Love is the project in which human beings invest the most energy and motivation to make it successful, but… why does it sometimes fail? Why do we sometimes have the feeling that our partner is becoming a stranger and that we have less and less in common with her? The lack of communication It is one of the most frequent reasons why psychological help is requested. Around 80% of people who go to couples therapy explain that they have poor communication, that they have stopped understanding each other and that fights have become more frequent. “We hardly talk, I don’t know what to say to him”, “we have more and more silences”, “I no longer talk to him about my work because I think he won’t understand me”… Who hasn’t, at some point, felt like this?
In this PsicologíaOnline article, we talk about the causes, symptoms and solutions of lack of communication in a couple.
Causes of lack of communication in a couple
Ruth Bebermeyer wrote a poem that, in my opinion, reflects very well the lack of communication:
“I feel that your words sentence me, that they judge me and that they separate me from you, but before I leave, I have to know if that is what you want to tell me. Before I stand up for myself, before I speak hurt or scared, before I put up that wall of words, I want to know if I have truly heard. “Words are windows or walls, they condemn us or liberate us.”
If we find ourselves in a relationship in which communication is impaired, the first thing we should do is ask ourselves how we got to that point. Robert J. Sternberg proposes some causes that explain the why there is no communication in the couple:
- It may be because both our partner and we have acquired the habit of not talking much or of only sharing and discussing issues that we consider important.
- Perhaps we do not want to express emotions and feelings to our partner for fear of their reaction, since they are delicate issues, such as doubts about the relationship, some criticism about their way of acting, something that we do not like about them… so we should keep quiet. , in the short term it is more beneficial, since we will be able to avoid a fight.
- Another reason would be to think that what we are going to tell our partner is not going to seem important or that they are not going to understand us directly, so we choose not to tell them.
Other factors that can affect communication between couples may be: the years of relationship, the presence of sons and daughters (so we stop talking about ourselves to pay full attention to our offspring), stress from work. , the pace of life and the lack of leisure time to share exclusively with our partner.
What is a relationship like without communication?
Various authors such as Juan Capafons, Mª Dolores Sosa or Jacques Salomé and Sylvie Galland, propose a series of processes that couples with dysfunctional communication carry out:
- We are more sensitive to negative information, that is, we pay more attention to a criticism than to ten compliments our partner gives us.
- We practice inferences: “I assumed you meant…”, “I thought you didn’t care”, “I thought you didn’t love me anymore”… we draw conclusions without our partner giving us information.
- We project our own desires and tastes onto the couple: “I thought you would like to go to the countryside on Sunday.”
- We misinterpret non-verbal language. It means that we deduce information from a gesture, a look, a face… that our partner makes.
- We practice a higher number of negative verbal behaviors, such as teasing, complaints, disrespect, use of a high tone of voice, excessive criticism…
- We spend very little time (or almost none) listening to the couple. We prefer to convince her of our opinion or idea rather than listen to what she wants to tell us.
- Closely related to the previous one is the fact that we are more aware of what we are going to say than what our partner wants to tell us.
- Pride and resentment. Not having solved previous problems, feelings of revenge or anger and the desire to be above our partner, causes communication to weaken. These processes cause our relationship to deteriorate, becoming a source of unhappiness that many couples express in consultation.
How to improve communication in a couple? – solutions
Recovering healthy communication is possible and enjoying a conversation with your partner again is something that can be practiced again. There are a series of “communication facilitators” that if we put them into practice, we will see how little by little our dialogue and our relationship will improve. They are the following:
- Find a suitable time and place, not talking about our problems when we are in the supermarket shopping, or when we are driving or five minutes before leaving for work. We have to find time for ourselves, in which we are not angry and can express what we think and feel, trying to ensure that there are as few interruptions as possible.
- Send messages that are specificIf we ask our partner to change some aspect, we cannot formulate it in an abstract, vague and imprecise way, for example: “you never have time for me.” It might be the same if we send a message such as: “I would like us to spend more time together, we could have dinner from 10 to 11 when the children are sleeping and that way we can chat in a relaxed manner.” This last objective is concrete and specific, so its achievement will be much easier and more achievable.
- Be brief. Use short and clear sentences. People who go around in circles, revel in the talk and lengthen it, cause the other person’s listening capacity to decrease, so our partner will not be able to maintain attention and will disconnect from our speech at some point.
- Delete words of which we tend to abuse, such as “Always”, “Never”, “Nothing”, “Everything”… It is more advisable to use expressions such as: “On certain occasions…” “Usually…”.
- Be flexible and accept constructive criticism, whether partial or total. It is advisable to collect criticism to improve, interpret it as a way for our relationship to be of higher quality.
- Use positive language to express our desires, feelings… for example: “I would like to…”, “it would be great if…”
- reach agreementstry to find a balance between the two: “what do you think if…?”, “what if we try to do…?”, we will be able to increase the union with the couple and the complicity, as well as the feeling of belonging to the same team (we are not enemies).
- And finally, express what we DO LIKE about our partner. We make it very clear what we don’t like, as well as the demands and duties, but what made us fall in love with that person, what makes them special… we take it for granted and we don’t let our partner see it, nor do we remind ourselves. to ourselves. It is very positive to convey what dazzles us about our partner: “I like the way you look at me”, “I love the way you kiss me”, “I like your hands”…
Love alone is not enough, the relationship must be built day after day, and one of the means that human beings have to express and receive Love is the word. Our partner is not a “fortune teller” and many people have this distorted idea of Love, they think that if their partners love them, they must know their desires and anticipate them, and they interpret that if this is not the case, it is because they do not love them. This is a serious mistake, since if we do not express what we want and what we do not want, our partner will not know.
Communication can become a space in which we can express, understand and share our life and emotions, as well as those of our partner. It allows us to move forward, grow and meet the person we fell in love with and one day made us special.
This article is merely informative, at Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
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