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The Do's and Don'ts of Communicating with Your Partner


Improving communication is a proven intervention for improving relationships and entails not only learning how to address negative issues in a relationship but also how to consistently express positive feelings to each other. When you communicate, you are doing one of three things:

1. Speaking: Sending a message or sharing your thoughts or feelings.
2. Listening: Hearing and paying attention to what the other person is telling you.
3. Responding: Replying or answering back to your partner after listening to them.

Failure to communicate can be due to a problem at any or all of these processes of communication. Below are some guidelines to improve your communication skills (Duggal, 2018):

Improving Speaking Skills 

  • Establish eye contact and maintain eye contact with your partner to ensure that they have your attention.
  • Speak in clear and direct fashion. Don’t beat around the bush and play games.
  • Make sure that what you are communicating is in line with your non-verbal communication – tone and volume of your voice and your body language.
  • Ask for feedback to ensure the message was accurately received by your partner.
  • Avoid the temptation of interpreting your partner’s behavior and telling them what you think their problem is. Concentrate on expressing your own feelings as they arise in the dialogue – fear, resentment, appreciation, anxiety, etc.
  • Use “I” statements (“I feel X when you do Y in situation Z”) to share your feelings and thoughts. “You” messages come across as parental or judgmental and usually elicit a defensive response from your partner. When there is no need to defend, there is more openness and more information flows through.
  • Beware of the “pseudo-I” statements. These statements are accusations or blame under the guise of “I” statements. For example, “I feel you are being selfish,” or “I feel you are a jerk.”
  • Don’t confuse “I feel…” statements with “I feel that…” statements. When you add the word “that,” then what follows is not a feeling, but a judging statement usually directed at the other person.
  • Stay in here and now. Don’t bring up issues from the past in your present conversation and be specific about events, feelings, and people involved now.
  • Avoid generalizing words such as “always” or “never” as they add to confusion about what is being communicated. For example, when you say, “you are always watching television when you come home from work,” are you implying that your partner should watch television less often, or are you implying that your partner spend more time doing something else other than watching television, or are you implying that your partner should spend more time with you.
  • Try to communicate the “feeling behind the feeling.” For instance, a partner may say, “You never take time to check with me on how I have been doing at work. You are only concerned about yourself. Well, I am sick of it.” The feelings that are being communicated in these statements are of frustration, resentment, and blame. However, the underlying feelings may be those of feeling lonely and unappreciated. Restated, this communication would be on the lines, “I feel lonely and unappreciated when you don’t take the time to check on how I have been doing at work.”
  • Ask and state what you want and do not expect your partner to know intuitively what you feel or need.
  • Change your statement of resentment into a demand. For instance, “I resent being left with all the clean up after the guests leave” translates into, “I want you to help me clean up.”
  • When talking about your partner, state your feelings about your partner, not just about an event or a situation.
  • Speak in turns – limit your message to one main idea with elaboration and then let your partner respond.
  • If you are asking for help, don’t hedge your request with statements like, “I know this is asking a lot…” or “I am sorry to have to ask you, but...” or “I know this is the last thing you want to do, but I need…” Hedging makes the other person react more defensively in their mind, “Gosh, what’s he going to ask for that’s so much, anyway?” Be specific about what help you are requesting to avoid misunderstanding and a premature negative reaction from your partner.

Improving Listening Skills

  • Face your partner and maintain eye contact.
  • Use your tone of voice, facial expression, and posture to tell your partner that you are paying attention to what they are saying.
  • Acknowledge that you are hearing your partner using simple gestures as “uh huh.”
  • Notice for signs if the person has more on their mind than words are expressing. Is their voice wavering? Are they struggling to find the right words? Do you see any signs of body tension? Do they seem distracted?
  • Wait for your partner to complete a thought without interrupting to express your own ideas.
  • Rather than thinking about a solution or coming up with an opinion, put yourself in your partner’s shoes and try to look at the situation from their perspective – how they think and feel about the issue. You have to relate to the feelings before you can understand the facts.
  • People express themselves differently based on their cultural background, how they were raised, where they were born, gender, and also the kind of work they do. For example, women tend to ask more personal questions to show interest and form relationships, whereas men are more likely to interrupt, offer opinions and suggestions, and state facts in conversations. People of certain cultures may not see you in the eye as a sign of respect. By acknowledging and accepting these differences, you can reduce misunderstandings, frustrations, and resentment that you experience in your communication with your partner.

Improving Responding Skills

  • If you are not sure you understood the message, ask questions and seek clarification. These are “what” and “how” questions and not “why” questions as the latter lead to analyzing and rationalizing without addressing the problem on hand.
  • Don’t ask any questions other than those for clarification, especially opinions that are masked as questions. For example, “Don’t you think we will enjoy going to the movies more than the dinner?”
  • After your partner has finished speaking, summarize and restate what their feelings, desires, conflicts, and thoughts are about the issue. Use statements starting with “You are saying” or “You are feeling” or “You are thinking.” This is done without editorializing, judging, or interpreting and helps clear any ambiguities in the message received.
  • Don’t express your own viewpoint or opinion.
  • Don’t offer solutions to attempt to solve a problem, if one exists.
  • Don’t attach new meanings or make judgments on what your partner has said.
  • If you notice that the body language and words of your partner don’t match, gently point this out to your partner. For example, you might say, “Dear, I hear you saying that you would like to go for the movie tonight, but you look tired and you are yawning as you speak. Would you prefer if we go some other day?”
  • If you feel that a discussion is getting off the topic and the emotions are running high, then ask for time to think about the issue and respond later. For example, you may say, “I think I understand your concerns, but I need more time to think about it before I can respond.” Or, “I hear what you are saying, but I am too frustrated to respond now. I need to find out more information about this before I can answer you.”
A word of caution about improving communication is that interventions that improve communication are successful in moving only about 50% of couples from distressed to non-distressed state and may not work for the following couples (Gordon et al., 1999):
  • Couples who do not desire to share a great deal with each other
  • Couples who do not feel the need to resolve all the conflicts
  • Couples who have decided that one person will make all or most of the decisions
  • Couples who do not believe that having a great deal of intimate and equitable communication is important for marital adjustment
Adapted from the book The Happiness Guide to Self-Management of Depression

HARPREET S. DUGGAL, MD, FAPA

REFERENCES

Duggal, H.S. (2018). The happiness guide to self-management of depression. Bloomington, IN: Archway Publishing.

Gordon, K. C., Baucom, D. H., Epstein, N., Burnett, C. K., & Rankin, L. A. (1999). The interaction between marital standards and communication patterns: how does it contribute to marital adjustment? Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 25(2), 211-223.


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