Who taught you how to be in relationship? Who modelled communication skills to you?
I don’t know about you but I rarely saw my parents communicate effectively. It was either avoided or it was blaming and shaming or power over employed.
My parents fumbled their way through post war survival and had little in the way of communication skills, it was all about survival back then. Talk about needs and they look at me sideways, they simply got on with it. It is no wonder I had, and it is probably the same for many of you, little to no communication skills that kept me secure and connected. Without secure modelling our brain’s default is blaming and shaming, power over (aggressive), or non-assertive, or passive aggressive, in order to attempt get a need met! But there is a price one pays in the relationship.
My own experience of communicating was completely lacking competent skills. The idea of confronting my partner or anyone else in regards to an issue I was experiencing in relation to them, caused 70% anxiety to the point that most of the time I would become non-assertive, my mother’s default. I later discovered that not talking triggers the other person’s nervous system. It was a losing strategy, and one where no one got their needs met!
About 24 years ago I learned advanced communication skills developed by Dr Thomas Gordon, who was trained by the father of humanistic psychology, Carl Rogers, and was nominated three times for the noble peace prize for his work in communication. These skills saved me, and reduced my anxiety in confronting, disclosing and connecting in relationship to about 25%.
What reduced it even more was learning neuroscience, attachment styles and arousal regulation from Dr Stan Tatkin as I trained as a psychobiological couple’s therapist. The combination is life changing so much so I would like to share a few gems that really helped me and I offer couples who come and see me. They are designed to help keep you safe, stay connected whilst maintaining the self-esteem of both partners in the relationship. It maintains a protective membrane, couple bubble, so we can be better in the world.
10 Top Keys to Couple Communication
- We are in Each Other’s Care – Developing Governing Principles
Most couples when I ask if they have shared principles that govern their relationship they look at me blankly. As a couple, in most cases, you share finances, assets, your body, your home, your time etc and yet we don’t treat it with the respect it requires – in many ways it is business. I know this doesn’t sound romantic, but the reality is shared governing principles keeps everyone safe.
A couple is a cooperative team, it is pro-team based on mutuality, fairness, justice and sensitivity, rather than pro-self. For some this is a difficult adjustment as most have no modelling as to what a relationship based these principles looks like.
You cannot resolve relationship issues by yourself. I often see this in therapy where one partner will come to therapy, but it is simply their interpretation of what is happening that they are coming to address, not necessarily what is happening in the relationship. Mutually agreed upon governing principles are co-created to move from a ‘Me’ gig to a ‘We’ gig. They become guiding parameters that in times of stress and conflict a couple fall back on to guide them, to ensure everyone is taken care of whilst maintaining an environment of safety. Click here for Ideas
- Love Brings You Together, Values Pull You Apart
Joe Demartini created a values questionnaire to bring awareness to how values drive connection. If couples do not outline their values at the beginning of the relationship and they are different they will be the undoing of a relationship within 4 to 7 years of getting together, or when children have left home, if you have children. Values collisions are the most difficult to resolve as they are loyal to a bigger family system. They show up in relation to discipline, money, socialising governing the interaction between family and friends, mess and so much more.
Here’s a few questions to get you started:
- How do you fill your space?
- How do you spend your time?
- How do you spend your energy?
- How do you spend your money?
- Where are you most organised?
- Where are you most reliable?
- What dominates your thoughts?
- What do you visualise most?
- What do you most often talk to yourself about?
- What do you most often talk to others about?
- What inspires you?
- What goals stand out in your life and have stood the test of time?
- What do you love to learn or read about most?
Take the quiz and discuss with your partner, find commonalities and your differences too. The differences in values how can be negotiate around the values differences together? Click Here to listen to the podcast and take Brene Brown’s quiz
- Agree to Fight Fair
I once asked Dr Stan Tatkin about domestic violence in a relationship. His answer: “If you can regulate your nervous system outside the house, then violence in the house is an indulgence!” Check yourself at the door – would I be speaking to my best friend like this? If not, don’t talk to your partner like it. They are not there for you to emotional indulge so you feel better. There will be consequences as one person loses. Are you prepared to pay the price in your relationship of your indulgence?
What are your rules of engagement? When you get stressed and trigger each other what have you mutually agreed to do. We all fight in some way in relationships, the key is managing it with fairness, justice and sensitivity. Here’s some tips:
- Know the signs when those primitives get triggered and your body starts being mobilised into fight or flight. Catch it quick
- Signal to stop, slow down and take a breath
- Sit down – it is very difficult for the body to mobilise itself into sympathetic arousal when sitting down
- Face each other – remember you love this person, and most people whose fights get out of control never look at each other. By facing each other you can read the facial expressions and also the breath and begin to regulate each other, it only takes a breath, as we are wired to each other.
- Lower the tone of your voice. When we are stressed the cracking of the voice is often the first signal that we have been triggered. Our voice raises in sympathetic arousal therefore lowering it signals that we are beginning to down regulate and are less of a threat. This also supports an avoidantly attached partner not to get swamped in their nervous system too.
- Decide whether this is a good time to have this discussion or can you come back to it when you are not so triggered. Don’t just walk away as for the ambivalent anxiously attached partner this signals you are abandoning them. This also gives you time for your ambassadors, the pre-frontal cortex, to come back online, as well as the amygdala to relax, so we can think clearly.
- No name calling
- No threatening the relationship. Over and over again I see a partner threatening, out of a sense of adequacy to get their needs met, to leave the relationship, or make the other leave. If there is one thing that will undermine the safety of a relationship is this tactic. Take it off the menu!
- Read Bodies – Your Body is Much Faster than Your Mind
Our body tells us what is going on very quickly, and we react before the mind even knows what is going on. Watch for the signs that you have triggered your partner with something you have said or done. Backtrack and repair to bring them back online. Remember this is pro-team, not a pro-self gig and the other is in your care.
Discover what you do to trigger your partner, when it happens try something different, even discuss it at times when you are both relaxed to develop strategies together.
Signal to your partner when in distress, you could have a hand signal, a code word (pink unicorns…) that make you both laugh so the nervous systems down regulate. Notice that you can’t go into fight and flight and laugh at the same time!
We all come with vulnerabilities and part of being a partner to your beloved is taking on their vulnerabilities. We are hurt by people and are healed by people.
Watch when your partner gets agitated and restless (sympathetic arousal) or feels tired and swamped (para-sympathetic, dorsal vagal collapse) and ask yourself, what am I doing that is taking my partner to that place – what can I change?
- Am I over sharing?
- Am I talking from pro-self, thus using blaming language?
- Am I not hearing what they are saying and need to shift gears before trying to get my needs met?
- Am I talking loud and fast?
- Am I going towards them too quickly and asking for things to happen straight away, thus swamping their nervous system?
What could you begin to do different to keep everyone safe and connected?
- Repair Quickly
You broke it you have to fix it. Sorry is not always enough. The reality is it is not repaired until it is repaired. Ruptures go into long term memory and they build up over time if not repaired, which cause a break down in a relationship. Just because you might feel fine about a situation that doesn’t mean that the other has recovered, so it is important to take the time to repair, even ask; “How can I make this up to you?” and follow through.
If you are the partner that was hurt, check whether you are withholding relief to punish your partner for the hurt? What will this cost you and your relationship?
- It’s an Inside Job
Until we check in with our own feelings and what is really happening inside then we have little to no way of communicating these and discovering the need that is trying to be met. As a partner my job is also to help my partner find out what is happening inside of them and their need inherent in behaviour.
Self Empathy; developing that intra-intelligence is essential for interpersonal intelligence. Leaning into our feelings and beginning to give them a voice simply by using Declarative I-Messages signals that I am interested in what is happening inside me, which often inspires curiosity within our partner to find out what is happening for them too.
Active Listening our feelings and then expressing them is the first start. Take the “YOU” out of the message you send to the other, it then takes out the blaming and shaming.
You are in a two person system therefore there is a need to shift gears once you have declared your feelings and listen for the others feelings and needs once you deliver a message. Can you listen for your partners feelings and needs and feedback that back to them to see if you are understanding them correctly. The beauty of this is that if you are not quite getting what is happening for the other, they will correct you and give you more insight into how they are feeling. Then feedback your further understanding again, then come back to your feelings and needs and communicate them.
Communication involves two ingredients; sending and receiving. Both are essential to effective communication as a team.
- There is Never A Conflict of Needs
There is only conflict of solutions. Your solution may not work for the other as it doesn’t meet their need, therefore laying the needs on the table straight up is essential to brainstorm mutually agreed upon solutions. No one loses then, and there is no pay back if someone compromises to meet the others needs at the expense of their own.
When both own the problem then identifying the needs is essential before any solution can even identified through brainstorming. Negotiation is more supportive than compromise as a team.
See the Needs Inventory HERE
- Make it Clear and Concise
When we ramble and try and explain what is internally happening through a long winded dialogue we swamp others nervous systems.
So here’s a few tips:
- Make your request short and simple.
- Avoidants switch off, you can see them glaze over, when there is too much information, it is not personal, it is simply that their nervous system gets swamped.
- For the avoidant it is important to help regulate an ambivalent anxious partner by not letting them ramble too long, catch it before you turn off, otherwise your partner can feel you leave and it triggers them. Interrupt them, they don’t mind, in fact they expect as they are external regulators and need the other to calm the nervous system as they can’t always do it themselves.
- For an ambivalent anxiously attached too little information leaves them guessing and the negative bias in the brain fills in the gaps. Therefore concise, clear and to the point sentences work for both partners.
- Take out the “You” Messages instead employ I-Messages
Identifying whose problem it is, is fundamental in engaging certain communication skills. To simplify this if we own the problem then we have to come back to active listening our own feelings, needs and facts before we can communicate them clearly.
Our default when we are disconnected from ourself is to make it about the other, but often the issue really is simply trying to get a need met. Self-disclosure starts with leaning into your own feelings first and owning that I am experiencing something, keeping the message close to yourself rather than trying to make the other wrong.
When addressing a problem that you have we need to employ what is called a Confrontive I-Message which involves discovering the feelings that are being triggered, the actual fact (what you can see, touch, taste, and hear not your judgement or interpretation) and then the tangible effect a behaviour has on you. Furthermore, we have to be willing to offer something and then request something from the other.
The Confrontive I-Message equation is =
Your Feeling + Fact (What you can see, hear, touch not your judgement) + Tangible Effect (a behaviour has on you) + What you would be willing to Do + Your Request to the Other.
For example
“I am really concerned (Feeling) about the way we try and resolve our issues while driving (fact) as I get overwhelmed (feeling) trying to concentrate on driving and talking at the same (Tangible Effect). I would be willing to make some time throughout the week to talk about our relationship, even create a ritual (Your Willingness). I am wondering if you would be willing to find a different way together of discussing the difficulties when they arise? (Your Request)”.
Then we shift gears and listen for the other’s feelings and needs, feed that back as a question to ensure you are hearing them correctly then create an I-Message that is adjusted based on their response after listening to what changes in you.
- Connection Rituals
Nervous systems get triggered when you move towards and away from each other. We have so much we have to address throughout the day and not taking care of your relationship so it takes care of you, is an immense oversight. The biggest predictor of longevity is the healthy relationships we have in our life.
Your couple bubble is the place of nourishment, inspiration, security, passion and whatever else you co-create together. It is the most important part of your life and despite a culture that values independence over collaboration and cooperation, it a daily practice to take care of your togetherness, the connection.
How couples do this can include “connection rituals”. These include co-creating connecting in the morning before you launch into the world of kids, work, life. It can be a small ritual of making breakfast together, snuggling before anyone hops out of the bed, showering together. Whatever ritual you decide on it is done daily without fail. We call this the “Launching Ritual”.
Moving in and out of the home creates distress for some, especially ambivalent-anxiously attached, therefore we have to be particularly mindful to welcome each other home, especially after a day outside of the home. The first thing you do when arriving home is to find each other and give each other a hug. Now this is not an everyday kind of hug. This is a “Welcome Home Hug” whereby you don’t let go of each other until you feel the others nervous system, and your own completely relax. You are using your connection to down regulate the stress the other has experienced throughout the day so that distress doesn’t spill over into the home environment.
Thirdly we have a Landing the Day ritual, whereby you co-create a ritual that connects you at the end of the day. That could be reading together in bed, having dinner together, snuggling up on the couch etc. Whatever ritual decided upon it is done daily. We call this the “Landing Ritual”.
There is a problem though as often we begin to feel so good in a relationship that we might just let go of the rituals, but I can guarantee the issues will crept in and fill the gap in between you both. These rituals sustain the connectedness and are not to be taken for granted.
In summary, both parties contribute to the space between, therefore a question you can ask yourself is; “how am I contributing to the safety, passion, and vitality of this relationship?” and take action.
Bibliography
Living into Our Values podcast and Quiz https://brenebrown.com/podcast/living-into-our-values/
Demartini, John: The Demartini Value Determination Process: Know Yourself. Be Yourself Click here
The Authentic Communicator training program Click here
