If you think you and your partner need to get better at communicating, you probably do! Good news: you already know how to talk. The problem is that when something important is happening, our brain is wired to act, not talk coherently! It’s very human!
Maybe you pursue and withdraw! Maybe someone gets loud and someone can’t help but go silent! Someone wants to talk solution but the other just can’t seem to do it! Maybe someone wants more sex (who doesn’t! very human!) and someone can’t find their “turn-on” when there’s even a hint of pressure. All very human! All very hard to talk about!
So stop talking! We’ll start again at some point, but only when we figure out how to talk and stay on the same team. You’re good at it in other areas! I know it! You wouldn’t be a couple if not! Again, it’s when something important (triggering! urgent! threatening! annoying!) is happening that our ability to cooperate falls apart. Very human!
Plus too much talking in couple’s therapy is a drag! Weekly scheduled argument! That you pay for! No fun!
Couples Therapy
So my invitation is to stop talking and learn how to listen to each other on a deeper, more human level. My job is to coach you on how to pay attention to your body and your partner’s body so that you can pause, breathe, clock when you’re beginning to fight and choose to do something differently.
My approach to couple’s therapy is called Listening Touch and I’m happy to share more about it, but the short version is this: learn how to listen to each other with your bodies (nervous systems!) and the conversation will take care of itself.
If you and your partner can learn how to stay on the same team then my promise to you is that you will be able to navigate anything that you come into couple’s therapy with. Betrayal, grief and loss, mismatched sex drives, negotiating nonmonogamy, life changes, parenting, finances, you name it. If you can learn how to talk, then what you talk about won’t be a barrier anymore.