words, we will reach a new level of love and intimacy in our marriage. The words we use have the power to renew love daily. Criticism and self-pity are powerful separators. Words of affirmation are powerful uniters.
