Over time, communication in a marriage can become blocked and unsatisfactory. Stress, work, children, and a constant time crunch can limit the time and energy you and your spouse have available to focus on maintaining good communication.

Throw in any other factors such as aging parents, depression, illness, or financial troubles and the challenge of maintaining healthy communication becomes even more difficult.

Of course, it’s important to be creative and look for more ways to cut back where you can and schedule more time in your marriage for communication. Ideally, you want to have some time each day when you and your spouse can touch base and share with each other.

If that’s not possible, then you certainly want to make it a top priority each week to find a time for relaxed, emotionally intimate conversation. Without good communication, you and your spouse are in danger of losing your heart connection.

As your time to talk, share, and communicate from the heart with your partner is negatively impacted by life events, it’s crucial that communication blocks be kept to a minimum. You need to get the most from the limited time that you do have.

The following list gives you guaranteed road blocks to healthy, satisfying communication in your marriage:

1. Rolling your eyes while your spouse is talking

This behavior isn’t funny when kids do it, and it’s certainly not going to get you any good will brownie points with your mate. It denotes disrespect for your partner and discounts the importance of what he (or she) is saying.

Solution: Try to understand the true meaning behind your spouse's words. Make an effort to understand if there's an angle or an aspect of your spouse's position that you can agree with.

2. Responding, “Do we have to talk about that again?”

This response, designed to avoid an unwanted conversation, may accomplish your short-range goal of getting out of talking at the moment. But whatever issue is unsettled won’t disappear. It will just go underground until it surfaces later in a bigger, more harmful way.

Solution: It's always better to resolve issues early before they grow in size. It's like weeding a garden. Weeding early and often keeps your relationship garden in good shape.

3. Yawning and looking bored

This behavior denotes a lack of respect for your spouse and her (or his) feelings. It may come back to haunt you in the bedroom where passion is kept alive by satisfying emotional intimacy (which is dependent on good communication).

Solution: Showing respect for your spouse's concerns wins good will credit for you. Pay attention and you'll be rewarded later. What goes around comes around.

4. Repeatedly looking at your watch

Do you really want your spouse to think that it’s not important to you to take time for his (or her) concerns? If you really don’t have time right then, tell your spouse that you are feeling distracted currently because you don’t have much time. Then set another time to talk as soon as possible.

Solution: Your goal is to continuously win the goodwill of your partner. One way to do that is to invest time into the relationship.

5. Continuing to watch television or play a computer game

This is another way to communicate disrespect and lack of concern for your spouse. At the end of your life, do you really think you’ll look back and wish you’d watched more TV or played more computer games? Not likely. But it is very likely that you’ll wish you had put more time and effort into your marriage.

Solution: Schedule time to talk with your spouse when there are no distractions. It's all about knowing what your priorities are and consciously deciding that your marriage is worth the effort.

6. Replying “Nothing” when asked what’s on your mind

This is a cop-out that leaves your partner stone-walled. Communication is a two-way street and is an indicator of the health and well-being of the marriage. If you opt-out, you automatically lose.

Solution: Meaningful talk requires honesty and vulnerability, which in turn require courage. That's a tall order, but it's the only way to create deep emotional intimacy.

7. Refusing to interact when your spouse is trying to talk to you

This can be a control issue that lets your spouse know that no one’s going to make you talk when you don’t want to. You may keep the control but lose your marriage one day.

Solution: Marital success requires humility. It means that it's more important to you to be happy than to be in control all the time.

8. Changing the subject abruptly

This tactic is designed to block the other person in his or her efforts to share. It denotes a lack of respect and consideration for your mate’s feelings and is just plain rude.

Solution: Remembering to have good manners with your spouse goes a long way in maintaining marital harmony. Try to respect your mate, even when you disagree.

9. Turning and walking away while your spouse is talking

Ditto number eight above. It’s like thumbing your nose at your spouse. You may win right now, but I’m betting that you’ll lose in some other important ways in your relationship.

Solution: Sometimes walking away can be a defense reaction. It is based on fear - fear of confrontation, fear of rejection, fear of anger, or some other variation. Instead, face your fear. That is the definition of courage.

10. Coming up with perpetual excuses to postpone the conversation

This behavior often reflects a basic approach to life—trying to avoid direct confrontation and escape what is perceived as an unpleasant situation. It’s the opposite of creative problem-solving to improve a relationship. Your wake-up call may not come until your spouse is headed out the door one day. Is that what you really want?

Solution: Think of the big picture. What kind of marriage do you want and how are you going to achieve it? What will happen if you don't think about it? Be honest with yourself and take responsibility for your part of the marriage.