Creating, maintaining, and strengthening a relationship isn’t always easy. People don’t come with instruction manuals and every person is different with their own unique needs. How then do we best learn the way to make ourselves and our partner happy while maintaining everything else in our lives?
Though it may sound cliche, the key is almost always communication. Communication is a two way street, and one of the most common blunders that people make is simply failing to listen to the other person – talking “at” them rather than “to” them. On the other side of the fence from the person who talks without hearing, there is the person who struggles to speak their needs. They may feel like their needs are unimportant, like they would only be burdening their partner with them, or may feel guilty for even having needs at all. An ideal solution is for both people to learn to communicate more effectively, and usually more frequently as well. Silence is only golden when all the people inside it are comfortable.
Other common issues include people displacing frustrations from other parts of their lives on their partners. The common phrase “don’t take it out on me” is applicable here, but for the other person to have the courage and awareness to say something to that effect at the time is not easy. It requires both not reacting to the content of the initial barrage and being able to calmly tell the other person how you feel. So an example of ineffective communication from both parties could look like this:
Chris: You still haven’t taken out the garbage! I’ve asked you a thousand times, why don’t you ever listen?
Alex: What do you mean I never listen? We just went to your mother’s place yesterday, all I did was listen!
Chris: So you don’t like visiting my mother?
While more effective communication from both parties would be:
Chris: Alex, I feel like you don’t care about me when I ask you to take out the garbage many times and you still don’t do it.
Alex: I’m sorry, it’s true I have been preoccupied with other things but I never meant to make you feel like you don’t matter to me. I will take out the garbage right now and more promptly in the future.
Chris: Thank you. I’m sorry if I snapped at you about it earlier.
These are simple examples and many times the issues can be more complicated or even rooted in issues going as far back as childhood that the person may be totally unaware of. Psychotherapy for individuals or couples can help the situation by providing a neutral third-party as well as helping to isolate the root causes for reoccurring disputes or arguments. If you are seeking psychotherapy for any of these issues, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me for a free phone consultation.