“Communication is key.”
How often have you heard that? Whether it be unsolicited advice from an elderly relative or a quote on Pinterest, it’s hard to understate the importance of communication in a relationship. But when was the last time you took a moment to think about how you and your partner are communicating? Let’s look at how communication styles – particularly in times of tension – can help (or hurt) your relationship quality.
Destructive communication can have a negative impact on overall marriage and relationship satisfaction. Destructive communication can be broken down between five components: criticism, contempt, defensiveness, stonewalling, and flooding.
- While it is normal to voice a complaint to your partner in a healthy way, criticism goes beyond by attacking your partner’s character. Here’s an example: your partner fails to mention that they are staying late at work and leaves you wondering where they are. A healthy complaint would look like: “I was worried about where you were. I would appreciate a text next time you have to stay late.” A criticism, on the other hand, may look like: “Don’t you realize you are being inconsiderate when you don’t tell me where you are? You always do things like this.” Notice the difference? The criticism directly calls into question your partner’s character, which can lead to increased tension and worsen the situation.
- Contempt takes things a step further. Contempt can include sarcasm, name-calling, and ultimately implies a lack of respect. A contemptuous complaint in the above situation may look like this: “While you were ‘working late,’ I was at home with the kids being a parent.”
- With defensiveness, any complaint (healthy or otherwise) is met with excuses or playing the “victim card.” In the example above, a defensive response from your partner could look like this: “Don’t you understand how busy I am at work? I’m just trying to put food on the table.” Rather than accepting responsibility for the situation, a defensive response can leave a partner feeling unheard.
- Stonewalling involves one or both partners shutting down in response to any feedback. Rather than responding, someone engaging in stonewalling could tune out, ignore, or dismiss their partner’s comments.
So what can you do if you find that your communication with your partner features any of the above? Identifying when you engage with a destructive communication style is an important step. Then you can engage in constructive communication techniques, such as self-soothing, empathy, and clear sending.
- Self-soothing involves the ability to recognize when you are becoming emotionally heated in a conflict with your partner and choosing to step away. This is easier said than done, but self-soothing and continuing the conversation later when both you and your partner have calmed down can be much more beneficial than the alternative – reacting in the moment without reflection.
- Empathy seems like a no-brainer, but it isn’t always easy to empathize with your partner in the heat of the moment. While your first inclination to partner feedback may be defensiveness, make the choice to try to understand where your partner is coming from. While this may not be easy if their feedback comes in the form of contempt or criticism, trying to understand how they are feeling is a step towards a solution.
- It’s not always easy to articulate our thoughts and emotions to our partners. However, if we are continuously unable to voice our feelings clearly – referred to as clear sending – we can leave our partners feeling confused and leaving us feeling frustrated. For some of us, it’s easier to hide our feedback under layers of sarcasm or off-hand jokes, but that requires our partners to spend time and mental energy trying to get to the root of what we are communicating.
Couples who use constructive communication are more likely to report higher marital satisfaction. Better yet, constructive communication mediates the relationship between work-life conflict and marital satisfaction – which is a fancy way of saying that these communication styles lessen the tension between your work and home life and the subsequent impact on the relationship with your partner.
Who knew talking to your partner could be so complicated? While it can seem like a lot of work to examine how you and your spouse communicate – and then take steps to break down bad communication habits you may have developed – improving partner communication can have far reaching benefits and greatly improve the quality of your relationship.