4 Actual issues disguised as, “Trouble Communicating”

Since I started my therapy practice over a decade ago I’ve taken thousands of calls from people over the phone looking for therapy. The first thing I ask is, “tell me a little bit about what you are looking for help with.” And inevitably within the first minute everyone I have ever talked to about their relationship in one form or another tells me they need help with their communication. 

However, in 90% of the cases I have seen, communication is not the biggest problem. There are so many issues that are masked and placed under the category of “communication.”

Simply put, communication is the imparting or exchanging of information or news. Most couples don’t actually have an issue exchanging words, information, or news with one another.

They actually have problems listening, empathizing, talking about their feelings in a constructive way, and dealing with their own triggers which cause them to become flooded, shut down, and unable to focus on their partner’s requests and communication.

Listening

There is an actual art to listening. It doesn’t always come naturally to us and most people listen to the first part of what their partner says, then they think they have the gist of what was said, and they begin formulating their response while the other person continues to speak. While they are formulating their response they tend to stop listening or cut their partner off before they are finished speaking.  

At this point the conflict or discussion can become derailed and the focus is shifted onto the fact that the person speaking was interrupted, feeling like they are being dismissed, or there may be a blow up if this is something that happens continually in the relationship. 

Instead of formulating your response while your partner is speaking, work on building your empathic response. 

Empathizing 

You do not have to agree with your partner’s feelings or thoughts to be an empathic listener! (Trust me on this one - I literally empathize for a living, and I do not always agree with what my clients are saying.) Empathic listening is the best way to convey to your partner that you hear and understand what they are saying. 

Here’s an example: 

Partner 1: “Today was so terrible! My boss has been such a jerk lately and she called me in to discuss everything that was wrong with the project I have been working on and now it’s going to put me back 2 days to make all of the changes to things she already approved last week!”  

Partner 2: “Babe that sounds rough, I’m sorry you had a bad day. I could see how that would be so stressful for you to make those changes in such a short period of time.”

Notice Partner 2 did not say anything about how to fix the issue, make any criticisms about Partner 1’s approach, or tell them they shouldn’t be stressed. Your partner may wish for your feedback or advice, and in those cases they will ask. You can also practice asking, “do you need advice, or do you need me to just listen?” 

Talking about feelings

Talking about your feelings in a way that your partner can hear is one of the best skills you can learn to improve your relationship. Couples will tell me they’ve discussed how something their partner did or said made them feel, but when I actually sit and break down their conflict with them it turns out they haven’t actually done so and are counting on their partner to read their mind or “just know” based on their reaction. 

What not to say: 

“I do everything around here! I’m running around all day, getting the kids here and there, trying to get everything done at work, and I’m so tired! I don’t get any support from you!” 

It might seem like the partner expressing this has conveyed how they are feeling, however this statement is void of any important emotional dialogue necessary for their partner to hear. Instead, “I don’t get support from you!” is a criticism. This statement is used to convey blame, not to convey how the person is actually feeling. When someone feels criticized or blamed their natural response is to become defensive. 

If this person would like help from their partner, they aren't actually asking for it, nor are they letting their partner know what it feels like when they don’t provide assistance. 

What to say: 

Instead saying something like, “Babe I’ve been feeling so overwhelmed lately, I have deadlines at work, and running the kids back and forth has felt so exhausting. Can you help me by taking the kids to school tomorrow and picking them up from daycare on Thursday?” 

If the pattern continues or the partner is unable to offer assistance, coming back and saying, “I’ve asked you for help, and I get that you can’t pick the kids up Thursday, but I feel so hurt and alone when I don’t have your support. Can you help me come up with any other solutions?” 

Focusing on the feelings of hurt and loneliness is important, and it gives your partner an opportunity to respond to your emotions with much less to become defensive about because you’re not attacking, criticizing, or blaming. 

Recognizing triggers

Recognizing your triggers can be one of the most difficult things to do on your own. That is why therapy is so helpful. It’s like sitting in your living room and your therapist can ask you to pick up the rug a little and see what is under there, or behind the couch where you might not have looked in a while. 

Many times couples have perpetual problems that just keep resurfacing and turning into blow-ups. Remembering the saying, “if it’s hysterical, it’s historical,” can be helpful - meaning, if you are having a really big emotional reaction to something, it’s probably a trigger from your past that is resurfacing. 

When you are not in the heat of the moment and can take time to think about the reaction, ask yourself, where have I felt this feeling before?

Many times couples aren’t just responding to one another when they are arguing, but they are having an automatic response that is related to a previous trauma. 

Having a big reaction to a spouse who appears nit-picky can bring up old wounds that come from having a highly critical parent while growing up. Feeling the need to control your partner’s actions may actually be coming from living with an alcoholic parent where life was very unpredictable. You can read more about how trauma can impact your relationship here. 

Once you are able to recognize where your triggers come from, working through them in your own personal therapy or in couples therapy will immensely benefit your relationship. 

What leads to an Affair?

I’ve been thinking a lot this week about how people give themselves permission to have affairs. I know they don’t do it outright - it’s not the first thing their minds jump to. But when I’m sitting with a couple, the betrayed partner always wants to know, how did this happen? 

What I've learned is that there is a cascade of things that happen in the primary relationship before an affair happens, and I want to share a few of those things with you.  

This can help you either look at your own relationship and work on things so you don’t get to that point, or if you’re in the trenches of affair recovery, it will help you understand how you and your partner got there. 

Just as a caveat, I’m in no way blaming the betrayed partner here for their partner’s choice to step outside the relationship. That was their poor choice, and sometimes that choice has nothing to do with them being in an unhappy marriage. (I think that’s important to note before we dive in.)

Before there is even a thought of an affair, many times an erosion begins to happen in the relationship. This erosion chips away at all of the factors that help couples build trust, opening them up for such a vulnerability. 

The erosion begins with feelings of loneliness. Couples stop turning towards one another and reciprocating one another’s bids for connection. Some examples are: when you feel like every time you walk through the door and say hello, your partner is too busy for a hug or a kiss. Or when you invite your partner to sit next to you on the couch, and they miss your subtle gesture and move into another room or on the opposite end of the living room. 

You may be the one missing the bids for connection - your partner begins to talk about their day, but you’re busy scrolling on your phone or checking the scores of last night’s game and don’t even hear what they have to say. 

Those are just a few examples. You or your partner may be reaching out to one another in a bunch of different ways, and not having your bids for connection reciprocated takes a toll. 

When your partner doesn’t reciprocate your bids for connection you make meaning of that, and the meaning that people tend to make is, “I’m not important,” or “what I have to say isn’t important.” When you internalize those types of thoughts, you can start to feel lonely and even stop making those bids for connection. 

The distance between partners grows when no one is reaching out to connect. 

After the connection stops couples can start to live parallel lives. They pass one another, make plans with friends or coworkers, or focus only on their kids. They have logistical communication - where are you going? What time will you be back? What’s for dinner? And stop having the connective type of communication that is so important to keeping marriage strong, “How are you feeling this week? What have you been thinking about?” 

At this point couples can find it difficult to reconnect - sometimes it’s easier to keep focusing on the kids or work  because you don’t know where to begin, or feel timid in making that connection out of fear of rejection. 

At this phase it can start to feel like your partner isn’t there for you. So seeking comfort outside of the relationship through friendships is common, but also dangerous. Spending time out after work, having drinks with colleagues, or staying late at the office begins to feel better than coming home to an empty marriage. 

During this stage, conflict can be high or avoided. When it’s avoided, partners begin to suppress their feelings, and then they tend to have big blow-ups over things that might be insignificant on the surface, but are more indicative of the feelings underneath - “I’m lonely, and I want to connect with you!” But saying those things might just feel too vulnerable. 

When conflict is avoided, self disclosure is also something that is commonly avoided. You no longer want to tell your partner all about your terrible boss, or run through all of the items on your to-do list for the next day because you internalize that they don’t care, or it’s not important. You may even begin to keep secrets from your partner. 

Keeping secrets can begin to happen quite innocently, because it is often done as an attempt to keep from burdening your partner. You might think, “she’s so busy with the kids, she doesn’t want to hear about all my work stress,” or “he’s so stressed with his own work, I don’t need to bore him with my work stresses.” 

You or your partner may then turn outside the relationship and begin confiding in a coworker, or someone who is part of your workout crew at the gym. Things typically start pretty innocently. But the moment you begin minimizing your partner’s positive traits and maximizing their negative ones, it can become a slippery slope. 

Actively looking towards others in an attempt to feel less lonely, more heard, and understood, can lead in all the wrong directions, and an innocent outing with coworkers, can lead to more and more one-on-one time with a member of the opposite sex that you feel connected to.  

I could go on about how that outside relationship can continue to develop, but I’ll stop here. This is where I hope you’ll stop and begin to recognize that looking outside the relationship is not the answer, even when it seems innocent, but it’s a wake up call that you need to do the difficult work to reconnect with your partner.  

Resolving Resentment in Relationships

Audiobooks are my jam - especially when I want to read a book for learning purposes. I love that I can listen while doing something else like driving, cooking or cleaning. This week I’ve been listening to Brené Brown’s newest book, Atlas of the Heart. In it she talks about all the different types of emotions we can experience as human beings. 

One that shows up in so many of the couples I’m working with is resentment, and as I listened, Brené describes resentment as coming from the envy family of emotions. I’ve never actually thought about resentment in terms of envy, but it makes so much sense! 

Resentment in relationships happens when events take place and a partner’s needs aren’t met in some way. You may try to communicate how something made you feel, but it may not have been conveyed in a way they could hear, or it may not have been expressed at all. 

That time your partner didn’t stand up for you when their parents were critical of your parenting, or the many times they didn’t communicate where they were going and who they were with, even though you asked repeatedly for them to do so as a courtesy. 

It could have been something big, or something small that continues to happen and the longer you harbor it, you run the risk of a blow-up later. 

When we think about those examples from a lens of envy, it can be more apparent as to why it’s easy to harbor anger and resentment. Let’s dig a little deeper into those examples: 

Not having your partner stand up for you when you needed them to may be more about the envy that comes up for you as you watch their parents needs be met over your own. 

Frustration over your partner not communicating where they are going and who they are with may be about the envy of them getting their time alone to blow off steam with friends while you’re home with the kids. 

When resentment goes unchecked, you also risk falling into the cycle of negative-sentiment override, which is a concept we use in Gottman therapy in which you begin attributing negativity and negative sentiment to the things your partner expresses to you. Things that may have a neutral or positive connotation begin to be seen as negative. 

For example, your partner may express something like, “I love how your mom did our daughter’s hair, she looks so cute!” And you meet this with, “I know, I never do her hair anymore,” and internalize feelings of inadequacy or interpret the comment as a dig at you rather than a compliment to your mom. 

Responding to your partner with criticism or contempt is a sign that there have been unresolved hurts that have caused resentments. 

Expressing your needs and communicating using “I-statements” can help counteract this pattern. 

Having open dialogue about issues also goes a long way, especially when you are communicating to truly listen to your partner. The best time to have conversations like this is when you’re not in the heat of the moment. Ask your partner to listen while you express calmly how their behavior makes you feel. 

Example: “When we had that conversation with your parents I felt attacked by them. I also felt so hurt and alone when you didn’t stand up for me. I really need you to say something to defend me the next time they are being critical. 

If you’re the listener in the conversation, use active listening to respond to your partner’s feelings and offer an apology. 

Example: “I could see how you’d feel hurt by their criticism. I’m really sorry for not sticking up for you. It was not my intention to make you feel alone, I will offer my opinion if that ever happens again with my parents.” 

Learning how to communicate in this way takes practice, and you might not always get it right, but the more you do it the easier it becomes. 

Bids for Connection: How to make and reciprocate them

How well do you notice when your partner is reaching out to connect with you? 

That process of reaching out to connect is called a bid for connection. 

As human beings we are wired for connection, and in our romantic relationships we want to connect with our partner. I know you’re probably thinking, “duh, Alicia, of course!” 

Even though this concept is incredibly simple, it’s amazing how many couples miss the importance of this, and end up feeling lonely in their relationships. 

As simple as bids for connection are to make, they are just as simple to miss because they happen quickly. (Kind of like when you go to the grocery store and the automatic doors open, and you have a few seconds to get in, or the doors close.)

An example of a bid for connection could be: you and your partner are sitting on the couch, and your partner looks out the window, and says, “wow, there are a lot of birds out there.” 

This is not a relationship altering revelation, it’s just a simple observation but one that your partner sees as a way to connect. 

At that moment you can turn towards your partner by saying something like, “oh, yeah.”  Or you can turn away from your partner which would be something like continuing to scroll on your phone, or keep your gaze focused on the game you’re watching on TV. 

(You don’t even have to physically turn towards your partner, that’s just the language that we use to describe reciprocating bids for connection.)

According to John Gottman, in order to maintain a healthy relationship there needs to be a 5 to 1 ratio when it comes to reciprocating bids for connection; so for every time you turn away from your partner and don’t reciprocate a bid for connection, there needs to be five times that you do. 

Reciprocating your partner’s bids for connection is extremely important because when a person feels like their partner isn’t reciprocating their bids they tend to make meaning of this, and they begin to tell themselves things like, “I guess what I have to say isn’t interesting to my partner,” or, “I am not interesting to my partner.”

After continued missed bids for connection, the person who feels like they aren’t important or interesting stops making bids altogether, and one or both partners begin to feel lonely. 

Loneliness in a marriage is a difficult feeling, and since I work with so many couples recovering from infidelity, it makes me worry because that loneliness can be a slippery slope that allows a person to give themself permission to begin opening up to someone else. 

So, look up.

Acknowledge your partner when they are reaching out to connect to you.

Even if it’s just to point out the flock of birds outside the window. Those little connections are important even if the subject matter really isn’t. 

If you’re finding it difficult to reciprocate your partner’s bids for connection, or you're feeling disconnected because your partner isn’t turning towards you, therapy can help. We help our couples create the safety they need in their relationships to make and reciprocate those bids for connection. Click the link below to book your free 15-minute phone consultation or call us today at (909) 600-0306 and get your relationship back on track.

How Trauma Impacts Marriage

“If it’s hysterical, then it’s historical.” Have you ever heard this saying? Maybe it's just psychology geeks like me who gravitate towards these types of sayings. This is one that has really stuck with me from grad school through the years in my practice. You might be wondering what the heck that even means - well, when someone has a really big reaction to something that doesn’t necessarily warrant that type of reaction it’s usually related to something from the person’s past. Many times it's an indication of something that has also been unresolved. 

As a couples therapist I hear fights about so many different things - things that might seem pretty benign on paper: You didn’t do the dishes! You never text me back quickly enough! You didn’t tell me you were stopping at the store on your way home! 

If you can imagine grown adults having what looks like a tantrum in my office for these above examples, it might seem so ridiculous to you. However, the reason that these things cause such big reactions for people has less to do with the subject matter, and more to do with old wounds and historical traumatic experiences. 

Going to war isn’t the only thing that causes a trauma response although it is one of the quintessential experiences that people tend to imagine and sometimes the only thing people imagine can cause PTSD - but that assumption is outdated and incorrect.

Trauma can be defined as “a deeply distressing or disturbing event,” and emotional trauma is experienced when there is a violation of a person’s familiar ideas about the world and about their human rights. 

Trauma can be difficult to define because it’s really about the way the event is experienced. In Oprah and Dr. Bruce Perry’s book, What Happened to you? They discuss an excellent example of a fire in an elementary school.

For the firefighter on the scene, this was business as usual, and the incident felt controllable and even predictable. For the first grader in that classroom this event caused him to experience minutes of terror, intense fear, confusion, and helplessness. Both are very different experiences, and this is considered a trauma for the child due to his response.  

A recent study by the National Survey of Children’s Health found that almost 50 percent of children in the US have had at least one significant traumatic experience. And the CDC recently reported that 60 percent of American adults report having had at least one adverse childhood experience, or ACE. (You can find out more about the ACEs here)

Events like an infidelity or sudden threat of divorce in relationships can be very emotionally traumatic and people describe experiencing them in terms like, “my world shattered,” or “I felt like the rug was pulled out from under me.” In these examples the relationship that the person believed was stable and secure is turned upside down and unrecognizable.

That sense of security being ripped out and the sense of reality being shattered causes emotional trauma. There are developmental traumas (that happen during childhood), and emotional traumas that can happen at any age. Either type of trauma can impact the relationships closest to us, including our marital relationship. 

When there is an unresolved trauma that comes from childhood, it can rear its ugly head right in the middle of an argument with a partner and cause havoc. That response that’s so big, and seemingly unnecessary, can then touch on your partner’s unresolved trauma causing a tidal wave of emotions to come spewing back. This is typically the reason couples have such difficulty hearing one another and reaching resolutions. 

The conflict often becomes so big that both partners eventually retreat and only come back together when they absolutely need to deal with something together, like parenting their child, or they have to play nice in front of family or friends.   

The argument that is started because your partner had expectations about spending time alone together after a long day can really be about him/her being upset that you haven’t made them a priority. And that need to be high on your priority list may not even be coming from your relationship at all, but from their unresolved need to be prioritized as a child since their mother was often away using drugs and alcohol, and they were left to fend for themselves. 

When both partners have unresolved traumas they can continue to bump heads with each other. One partner may have a deep-seated need to be a priority due to parental abandonment, while the other has a deep need to be independent because they were constantly smothered by an overbearing parent. These two marry one another, and dig their heels in, fight tooth and nail, and continue to go around and around about this seemingly unresolvable issue in the marriage. 

The negativity from something like this can bleed out into other areas of the relationship and erode it over time. 

Couples therapy is a great place to identify how past traumas are showing up in your relationship and can be worked on in that setting, or your therapist might recommend individual therapy in addition to or in place of couples therapy. Either way working to resolve past traumas can be incredibly beneficial to your marriage.