“That’s Not What I Meant!”
How To Communicate With Your Partner
From Matthew Rippeyoung, MA
Psychologist (Candidate Register)
Couples seek counselling for a variety of reasons: affairs,
no longer feeling “in love,” feeling tired of having the
same argument over and over for years, or sometimes
the couple faces a stressful event that one or both parties
can’t accept. Whether couples are married, dating or
significantly partnered, or whether they are heterosexual or
homosexual, I have found in my 10 years of practice with
couples that often a significant problem isn’t what people
are arguing about, but how and why they’re doing it.
The way we identify or “frame” a problem has a lot to
do with the possible solutions that we might generate. I
encourage couples to begin by trying to better understand
why they are arguing in the first place. What is the
problem and what’s the meaning of the conflict? For
example, a couple may seek out therapy because one
person had an affair. One way to frame the problem is
that one partner broke the wedding vows by sleeping
with someone else. Another way to frame that problem
is that there has been a loss of a connection between
the couple that has resulted in an affair. If we choose to
look at the situation from the first position, the problem
is one about sex, and is really up to one person to solve
or make changes about. If we choose to look at the
situation from the second position, there’s more room
for each partner to re-evaluate what they are (or are
not) bringing to the relationship, thereby allowing for
both partners to better understand how an affair could
happen in their relationship, given that it is unlikely
either party would wish for an affair to happen in the
first place. By increasing their joint understanding of the
issues at play, a couple has a greater chance at building a
stronger relationship for the future. Also, it is in a better
understanding where some couples mutually decide to
end their relationship and can move on without feeling a
sense of guilt or regret.
Regularly, couples are coming at problems from very
different viewpoints and each person is struggling to
feel heard by their partner. Understanding and agreeing
with one another are two very different concepts. Many
conflicts that bring people to couples’ therapy involve a
genuine lack of understanding between partners. When
one person is not feeling heard, there can be a tendency
for each partner to become firmer in his/her own stance
(or “polarized”), which leads to further communication
breakdown. Each person can become defensive because
they feel they aren’t being listened to, or their perspective
isn’t being acknowledged, and so each person just
reiterates their point in the hopes that his/her partner will
say, “Oh! I get it now! You’re right!”
I have found it to be more helpful for each person to be
able to re-state their partner’s position, in their own words,
but from their partner’s perspective, which allows for both
people to at least feel understood. Sometimes this leads to
agreement, while other times it leads to statements like, “I
can see why you would feel that way, but that’s not what
I meant,” or, “Well it makes sense that you would think
that, but this is really what I was trying to do.” Clarifying
understanding can allow for less defensiveness if both partners feel like they will be understood, and then a
compromise of some sort might be reachable.
When a couple understands each other better, they can
spend more time resolving a conflict together, rather than
spending time trying to justify their own feelings, and
possibly arguing about two different issues that might
sound initially like they’re the same, but actually quite
different. In the example above regarding an affair, a
couple can remain polarized if the “offended party”
maintains only that infidelity is wrong and the “offending
party” holds on to the idea, “you made me cheat because
of X.” There are at least two issues at play here, but both
parties might be able to at least initially agree that cheating
on a partner was not part of the initial agreement between
them. When the couple can come to understand what led
to the behaviour and how each person has experienced
the relationship, there can also be more room for a more
realistic view of the path forward.
Trying to re-state your partner’s thoughts, beliefs and
feelings is not a practice that only “couples in trouble”
can benefit from. This is a more general relationship skill
that can help any two people who are trying to resolve
a conflict do so more effectively. The key to making
this work involves having two motivated people who
genuinely want to improve the current situation and who
trust each other enough to believe what is said. Often in
this process, people change their initial statements, but this
occurs more out of a greater self-understanding, rather
than an intention for deception. Sometimes it isn’t until
we’ve actually heard ourselves say something aloud that
we really understand what we’re saying, and we may not
always get what we mean across on the first try. Trying to
resolve conflict through understanding it first can allow us
to be more effective in all of our important relationships.
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