I Love my Partner, It's Our Communication That's the Problem

I hear so often from couples, “I love my partner so much.  It’s our communication that suffers so.”  And it often is just that. Simple yet elusive communication skills.  Often, the people involved think it shouldn’t be so hard and decide they either will just continue with what they have, or split up. Still in the web of blame and shame and finding fault they have been living in for a while.

I believe that couples and friends do care for each other deeply and if only they would put in the time it takes, they will find the joy and connection and even something deeper and more enjoyable than they can imagine. 

Not always, yet often.  Very often.

Sometimes the impact of all the ways we aren’t able to share our heart’s longing (needs) with another person in a way that invites them to do just the same is devastating.  While the care for each other is obvious, so much resentment and resignation has woven its way into the fabric of the relationship it takes a good deal of time, effort, commitment and practice to find their way back. 

Maybe it takes a year, maybe two.  A long time —yes, if that’s how you see it.  When those years offer 40-80 years of real partnership and trust and joy, is it worth it?  I absolutely think so.  Plus my personal hope is that the work serves more than just the couple.  It serves a larger community as well.  It will serve their kids when they witness heartful communication and how to navigate conflict, at very least by example, if not explicitly.  More broadly, the more folks that have these skills the more folks that aren’t fighting with each other ‘out there’ in the world.  Changing the world one relationship at a time so-to-speak.

One of the toughest things it seems for couples (and all of us really) is to consider the distress they experience with each other outside of the context of blame and shame, right/wrong moralistic judgment and finding fault.  Effective communication requires dropping into curiosity.  Which in our culture seems to be one of our biggest challenges.

How can you get yourself out from under the burden of finding fault?

Here are 3 suggestions:

1.  If you ‘feel’ guilty, or angry, take note right away.  This tangent to worth exploring more.  First question is what you are telling yourself.  Behind guilt and anger is a story that something is wrong.  Either you did something wrong (guilt) or someone else has (anger).  It can be a simple few step process —and entirely worth it, if you want to communicate well with those you care about.  If you think you have (or will do) something wrong, what is the need that voice is alerting you to?  Take the time to pay attention and answer the questions your are being directed to. 

An example of this might be, “I shouldn’t ask for help right now because they work hard all week and need rest (or they are watching the game, or playing with the kids)”.  More simply, “I feel guilty asking;.  So you don’t ask, and the ‘thing’ doesn’t get done.  Repeating this pattern over and over leads to resignation and resentment.  How to interrupt?  Knowing your needs the “I shouldn’t ask” voice is pointing to.  You can use this sheet —Empathy for All Worksheet to guide you. The need(s) behind this thought could be consideration, care for their well-being, fairness, cooperation, partnership, love. 

Once you are connected to what’s important to you, you are able to navigate how you have those needs met and still make the request.

Reminder that when we hold tightly to all of our needs being met, it allows us to become wildly creative with the strategies to meet them.  Or at very least to begin with include in the conversation.

The important thing to remember is once you are incorporating the needs into the conversation, it shifts.  No longer are you hostage to a random thought that you are doing it wrong in some way to ask for something.  You are very much connected to what you might say that will meet the needs that voice in your head was drawing your attention to.

Being willing to take the tangent to explore what wisdom your voice is asking you to consider is essential to finding your way beck to the connection you long for.

Follow the same process for your thoughts around anger.  If someone else is doing something wrong, then what do you wish would be happening that would be right?  If they were doing and saying what you preferred then what needs would be met?  Once you know this, you can formulate some questions, or requests that will invite more of that into your conversation.

2.  Check in.  Don’t automatically believe what you are thinking about the situation.  I work with folks who want to ‘figure it all out’ in their minds before presenting something to another person —or even moving forward with bringing something up.  You have lost connection to the actual what is, and are making decisions that are based on what you think is happening.  Perhaps what you think is accurate, and perhaps not.  Most often you don’t give it the chance.  You believe what you think, and by keeping it hidden there is no possibility that change can happen that way, except, of course, by some miracle (which I absolutely believe in!).  In either case, if you bring up what you want to talk about in a way that is curious and invites an actual answer, you can now begin a conversation. 

3.  Take note of your language.  When you are checking in with someone about their experience, are you actually asking in a way they might hear curiosity and answer your question, or are you in some way implying that what you think is true, thus insisting that the other person defend what is actually alive for them?  These are the subtle (and not so subtle) ways that we disconnect, and then blame the other person for being defensive.

The one thing that is common in each of the steps above is slowing down your conversation enough to notice what’s actually happening and attend to it in the moment.  The saying,  Stop and smell the roses —it applies here as well.  Slow down your conversations and connect to the beauty of the person in front of you.