Most couples who come to therapy are not short of communication. They have been communicating about the same thing for four years, in slightly different words, with the same ending every time. What is missing is not more talking. It is a different shape to it.
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Listen to understand, not to reply
There is a particular kind of listening where you are not listening at all, you are waiting. Loading the counterexample. Most arguments are two people doing this at each other, at speed, and neither of them has heard a word since the first sentence.
The fix is dull and it works. Before you respond, say back what you understood them to mean. Not a performance of it, an actual attempt. You will be wrong more often than you expect, and being wrong out loud is what stops the argument in its tracks.
The fix is dull and it works. Before you respond, say back what you understood them to mean. Not a performance of it, an actual attempt. You will be wrong more often than you expect, and being wrong out loud is what stops the argument in its tracks.
Say the thing, in the first person
Most complaints arrive as a verdict about the other person, when they started life as a feeling about yourself. “You never help” was, before it left the building, “I am exhausted and I feel like I am doing this alone.” The second one is true, specific, and almost impossible to argue with. The first one is a court case.
- Start with I feel, not you always
- Be specific about what actually happened and what you need instead
- Lead with the feeling, not the accusation
- Do not expect them to reconstruct it from your tone
- Stay on this week’s problem, not the one from 2019
None of this makes you a pushover. It makes you legible, which is a prerequisite for being taken seriously.
Pick the moment
Nothing important should be raised after ten at night, in a car park, or in the eleven minutes before someone leaves for work. Not because the topic is not urgent, but because a tired, cornered, half-dressed person cannot have this conversation and will not.
Ask for the conversation before you have it. “Can we talk about the money thing tomorrow evening?” is a small sentence that prevents an enormous number of fights. It gives them the dignity of arriving prepared.
Ask for the conversation before you have it. “Can we talk about the money thing tomorrow evening?” is a small sentence that prevents an enormous number of fights. It gives them the dignity of arriving prepared.
Fight the problem, not each other
Stay curious about their side, even when you are certain. Take your part of it before you list theirs. Avoid always and never, which are almost never true and exist only to escalate.
And notice when the fight has stopped being about the dishes. If you have been going for forty minutes over something that would take four minutes to solve, the dishes are not the subject. Something older is, and it will keep coming back until it is named.
And notice when the fight has stopped being about the dishes. If you have been going for forty minutes over something that would take four minutes to solve, the dishes are not the subject. Something older is, and it will keep coming back until it is named.
Say the small good things out loud
Couples who are struggling do not usually stop loving each other. They stop mentioning it. The gratitude goes internal, the criticism stays external, and after a year the only feedback either person gets is negative.
Say the small thing. That you noticed. That it helped. That you are glad they are here. It sounds like it should not matter that much, and the research on relationship stability suggests it matters more than almost anything else you could do this week.
Say the small thing. That you noticed. That it helped. That you are glad they are here. It sounds like it should not matter that much, and the research on relationship stability suggests it matters more than almost anything else you could do this week.
Bringing it all together
Listen properly. Speak in the first person. Choose the moment. Attack the problem instead of each other. Say the good things out loud. None of it is complicated, and all of it is difficult, which is why couples therapy exists.
If you are having the same argument on a loop and cannot find the exit, that is precisely what a third person in the room is for. It is not a last resort. It is usually a lot earlier than people think.
If you are having the same argument on a loop and cannot find the exit, that is precisely what a third person in the room is for. It is not a last resort. It is usually a lot earlier than people think.
