Michael wasn’t really listening to his wife. He might have thought his quick reply (“I understand what you’re saying but…”) proved his attentiveness, but what it really showed was that he was fully absorbed in his own perspective, with little room for his wife’s viewpoint.

Telling your partner/spouse, “I understand” is miles from demonstrating an understanding—making the speaker feel understood.

During the process of effective communication, the intention and goal of both parties should be the creation of mutual understanding, even when couples don’t see eye-to-eye on what is being discussed. How this is accomplished falls squarely on the shoulders of effective listening.

Relationship Help: The ABCs of Effective Listening

All communication involves a speaker and listening. And to be effective in each of these roles, certain guidelines need to be followed for meaningful dialog to occur. When couples throw caution to the wind and allow emotions to steer what is said (and how it is said), breakdowns in communication are more likely.

In my ABCs of Effective Communication Workbook, I break down the listening process into easy-to-remember steps to enhance communication success. Let’s turn briefly to the “C” in the ABCs of effective listening.

Once the speaker delivers his/her message, there are two steps (“Cs”) the listener can follow in order to facilitate deep understanding. These are:

(C)onfirmation: Here the listener confirms what the speaker has said. Harville Hendrix calls this listening process “mirroring,” which means that the listener mirrors back what s/he just heard from the speaker. Confirming the speaker’s message allows the speaker greater confidence that the listener is in fact really listening and has accurately captured the meaning of the message.

Confirmation creates a bridge between the speaker and listener, making the speaker feel more secure that the listener cares about her/his concerns and interests.

(C)uriosity: I often encourage the listener to then ask questions (if needed, after confirmation has occurred) to better enhance his/her understanding or address concerns that the speaker may have. Genuine questions of curiosity (“How long have you been feeling this way?”; “How have I been contributing to you feeling this way?”; “Is there anything I can do to help with this?”) deepens the speaker’s experience of being listened to and cared for—these types of questions send the speaker the message that s/he matters to the speaker.

Learning any new skill requires patience and practice in order for the skill to take hold. So I want to encourage you and your partner to practice the listening skill of confirmation and curiosity. The goal is to make these relationship skills a new part of your communication toolbox.

Intimate relationships thrive on emotional safety. The more each partner feels they can turn towards each other, seek shelter in each other from the storms of life, the greater the security. When I work with couples, I look for not only their relationship strengths but the unmet needs showing themselves in the myriad of ways (often not obvious) that they can. Infidelity in a relationship can be the last stop in a line of fractured points along the way.

As important as it is to know how to build and strengthen a relationship, it’s also critical to understand what can severely undermine it. In John Gottman’s latest book , What Makes Love Last: How to Rebuild Trust and Avoid Betrayal, he talks about the damage of a lack of trust in one another and how that actually comes about. Heavily based on research done in his “love labs,” Gottman has created a list of the most unhelpful behaviors that can lead to the demise of your relationship.

10 Ways to Betray Your Relationship (Other Than Infidelity)

1. Conditional Commitment: You or your partner are keeping your eyes open for something “better.”
2. A Nonsexual Affair: Consider any actions taken with someone other than your partner that you would be uncomfortable with them seeing. This is your signal that you are crossing the line.
3. Lying: Being dishonest will erode the safety in your relationship. Whether it’s straight forward deceit or lies to avoid conflict, they can be toxic.
4. Forming a Coalition Against the Partner: Whether it’s a parent or friend, ganging up on your partner will not be received well. The relationship can feel less collaborative and more “you against me.”
5. Absenteeism or Coldness: Failing to prioritize each other at a time of emotional needs can have a devastating impact. Whether failing to support during highly stressful events or consistently missing opportunities to turn towards each other during the rigors of life, both are destructive.
6. Withdrawal of Sexual Interest: Though some couples report that a decrease in sex isn’t harmful to their satisfaction together, if it’s not addressed productively it can be wounding.
7. Disrespect: What encapsulates this for me is a quote by John Gottman…”A loving relationship is not about one person having the upper hand – it’s about holding hands.”
8. Unfairness: Going back on promises made on big life decisions is one of the biggest ways couples can feel slighted. Other common issues are around finances and housework.
9. Selfishness: When one partner lives mostly in a “me” vs “we” paradaigm, me-centered behaviors can negatively impact the relationship.
10. Breaking Promises: A pattern of disappointments around broken or unfulfilled promises can undermine trust between the couple. The person engaged in breaking promises can inadvertently send the message, “You don’t matter.”

Most couples begin their relationships wanting it to work. Their intentions are good. Just as it takes time to build confidence and safety in each other, the unraveling of trust can happen over a long period as well. Staying aware of doing things to strengthen your relationship, as well as staying aware of things that can destroy the relationship are doing your due diligence in being the best you can be together.

Lisa Brookes Kift is a marriage and family therapist, and creator of The Toolbox at LisaKiftTherapy.com, providing tools for marriage, relationship and emotional health. She is a frequent consultant for the media and has been interviewed, quoted or has appeared in numerous publications and online news sources including CNN.com, HuffingtonPost.com and Martha Stewart Weddings Magazine. Lisa has an individual and couples therapy practice in Larkspur, Marin County, CA.

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Rich Nicastro, Ph.D. is a psychologist specializing in marital/relationship issues and creator of www.StrengthenYourRelationship.com. If you’d like to become a guest expert on his website, please feel free to contact Dr. Nicastro.

Relationship Help Quick Tip

Couples are continuously assessing the state of their marriage or relationship—even if we’re not fully aware that this is occurring.

The specifics of how we do this varies from couple to couple, but relationship assessment usually centers around a pattern of feelings we have that either indicate our relationship is working well or, inversely, that the relationship is off-kilter in some manner.

Statements like, “I feel so supported and cared for by you”; “When you do that it makes me feel like I matter to you”; or “You’ve been distant lately, I feel so alone”; “You never help pick up after yourself, it’s just so unfair!” are examples of how our emotions are used by us as a barometer about our marriage/relationship (or some aspect of our relationship).

Our feelings are a beacon—when listened to they direct our attention, guiding us to examine areas of our relationship and our lives; they inform us about what we need and what is working (they enrich experiences with vibrancy and meaning), and they also highlight where change may be needed.

When Considering Your Feelings…

When using your feelings (especially negative emotions) to assess whether your relationship is meeting your needs or not, it’s important to keep in mind the following:

1) Are these negative feelings a result of a pattern of behavior/interactions in your marriage/relationship that are troublesome to you? Can you objectively identify the pattern and explain why it doesn’t work for you?

2) Is it possible that dissatisfaction in some other area of your life is coloring your experience of the relationship? (For instance: feeling unhappy with yourself in some way, feeling isolated because of a lack of support/friends outside the relationship, a stalled career, family conflicts, unexpressed creative needs, etc.)

(For a more detailed exploration of this important issue, see my article: Marriage Help: Unhappily Married or Unhappy and Married?)

3) What is the likelihood that your feelings/reactions to your spouse/partner are being impacted by unresolved wounds or conditioned responses from your past?

4) Can your feelings possibly stem from an underlying psychiatric or medical condition that isn’t being addressed (depression, thyroid/hormonal imbalance)?

Don’t Make Your Attempted Solution the Problem

If you are confident that your feelings are an accurate reflection of a particular relationship issue that needs to be addressed (#1 above), the next step is to effectively communicate what you are needing from your spouse/partner. Spouses/partners need to periodically give each other feedback about what is working in the relationship, in addition to what isn’t working. In short, don’t just focus on the negative (too many couples fail to reinforce what is working in their relationship through expressions of appreciation and gratitude).

Frequently when we are troubled by something our partner is doing (or not doing), we end up communicating this important feedback in a way that triggers defensiveness in our partner rather than the openness we were hoping for. How you verbally package your message can make all the difference between a meaningful exchange and a frustrating breakdown in communication.

So when your feelings suggest that a discussion to address a particular issue is warranted, the feedback about what isn’t working needs to occur without attacking/criticalness, without sweeping over-generalizations (“you always….”; “you never…”) and without picking apart everything your partner does. Keep your feedback focused on the specific behavior you want changed and discuss why you want it changed (“When you do ‘X,’ I feel ‘Y’”).

And finally, don’t forget to name the positive impact this change will have on you (“If you help out more around the house, I know I’ll feel less angry and more willing to do things together”). This will give your partner an even greater incentive to follow through on your request.

Q: It seems like every relationship book I pick up talks about how important communication skills are for a successful relationship. I’ve also read that couples should find shared activities so they don’t grow apart. Is there anything else that couples need to know about improving their relationship that isn’t so obvious? ~Benjamin, Santa Fe

A: Thanks for your question. One of the less obvious but essential couples’ skills is the ability for each spouse/partner to self-reflect and observe their experiences and reactions. Self-reflection (as well as relationship reflection) is the capacity to take a small step outside the perimeter of your reaction in order to observe the unfolding of the experience itself. Easier said than done!!

Periodic self-reflection can go a long way in fostering marriage and relationship enhancement.

To reflect in this way ideally allows us to be both in the experience and a dispassionate witness to what is unfolding within us and around us. In short, while in self-reflective mode, we cannot over-identify with and rigidly hold onto the experience being reflected upon.

The process of self-reflection changes the very nature of the experience itself—this is especially the case when we realize that our experiences/reactions (our thoughts, interpretations, feelings) are inherently biased—a result not of the events themselves, but of the meaning attributed to these events.

The construction of meaning is influenced by our personality style, values, intentions, self-image, emotional vulnerabilities and conflicts, etc.

In short, the multifaceted layers of who we are shape our experiences and reactions to our spouse/partner in profound ways. When this goes unacknowledged, when we assume our feelings are indisputable truths that are caused exclusively by others (an unreasonable wife, a demanding boyfriend, an emotionally unavailable husband), then we remain passive, helpless victims. Learning, self-growth and relationship growth grind to a halt when this occurs.

Self-Reflection Versus Defensiveness

Of course, our ability to be mindful isn’t always easy. Holding up a mirror to oneself (and the discernment this allows) is challenged when we’re under the sway of intense feelings—in these moments it’s as if we get pulled under the currents of emotion, unable to separate the reflective-self out from what we are experiencing (the experiencing-self).

This level of emotionality narrows our perspective, slamming the door on a wider range of possibilities and therefore preventing us from examining our own reactions. In these instances, a defensiveness that propels us to emotionally strike out or recoil is more likely to take hold.

Marriage/Relationship Help Action Step

While the ability to self-reflect isn’t always a given, the willingness to practice and make this skill a regular part of your life and relationship is in your power. The relationship benefits are significant:

• Greater self knowledge (a better understanding of our emotional vulnerabilities and strengths);
• Reduced defensiveness and emotional reactivity;
• Clarity about what our spouse/partner is needing from us;
• A greater capacity to be emotionally present (rather than emotionally distracted or overwhelmed).

I often encourage couples to ask themselves the following questions (these questions help to exercise our self-reflection muscle):

In this moment, why am I having this particular reaction rather than the many other reactions I could be having? (For instance, you might ask yourself why you are feeling anger rather than sadness or compassion in the moment.)

What am I currently telling myself (about my partner or others) that feeds this reaction?

If I weren’t allowed to have the reaction I’m having, what do I imagine I’d be thinking/feeling?

Do you ever give to yourself what you so desperately seek from your spouse or partner?

When we are children, our psychological and emotional development overwhelmingly depends upon others—our caregivers need to feed us literally and emotionally. The emotional feeding is hopefully delivered through predictable/consistent love, attention and responsiveness. Our caregivers’ part in the unfolding relationship molds us in profound ways, setting the stage for how we relate to ourselves and, ultimately, how we relate to others.

So from the beginning of life our emotional comfort comes initially from outside sources (the attention, words and touch from our parents act as an emotional balm that soothes and quiets our longing for connection as well as our distress). When others are experienced as reliably available during our childhood, we form deep-seated expectations that others are (or can be) emotionally safe, that they are a potential source of comfort for us when we’re in need.

You see this level of emotional security in people who comfortably (non-anxiously) reach out and say to their spouses/partners or friends, “Something happened that is troubling me and I need to talk… Are you available?” Here the expectation exists that one’s needs will be listened to, taken seriously and possibly met by the other.

In psychology this type of relating is called secure attachment (by and large you feel emotionally secure in your relationship).

Emotional Comfort from Others Leads to the Ability for Self-Comfort

Ideally, the emotional attunement and comfort offered by others early on in our lives allows us, over time, to attend to our own needs and emotions—we internalize the comforting and loving presence of others; they become an integral part of our own inner emotional landscape. So when we feel something intensely, their inner presence offers the same type of comfort that was once offered by them while relating to us.

Increasing emotional self-reliance does not, of course, replace the need or desire for others, but it does give us more options and greater flexibility in how we act and react.

Without the capacity to make sense of our own feelings and without the capacity to self-soothe, the potential for emotional reactivity is always close at hand—in a sense we remain prisoners of our own reactions without the ability to take perspective and step back from what is unfolding around us and within us. Mindfulness is one means to achieve this—to observe our experiences without being pulled under by their intensity.

Relationship Advice: Finding the Right Balance for Your Relationship

Too often couples relate to each other in a state of emotional reactivity or overwhelm—rather than taking the time to self-soothe and find one’s emotional footing (and therefore gain perspective). Marital and relationship conflicts are often the result of us quickly reacting and interacting out of emotional insecurities (and anxieties) in a desperate attempt to get our partner/spouse to comfort us the way our parents once did.

Most of us are probably familiar with this way of relating—during states of heightened emotional need, our partners become more central in helping us reclaim the calm waters of emotional stability. But too often, our approach pushes our partner further away, building distance between us that deepens our relationship insecurities.

The more intense our distress or insecurities, the greater our need for comfort. We all have preferred ways of coping with stress and distress: Some of us favor going inward to find our emotional footing, while for others, seeking comfort and reassurance from another is the fallback position.

Achieving balance between self-reliance (e.g., self-soothing) and other-reliance (emotionally leaning on your partner/spouse for emotional comfort) allows greater flexibility that allows couples the ability to navigate the relationship challenges and stresses of life we all face. To never rely on your partner for emotional comfort or to exclusively rely on him/her at the exclusion of self-care, creates an imbalance that can tax the relationship.

The goal is to find what works best for you and your partner (there is no one-size-fits-all approach—some couples utilize self-reliant strategies more frequently, some prefer relying more exclusively on their partner for comfort, yet others go back and forth between self-and-other comfort depending on the life circumstances faced).

Strengthen Your Marriage/Relationship Action Step:

Have you achieved what feels like a healthy balance between self-soothing and reaching out to your spouse/partner for emotional comfort?

What allows you greater emotional footing and the ability to take perspective rather than emotional reactivity and defensiveness?

A deep emotional connection and sense of relationship security can only grow in the soil of mutual commitment.

Without commitment, you can never fully feel emotionally secure in your marriage/relationship. Yet for many couples, numerous expectations of commitment often exist that have not been articulated and only become apparent until something goes awry—until an expectation for a particular type of commitment has been challenged or violated.

Marriage/Relationship Help: 4 Areas of Relationship Commitment

1) Sexual and Emotional Monogamy
The most obvious commitment centers around faithfulness—the expectation that you and your partner will be emotionally and sexually exclusive. Frequently, couples find that the criterion for emotional monogamy is more difficult to define then sexual monogamy, and this clearly is an area of commitment that should be discussed. Don’t wait to feel betrayed to make emotional monogamy a part of the communication landscape of your relationship.

• What would constitute a violation in emotional monogamy for you and your partner?
• What does emotional monogamy mean to you and your spouse/partner?

2) Communication, Transparency and Emotional Sharing
Couples assume that keeping secrets is not part of the relationship commitment package; whether spoken or not, each person usually holds the expectation that emotional sharing will occur, that each will speak their truths even when difficult to do so. This is what is meant of transparency—you each become an open book for the other to discover. But often this expectation is violated when communication falters, when one or both partners disengage from their commitment to open communication and, as a result, emotional isolation takes hold of the marriage/relationship.

• What are your relationship expectations about emotional transparency and sharing?
• How often do you and your partner discuss this area of your relationship?

3) Emotional and Sexual Intimacy
Couples want emotional closeness and a fulfilling sexual relationship despite too often acting in ways that undermine these types of intimacy. Whether spoken or not, we all have expectations about what intimacy is and what it looks like—and often these expectations are the result of what we observed/internalized from our caregivers growing up. Commitment to this area of your relationship doesn’t always naturally flow from a commitment to emotional and sexual exclusivity. Frequently, couples expect monogamy while simultaneously failing to nurture what they insist cannot be met outside the relationship. This is both unfair and a set-up for dissatisfaction.

• How does your commitment to meaningful emotional and sexual intimacy manifest?
• What are the specific commitment expectations that you each hold about intimacy?

4) Self-Care
When you love someone, an emotional (and for some, a spiritual) interconnectedness develops. You remain separate beings, but you also become deeply engaged with one another, a “we” that opens a pathway to each other’s love and influence. So if your partner/spouse acts in ways that are self-neglectful or destructive (pick any excess as an example), you are negatively impacted. As one wife said to her husband in a couples counseling session, “When you hurt yourself, you hurt me!” True commitment to the health and well-being of your relationship also involves a commitment to self-care, to treating yourself well. After all, if you continuously deplete your own emotional, physical or spiritual resources, how can you give anything meaningful to your partner or family?

• What are your commitment expectations about self-care?

The above list of relationship commitments is in no way exhaustive, but it’s a good starting point for meaningful communication. (Can you think of other areas of commitment that are important to you and your partner?) The goal of this discussion should be lifting the expectations you each hold out of the darkness of silence and into the light of mutual understanding. And hopefully, your marriage/relationship will be stronger as a result.

Wishing you love and peace,

Dr. Rich Nicastro

Relationship harmony is a good thing, right? 

Just hearing the word ‘harmony’ conjures up images of mutual peacefulness—a wonderful ebb and flow of meaningful couples communication that gives way to a balanced coexistence, a balance that would be the envy of many couples. But all too often couples end up dancing around important issues, avoiding conflict, side-stepping uncomfortable conversations every chance they get (rather than face relationship issues head-on), all for the sake of achieving marital/relationship tranquility.

Relationship Help: Harmony at what cost?

There’s a truism in psychology that says, “You must face and walk through issues, not around them.” Typically, the issues we deny are the ones that cause us emotional distress. We’ve all been there and done that: Avoiding that which causes us discomfort. And while couples should learn to “let go” of certain issues, give one another the benefit of the doubt, and pick and choose their battles, side-stepping important issues that should be discussed isn’t the best default position for your marriage/relationship.

When avoidance is at work, couples can feel like they are walking on egg shells, not fully engaged with each other out of fear that the tenuous quiet can give way to turbulence at any moment. The relationship becomes a strait-jacket, squeezing the life out of the union, preventing the couple from freely expressing their needs and concerns.

This pseudo-harmony is deadly for a marriage/relationship—disengagement is not harmony.

Relationship Advice Self-Reflection Action Step

• How does avoidance manifest in your relationship?
• Is there a pseudo-harmony that is acting as a smokescreen, preventing you and your spouse/partner from examining difficult relationship issues?
• How can you turn the energy of avoidance into an exploration that can deepen emotional intimacy and engagement?

Until next time,

Dr. Rich Nicastro

Sexual/physical intimacy is one of the most powerful and connecting experiences for couples. And while some couples seem perfectly fine with little sexual connection, for others, the expression of love, pleasure and sensuality through sexual contact is central to a fulfilling marriage/relationship.

The challenge for couples in long-term marriages/relationships is to find ways to nurture sexual intimacy. You may have noticed that sexual desire is pretty fragile. It buckles under the demands of life (work stress, the demands and pull of parenting, the pressure of caring for elderly parents), and it is highly sensitive to our own internal conflicts and emotional struggles (our self-image; how we feel about our bodies; self-judgment and feelings of guilt over sexual pleasure and abandon).

As one wife described, “With every pound I gained, my desire for sex diminished until I got to the point where I didn’t even want my husband to see my body or touch me. If I hate my body, how can it become a means of pleasure for me?”

Relationship Help: When It Comes to Sex, Your Mindset Is Key

We all must learn to nurture and care for the different parts of our relationship, including sexual/physical intimacy. Too many of us assume that sex and passion should effortlessly remain alive and well, spontaneously fed by the love a couple feels toward each other. This exceedingly romantic, overly idealistic vision of passion does more harm than good, often leading couples to erroneously think that the relationship must be broken if their sexual attraction is floundering.

Here are seven relationship tips to keep in mind when it comes to passion, sex and intimacy:

1: Couples need to be mindful of sexual desire’s fragile nature and when possible, take steps to protect this part of your relationship from the influences that can extinguish desire (practicing self-care and stress management are central; setting appropriate boundaries around the relationship);

2: Couples need to be aware of the relationship conditions that positively and negatively affect sexual intimacy and desire (effective couples communication is essential in creating a supportive and trusting atmosphere that will allow the emotional vulnerability needed for a fulfilling sex life);

3: You and your spouse/partner may have very different sexual rhythms—approach these differences with understanding and openness rather than blame or judgment (“You want sex all the time, what’s wrong with you?!” is not the message you want to be sending);

4: Turn-ons and sexual fantasies can vary widely between individuals, no matter how compatible in other areas – therefore, couples must work to create an atmosphere of mutual curiosity and acceptance that will allow the expression of both partners’ sexual desires and longings – remember, not feeling safe enough to share your deepest desires forces these desires to go underground where they remain hidden, unarticulated and frustrated.

5: Be mindful of your long-standing beliefs and attitudes that may block sexual fulfillment and intimacy— certain anti-sex/anti-pleasure attitudes (which may be unconscious) can arise from the messages you received growing up about sexuality, or they may result from your own sexual history, experiences that may have negatively shaped your views about intimacy;

6: A mindset of sexual exploration, play and discovery will allow you and your partner to experience sexual fulfillment as an evolving phenomenon, no matter how long you’ve been together (or how well you think you know your spouse/partner) – learning about each other sexually (as well as yourself) should be a lifelong journey of discovery;

7: At some point in your marriage/relationship, it may feel like there are always competing priorities and good reasons to place sex on the back burner—the truth is, couples in long-term relationships make the decision and put in the effort for sex. These decisions have to be made over and over again so that physical intimacy (and the emotional intimacy that it fosters) doesn’t wither away.

In the opening paragraph, I stated how powerful and connecting physical intimacy can be for couples. This connecting power is shaped by how emotionally vulnerable sex makes us—sex in a loving relationship is never devoid of strong feelings. We are emotionally exposed when we share ourselves sexually, and the good news is that this level of vulnerability allows for a deepening of genuine emotional contact—as long as you’re open to it.

In a loving relationship, nurturing sex, emotional intimacy and love are one and the same.

Until next time,

Dr. Rich Nicastro

Couples understand the need for and benefits of effective communication—in couples counseling they often describe their marital or relationship problems as resulting from a breakdown in communication of some kind. “We stopped communicating with each other,” or “We can’t talk without arguing” are a few of the mantras of spouses/partners in distress.

And for many of these couples, it is clear that certain strategies are missing in their communication toolbox, strategies that can offer them the relationship help they desire. But this isn’t always the case. Sometimes what is needed goes beyond what a handful of communication strategies can offer.

Let’s see why.

Meet Leora and Edward:

Leora and Edward started couples counseling seeking “communication tools” to help reduce conflict and bring them closer together. Both agreed that learning more effective ways to communicate should be the goal of counseling, and each eagerly embraced their new communication strategies. Within a few months, Leora and Edward reported significant improvement in their relationship, but then something interesting started to happen—a shift away from intimacy that couldn’t be blamed solely on a lack of communication skills.

Edward began working later and later hours soon after the relationship improvements occurred. And then one day he shocked his wife by telling her they had been spending too much time together (he exclaimed, “It isn’t healthy!”).

After initially wanting greater emotional intimacy with his wife (his stated goal for couples counseling), Edward dramatically changed his agenda and demanded more time with his friends (even though he already spent each Saturday with them playing softball and frequently had his friends over to the house, all of which Leora encouraged). As Leora described, “It was like he was now avoiding me every chance he got…I was so hurt and confused–things had been starting to go so well between us.”

When Communication Problems Mask a Fear Of Intimacy

Why did Edward abruptly change course and pull away from his wife? Could the couple’s initial complaint of emotional distance attributed to communication problems actually have been the result of a deeper issue for Edward?

Emotional intimacy isn’t for the faint of heart—such intimacy requires the courage to be emotionally exposed and vulnerable with our loved ones. This gives your spouse/partner enormous power: The power to make you feel deeply loved, seen and cared for, and inversely, the power to make you feel unloved, ignored and uncared for.

Edward discovered (like many of us do) that certain levels of emotional closeness made him anxious, and to regulate his uneasiness, to control his anxiety about feeling “too close,” he started to avoid his wife rather than talk about what was going on for him. There are many ways we push our loved ones away without even realizing this is what we are doing; and rather then self-reflect to make sense of our discomfort with emotional closeness, we externalize the problem by blaming our partner for being too needy or clingy.

For Edward (like all of us), his emotional discomfort was a potential self-growth opportunity. And with the help and encouragement of his couples counselor, here is what Edward learned about himself:

“It felt good being close to Leora, but then I reached a threshold of closeness and started to feel anxious. I know this sounds weird, but I was afraid of losing myself, like I would cease to exist independently of her if I allowed myself to really be open to our love and closeness…”

Once Edward was able to articulate his underlying fears (first to himself and then to his wife), the couple was able to directly communicate about the level of closeness they each desired and identify when anxieties started to emerge. This allowed Edward and Leora to consciously negotiate emotional intimacy rather than unconsciously pull away whenever one of them felt “too close.”

Are you able to openly and directly communicate your needs for emotional closeness with your partner?

All best,

Dr. Rich Nicastro

There are times when it’s obvious to us that our spouse or partner really isn’t listening—s/he may seem a million miles away or distracted by some other priority. As a couples counselor, I’ve seen firsthand how a breakdown in communication often results from a breakdown in effective listening.

A Beleaguered Listener and a Defensive Speaker

Vincent: I can tell you’re not listening… Jesus, you don’t give a damn about me or my concerns!

Rebecca: I can’t believe you’re doing this now, after the day from hell I had at work. Really, you’re doing this now?! Talk about not giving a damn about someone.

Vincent: Oh, give me a break, you couldn’t care about anyone except yourself. I don’t care what kind of work day you had, you couldn’t care less about me right now!

Rebecca: I am so done with this BS!! I’m out of here…

This painful interaction (or some version of it) may feel familiar to you—feeling unimportant to your spouse/partner, feeling like s/he just doesn’t care about you. In the example above, the fact is that Rebecca wasn’t listening (or to be fair, she was only partially listening), but the question we should consider is the way in which Vincent dealt with his wife’s listening error.

In a previous article, I discussed the importance of emotional presence as a listener and the benefits this has on effective couples communication. Clearly Rebecca wasn’t being attentive as her husband spoke, and she’d be the first to admit that she faltered in this instance (if she wasn’t being attacked for her lack of presence). And yes, as a listener, she did have certain responsibilities (like being attentive) that could have moved the communication along. That said, her husband (as the speaker) could have clearly handled this situation differently.

An Empathic Speaker, a Compassionate Listener

Let’s replay the above exchange, but this time, let’s show Vincent doing something a little differently.

Vincent [ready to share something with his wife, but looking pensive and pausing instead]: Hey, are you OK? You seem really distracted, like something’s on your mind. [Instead of becoming defensive and attacking his wife for not listening, Vincent checks in with her.]

Rebecca: You’re right. I’m just exhausted from work; it was a rough day. You know what, let me unwind a few minutes and then I’ll be more engaged. Is that OK? [Feeling understood, Rebecca moves into negotiation mode rather than defensive mode.]

Vincent: Sure, just let me know when you’re ready–I have something important I’d like to share…

Rebecca: Thanks, honey.

In this example, Vincent (in the role of speaker wanting his wife’s attention) took a moment to check in with her to see if she was emotionally ready to listen, and in doing so, a non-defensive, caring exchange emerged between them—in short, each felt listened to and understood, rather than criticized.

A communication truism is that criticism often begets criticism (as in example number one above); while understanding begets understanding (or the desire to understand another—as in the second example).

So the next time you sense your partner isn’t really present while you are talking to him/her, try to gently check in with him/her to see what is going on and what might be needed to turn a potential breakdown in communication into a moment of mutual consideration. The payoff is that in doing so, you are more likely to get your own needs met in the process. A win-win for all!

Communication Resource

For in-depth information about couples communication strategies, check out my communication workbook (The ABCs of Effective Communication.)

Until next time!

Dr. Rich Nicastro