Q: “It seems like when my fiance’s emotions get high or he is upset, he often shuts down completely. He says “not tonight” when I say that we need to talk and work through an issue or argument we had. His lack of wanting to communicate just frustrates me even more, and we both go to bed upset. It makes me wonder if we are ready for marriage if we can’t work through our problems. Do you think we should keep our wedding date set and proceed? Do you have any advice on how we can communicate better when he goes into “shut down” mode?”
A: What is happening now before marriage is what will happen after marriage—it will only be worse. Rather than argue with each other and shut down, we must learn how to listen to each other empathetically and learn how to affirm each other’s beliefs, even when we disagree with each other, and then focus on solving the conflict. Every couple will have conflicts. Learning how to resolve them is one of the major issues in having a healthy marriage. The time to learn that is not after the marriage but now.
Wherever you are in your relationship, I would say slow down, don’t set a wedding date and don’t be moving into marriage. Let’s learn how to solve conflicts in a healthy way. My book, Things I Wish I’d Known Before We Got Married will give you some practical help on that subject. There’s other good books out there too. If you don’t make progress reading books, by all means, go to a counselor and let that person help the two of you learn to solve conflicts. It’s far better to do this before you get married than to wait until after you get married.
