Communicating as a Couple

Posted: December 28, 2019

If you are looking at this blog post, you probably feel like you have difficulty communicating with your partner. Well, rest assured, you are not alone in this! Difficulty communicating with a partner is the most common reason I see that brings couples into therapy. The truth is, you cannot keep from communicating, even when you stop verbalizing your thoughts/feelings your body is communicating them through your physical stance, facial expressions, and eyes. We are constantly communicating. So how do we do that more effectively? Keep reading and I will walk you through some simple techniques that everyone can incorporate into their relationship. Try these techniques and you will see some results, I promise!

Using I Statements

When you and your partner are fighting do you notice that the blame starts to fly? “YOU never listen when I speak” or, “YOU are always late!”. There is a lot of improvement that can be made in just these two statements. Let’s start with the easiest, using I statements. When you are fighting with a partner and the emphasis is on ‘You’ then you automatically become defensive. It quickly becomes a mud-slinging contest, and everyone wants to win. Oftentimes things escalate and before we known it, we are hitting below the belt. This causes a lot of resentment and hurt feelings. One simple thing you can change here is your language. Instead of saying what you feel the other person is doing wrong focus on how what they are doing is making you feel. So, instead of saying “You never listen when I speak” try saying “I feel as though you are not hearing what I am saying”, or “I am not feeling heard”. Do you notice the difference in those statements? The blame is gone, and you are instead focusing on how you are feeling. This takes the person off the defense and allows them to hear what you are saying.

Speaker Listener Technique

If you have put the ‘I statements’ and ‘absolutism’ advice into practice, then you have a beautiful segue into the next suggestion; speaker-listener technique. Most people have difficulty listening when someone else is talking. This can be for a multitude of different reasons; maybe you are distracted by something that just happened, or something you need to do next. Maybe you are tired, and they are wanting to talk about something that you do not have the bandwidth to deal with at that time. A lot of times we are to busy thinking about our response to what the other person is saying, and we don’t listen. This is especially true in an argument. This causes miscommunication, and oftentimes you end up arguing about nothing, all because someone misunderstood or misinterpreted what their partner said. A great way to avoid this is to use Speaker-Listener technique. This is a very simple thing to do, but it often feels weird and robotic, especially the first few times you use it. Using this technique partner, one states how they are feeling. Partner two then rephrases what they heard partner one says. If they rephrase it correctly then partner one acknowledges that it is correct, and then partner two responds to what partner one said. And the cycle continues. Here’s an example:

Partner One: I felt nervous when you were late to Johnny’s game yesterday because I did not know if you were lost”.

Partner Two: “You were nervous because you thought I was lost”?

Partner One: “Yes”.

Partner Two: “I’m sorry you were nervous. The meeting with my last client ran late, so I was late in leaving for the game".

Simple, right? This technique slows you down and forces you to listen to what your partner is really saying and can go a long way in diffusing the situation. Bonus points if you offer a solution that you can do differently next time, such as:

Partner Two: I’m sorry you were nervous. The meeting with my last client ran late, so I was late in leaving for the game. I will call or text you the next time that happens, so you don’t worry about me”.

Time-out

All the techniques above are great to try and improve your communication. But, lets face it. We are all human, and we all have emotions. Sometimes those emotions can be overwhelming, and we can get carried away in them. Even people who have the best intentions to fight nicely can get lost in their anger. When this happens your chances of coming to a reasonable solution decrease significantly. A time out is an agreed upon time that you and your partner take a break. During that time, you go do separate things. I recommend doing things that will help you calm down. For instance, you can exercise, play a game, meditate, read a book or watch a show. The entire point of this is to calm down, so do something that helps you achieve that. Once your agreed upon time is up then you come back together and talk about what happened.

There are a few things that need to happen in order to make this technique successful.

Talk with your partner about using this technique when you are not angry, so when you need to use it you are both on the same page.
Agree on the amount of time that you will take to calm down. It generally takes about 45 minutes for your body to recover from an adrenaline surge. So, I suggest at least 45 minutes. But this may be too long for some people and could cause more anxiety. So, talk about it and find an amount of time that works for both of you.
If you come back together after the agreed upon amount of time and one partner is still too angry to have a rational conversation, then take another time out. You need to be calm if you are going to resolve anything.
Come back together and resolve the problem-This is the MOST important step. Without coming back together to talk and resolve the problem you are simply using avoidance and putting a fancy label on it! DO NOT AVOID the conversation, this only makes things worse.

Conclusion

Every couple fights. Fighting can be healthy if it is done right. Hopefully some of the techniques above will help you and your partner to improve your communication and start to feel like you are understanding each other a little better. Try one or all these techniques and leave a comment below to let me know if you found them helpful! Stay tuned for a blog on fair—fighting techniques.

Written by: Tiffany Stone LMFT