As a marriage counsellor, one of the main areas I help couples with is the challenge to communicate around conflict. We all seem to be able to communicate well with friends and work colleagues, why then, do we struggle to feel heard with our partner?

There are many reasons we struggle to have good communication in our relationships but today, we are going to focus on how to hear our partner.

One of the most important aspects of communication in relationships, is listening with curiosity and trying to understand what your partner is trying to communicate. Sounds simple. It is. Until they are saying something negative about us. Then it is perhaps one of the biggest challenges we face in a relationship.

Even for me, as a marriage counsellor, it can be challenging in my own relationship to hear what my partner is telling me when I feel like I want to have my say and explain or defend myself.

If your partner needs to present an issue to you, that involves you, what you need to practice is hearing. Listen, acknowledge, ask questions, summarise to see you have the right message. Don’t defend. Don’t explain. Don’t stonewall. Don’t attack.

Sounds easy. It’s just listening right?

Listening in a relationship is a learned skill. Very rarely do I meet a couple who do this well naturally. But the good news is that it can be learned.

Learn how to communicate about the issues and your relationship can conquer pretty much anything.

How do we listen well?

1. Listen without interrupting. Look like you are listening, pay attention. The same as you would if someone at work was speaking to you.
2. Acknowledge what your partner has said to you. You may not agree, it might not make sense, it might feel hurtful. You still need to acknowledge it. It doesn’t make you bad, and it doesn’t mean you have done anything wrong.
3. Ask questions if you need to in order to understand more fully what they are trying to express. Check back with them if you have heard right. Be curious as to what they are feeling.
4. Summarise what your partner has said, make sure you got the meaning of the message and what they are feeling.

I get couples to do this exercise in marriage counselling sessions. We go through the steps and what is needed and then I ask them to talk to each other over something minor that is bothering them. In couples therapy, they have then benefit of a counsellor helping to guide this communication.

As they speak to each other, almost always, the person who is listening will either interrupt, give their perspective, defend themselves or attack back. It’s our natural instinct to protect ourselves and explain why we aren’t wrong.

The problem that we always encounter is that factually, both individuals are usually right. What this means, is that couples start to talk as though they are in a court room. Sounds familiar?

You can both be right. Different perspectives of the same situation are valid. But if one person has raised an issue, then they feel it matters to them and we need to know why.

Here is an example of a couple getting stuck in the logic warfare conflict.

Max: “I don’t like it when I am disciplining the kids and you interrupt and take over”.

Jane: “I do that because you are too loud and they don’t like it so I have to step in”.

Max: “I don’t think I’m too loud, you yell more that I do”.

Jane: “No I don’t. I spend way more time with them than you do”.

Max: “That’s because I’m working to support us. You can go to work if you want and I’ll stay home”.

Jane: “I hate it when you say that, we decided I would stay home and you always hold it against me”.

Max: “No I don’t. I’m just trying to tell you to let me parent when I am here and you won’t”.

Jane: “I’m the one that knows them best, I spend all my time here and they don’t like you yelling”.

Max: “I’m not yelling”.

I could go on and on with this dialogue and in fact, this sort of communication happens all the time at the start of couples counselling until I interrupt and get us back on track.

In this communication, Max feels undermined with his parenting and Jane justifies instead of listening. They then change subjects and end up airing all sorts of grievances. Nobody feels heard. Nothing is solved. They end up feeling hurt by each other.

This is a typical communication style with couples, and it can be changed.

Here is an example of this communication going well.

Max: “I don’t like it when I am disciplining the kids and you interrupt and take over”.

Jane: “I’m sorry Max, I didn’t realise you felt I was doing that”.

Max: “Yes, any time I am trying to get them to listen, you jump in and start talking to them. It looks like you’re in charge and I don’t matter”.

Jane: “That makes sense, I didn’t look at it like that. You don’t want me to say anything when you are talking to them”?

Max: “I only step in with them when I feel like they are disrespecting you and I don’t like it. I’m trying to protect you and then it looks like you are on their side, and I’m left out”.

Jane: “Oh that’s so lovely that you are trying to look after me. When you step in and get loud with them, you think they have disrespected me, and you are trying to help is that right”?

From here, Max will feel heard. Jane can then present her perspective and if Max also listens well, they can then go on to solve it together.

I can’t stress enough how hard this communication is to do. I get couples doing this is session and as a couple’s therapist, it feels really nice for me when they start to really hear each other well and have effective communication. I will often step in to give a gentle nudge if someone starts defending or attacking, but as they practise, they naturally get better at it.

Listening to negatives in your relationship is hard. Healthy communication when you are part of the “problem” is hard. There are often two very different but real perspectives of a situation in a relationship. Hearing your partners perspective doesn’t make yours wrong.

Couples who learn this skill can solve just about anything in their relationship.

It is a skill worth learning. Good luck!

Need help? Book a session to practise communication with a couples therapist here.