Here at Counselling Connections this week we have been talking about talking. Or to be more exact we have given some time to a discussion around communication between the sexes. It seems that at times men and women are speaking different languages. And maybe they are. It is often expressed in couple therapy as a feeling of not being listened to or understood by the other. It can be a frustrating experience and if you can’t find a way to improve communication a couple can find themselves drifting apart. One can switch off from the other and effectively end up leading a separate life. Working on ways of communicating will help to keep a relationship healthy.

One of the surprising things that can come up when a couple come to counselling is just how little they are in the habit of checking in with each other. It might seem obvious but it is a good first step to ask your partner how they feel about what you do in the relationship. When we work with couples one partner might begin by outlining all the things they do. In this view of the relationship various tasks are done for the other. A person can come to believe that they are putting a huge amount of work into the relationship but find that their energies are misdirected. It is important to check in with each other and develop an understanding as to what each of you wants from and values in the other. We can neglect emotional needs in favour of busying ourselves with running a house.

One point of discord that comes up in relation to communication is a difference in what men and women might be looking for when they sit down to talk. Again and again women tell us that they just want to be heard; that they just want to talk something through. A woman can become frustrated if her partner just looks for solutions. A man might be paying close attention to his partner and attentively listening for cues as to what the nub of the problem might be so that he can set about fixing it. He might feel pleased when he identifies what needs to be done. And he might reassure his partner that a solution is at hand. A woman might come away from this encounter feeling that she wasn’t heard at all. She just wanted to talk and to be heard. If each of them can learn to understand this process it ought to lead to fuller communication.

Sometimes we can find that conflict in a relationship feels intolerable. This can lead to avoidance and denial. If we go about avoiding an obvious source of disagreement we are not really communicating well at all. It is important to understand that there will be disagreement some of the time. This may mean that we have to learn to live with a little tension. It is a healthy thing in a relationship when we can continue to be close with our partner in spite of our differing on some issue that seems important at the time. We cannot write that without pointing out that a good deal of the time a couple cannot recall exactly what it was that started a big row. If you can’t remember what you started to argue about it might be a good idea just to cool down and have a think about it. This usually means that you are really arguing about something else and that maybe you need to take a deeper look at your relationship.

Communication between couples means continuing to work at the connection you have between you. It involves making sure to devote some time to each other on an ongoing basis. This can prove difficult when the demands of daily life are taken into account. It is a sad fact that some couples emerge from years of mutual child rearing to find that they have drifted apart and grown into separate people. To continue to grow together involves consciously working on communicating with each other. It is also important to bring some good humour to these things. A little kindness and understanding is a wonderful thing to give and receive. If you can find it in your heart and, among the pressures of daily life share it with the one you love you will be going a long way towards maintaining a healthy relationship.

Counselling Connections, Dundalk, 15^th March 2012.