I was recently talking with a friend who was struggling with communication in his relationship – a therapist who had a discussion about communication; how rare is that? What was unique about this situation was it was the guy complaining about it – yeah, it happens. His wife is a combination hider (i.e. she likes to bury her head in the sand and pretend things are fine) and passer of the blame (a passive aggressive move to avoid responsibility). My friend is an amazing person who doesn’t know how amazing is (an unfortunately typical problem for amazing people). The reality is if he was with a stereotypical woman, he’d easily have a great relationship with solid communication because she’d love what a considerate and hardworking person he is; he’s what many women complain their husband is not. Unfortunately, we can’t go back in time, which means he has to work with what he has. Thus, he currently has three options:
- Do nothing and suffer. This will likely lead to someone cheating or having really strong resentment grow, which leads to its own issues.
- Do nothing and hope it magically heals (not a wise move).
- Try something different.
When I presented these three options, my friend naturally wanted to do the third one, but he didn’t know where to start. Here’s a list of options I shared:
- Schedule date nights where you meet up with other couples (when things are in a rough patch I don’t recommend date nights with just the two of you since those typically lead to fights whereas having other people around changes the energy and allows you to reminisce together).
- Join an activity together (e.g. volunteer, dance lessons, church, etc.)
- Be on the same team for a sport or board game night. (This is the same advice I recommend for parents wanting their kids to get along.)
- Find a project around the house or at a parent’s you can work on together.
- Schedule a time to talk every day about frivolous things like during dinner or on a walk.
- Schedule a weekly “business meeting” for 5-15 minutes where all serious matters can be discussed in order to prevent constantly rehashing the same fights and criticisms throughout the week. Even in these meetings, I highly suggest avoiding statement and using questions with two options, which will be demonstrated shortly.
- Every night share something you’re thankful happened that day.
- Leave a note for each other or before bed share one thing you’re thankful the person did that benefited you that day. This forces you to see what each other are doing and give validation to the effort.
- Everyday share something you learned. This can be a new song you heard, an interesting fact, something in the news, or a lesson you figured out from an experience you had.
- Read a newspaper or magazine together and point out interesting things.
- On my website, ChadDavid.ca, download my book, 52 Lessons for a Better Relationship, and do the weekly lessons together in order to have something new to talk about.
- Look up conversation starter or “Would you rather…?” type questions. (Lesson 52 in my book gives a list of conversation starter questions.) These are particularly great if you can go on a road trip or have a campfire where the environment is very conducive for sharing.
- Find something you can both hate (e.g. even if you hate my book it’ll be very bonding for you).
- See a therapist or find an older couple you admire to give you guidance on what they do in order to have better communication.
- Do a survey together where you ask as many people as you can the one rule they’d recommend for communication. If anyone says, “Don’t go to bed angry,” ask for a different one because that’s terrible advice. Most times when we’re fighting, the best thing we can do is go to bed and start fresh the next day.
- Stop texting and social media addictions! I find couples who are in the same room with one watching a show and the other on their phone, the person watching the show feels rejected. When someone is on their phone, it feels like they’re tuning us out and that we don’t matter, which leads to fights. Couples need to have set hours where there is no phone. It’s also important to keep all serious conversations to in-person. The only thing you should be texting are quick notes like “Good morning,” “I’m going to be late,” etc.
My friend said my list was good, but the bigger problem was convincing his wife to be on the same page, especially since she’s a hider and passer of the blame. This type of person is particularly difficult to work with because they just want to feel sorry for themselves, so they shut you out even when you want to help. When a typical wife complains about her husband’s communication, she’s most likely dealing with a different avoidant attitude: (guy) “We’re fine. I’m not happy, but I can put up with this, so let’s leave it alone. Talking about it will only lead to you criticizing me and making me feel like I’m not good enough. The odds are I’ll be forced to apologize to make you feel like I get it, but I’ll be silently angry since you won’t apologize for my hurt leaving me feeling like I’m the problem and you’re the innocent victim.” (Tip: When there’s a conflict, both people need to apologize because both sides are hurt. Apologizing is a way to say “I care,” and not admittance to guilt.) Where my friend is likely dealing with someone who wants to blame him and leave it there in order to prevent having to push herself to grow, most wives are with guys too scared or lazy to admit they need help.
So how do you address a situation like this? For either situation, the approach is the same:
- Partner A: Can I ask you a question? (Asking permission helps the other person feel like they have a say on this conversation)
- Partner B: I guess so. (If the response is “No,” then you simply say, “Okay; I’ll try again later.”
- Partner A: Would you say that our communication has room to grow or is it the best it can be?
Did you notice how the question has two options? I’m all about questions with two options because it encourages the person to pick one. Open ended questions have their place, but I rarely use them because there’s no control for where the conversation goes. The great thing about this two option question is it keeps the conversation flowing and easy to guess where it’ll go. For instance, in this situation the two options question will lead to four options:
- If “There’s room to grow”: Me too. I’m glad we’re on the same page. I have three ideas to make it better; which one did you want to try first? There’s (give options).
- If “It is the best it can be”: Really? I was thinking we have room to grow. If we’re the best we can be; I guess you won’t mind trying this idea I had to prove me wrong.
- If the response is like a politician and doesn’t answer the question: “I see what you’re saying. Now back to my question; do you think there’s room to grow or it’s the best it can be?
- If the person starts attacking you: Asking a two option question can get you yelled at because the person is subconsciously trying to scare you off. If this is the case, get away; don’t let them attack you. Later, when things are calmer ask something like “Earlier when I asked you a question you got upset; was that because you were having a bad moment or were you afraid of saying your real answer?” Ultimately, if the person doesn’t answer by the second or third time, make a guess, “I’m guessing you’re not answering because the answer is (negative option).” People will be quick to correct you if you’re wrong or do something defensive if you’re right.
My friend told me that his wife had already agreed that they had bad communication, but told him they would deal with it later. Great, I can work with that. Here are a couple two-option question options to use. (Yes, I’m going right back to the two option question):
- “When you say you’ll be willing to do something in the future, do you want to aim for next week or next month?” By giving times, it pushes the person to choose.
- “When you say we can deal with it later, do you want to wait to start because you’re going through something really difficult right now or are you procrastinating?” This calls the person out on the fact they’re likely procrastinating.
- “Are you asking to address this later because you’re scared of me or are you trying to keep me at a distance because you’re hiding something?” This one can go either way, which makes it risky. Sometimes our partners don’t want to connect because they’re scared of us and other times it’s because there’s guilt for something they’re hiding like an addiction or affair.
Bonus: If your partner has already mentioned your communication is weak, you can go with a question like “When you said our communication is weak, was that your way of initiating us doing something about it or was it simply an observation?”
My friend liked what I was saying, but replied his wife would simply shut him out and not answer. That means he has to go back to my previous suggestion: Ask the question again and if she still won’t answer make a guess: “I’m guessing you’re not answering my question because you don’t want to admit that…” If he’s wrong, she’ll correct him, but in this case, I’m guessing she’ll go attack mode to scare him off. If this happens, he now has several more options:
- Say something like “I’m guessing you need a chance to process this. I’ll ask you about how you want to address our communication tomorrow (or next week).” Continue this until the person cracks: “Fine! Let’s try something.”
- Offer a reward: “I’ll make you a deal, if you’ll have a conversation about what we can do about our communication, I will (something you will do in return as a reward).”
- Ask something like “Are you not interested in working on things right now because on some level you enjoy suffering or do you just not care about my needs?”
- Go heavy (best left as a last resort), “Here’s something for you to consider. I love you and want us to be together, but I can’t keep doing this the way we are. Either you don’t get how angry I am about this or you don’t care. Either way I need to help you see why you should want to make this work. So if you’re not willing to work on our communication by next month, I will arrange for us to do a trial separation.” Please note a trial separation is about having one person living in the house for a few days to a week while the other stays somewhere else and then the two switch. It’s to help give people a better idea of how terrible life is without each other while giving space to heal. Financially, breaking up is a terrible idea. The bottom line is sometimes you need to go heavy to make the other person wake up because I’ve too often seen a couple a year after the wife says she wants better communication only to be dismissed and now she’s done with the relationship and the guy is begging her to stay. This could’ve been prevented if this approach was used to prove how serious she was.
This week may you consider how to do the two option questions.
Rev Chad Tomlinson, ChadDavid.ca, learning to love dumb people (like me)