Why Don’t You Understand Me? (Connecting Emotionally With Your Spouse: Part 1 of 2)

A Christian Based Approach to Marital Communication

Looking for Answers

As a Marriage and Family Counselor, I witness first hand the fear, hurt, and uncertainty many married couples experience when their communication breaks down. They find themselves frustrated, angry, and eventually distant from one another after months, or maybe years, of engaging in the same negative communication cycles. These negative cycles, and the subsequent emotions are experienced at one point or another in most marriages. If not addressed, many things can easily be left unsaid, and important matters can go unresolved.

Ultimately, couples are on a search for answers. This article, and those that follow focus on helping married couples learn how to communicate clearly, connect with one another on an emotional level, and establish deeper levels of understanding between them. The information and strategies presented will be supported by research findings proven effective at helping couples succeed in these areas.

Why Don’t You Understand Me?

How often have you thought the following after a disagreement with your spouse:

• “They don’t really understand how I feel.”
• “We fight all the time about the smallest things and never resolve anything.”
• “I’ve told them why I’m unhappy a thousand times. It’s like they don’t get it.”
• “I can’t talk to them. They get so defensive.”
• “We’re growing further apart.”

These thoughts indicate the presence of barriers preventing true spousal communication from occurring. Dr. John Gottman and Nan Silver (1999) identified four distinct barriers, calling them The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: defensiveness, criticism, contempt (belittling), and stonewalling (emotional flooding or withdrawal). These four barriers facilitate negative communication cycles characterized by frustration, anger, hurt, fear, and withdrawal. They simply will not allow you to connect with your spouse on an emotional level.

Gottman and Gottman (2011) provide antidotes to the Four Horsemen:

• Criticism (Use a Gentle Start Up): E.g., Calmly asking, “Do you mind if I talk to you about something?”
• Contempt (Build a Culture of Appreciation): E.g., “Thank you for taking the time to hear me out.”
• Defensiveness (Take Responsibility): E.g., “I didn’t know I made you feel that way.”
• Stonewalling (Do Physiological Self-Soothing): E.g., Sitting silently together for a few minutes (Gottman and Gottman, 2011).

Avoiding the Four Horsemen and applying their antidotes is vitally important to keeping the lines of communication open between you and your spouse (Gottman and Silver, 1999). However, this is really the first step leading toward emotional connection and mutual understanding. There’s more to discuss.

Debating the Details

A fundamental flaw I see couples often enter into is what I call The Debate Cycle, a negative communication cycle characterized by an ongoing discussion about the details of some important matter. It looks like this:

• Partner 1: “You’re always so busy. You never make time to be with me.”
• Partner 2: “Yes I do!”
• Partner 1: “Look, I just said you don’t. Are you deaf?”
• Partner 2: “I can’t talk to when you’re like this. This conversations is over.”

Identify where you see defensiveness, criticism, contempt, and stonewalling in this first example and in the one below:

• Partner 1: “I hate it when you don’t look at me when I’m talking to you.”
• Partner 2: “I’m still listening. I’m just not looking at you.”
• Partner 1: “It’s rude!”
• Partner 2: “No it’s not!”

This is a fairly typical debate cycle characterized by criticism and defensiveness. In both examples “communication” took place, yet literally no understanding was established. The “details” definitively took over, and each couple entered into The Debate Cycle. Unless something changed they would continue arguing for some time, becoming more upset with each other, or one member would likely leave in frustration.

Dr. Brent Bradley (2011) noted many couples fall into a negative interactional cycle based on content differences that have little to do with the core attachment issues in their relationship. As a result, the deeper needs and longings of each member are not addressed. Thus, the tragedy of The Debate Cycle is married couples neglect to address the underlying fear, uncertainty, hurt, and sadness driving them to have disagreements in the first place.

Please understand, it is never helpful to try winning the debate, because the details won’t matter in the end. What will matter is whether you have drawn closer together or drifted further apart when the conversation is done.

Connecting Emotionally and Ending the Debate Cycle

It is imperative to understand how easy it can be to end the Debate Cycle. Doing so requires that you:

1. Get your focus off the superficial details (e.g., who did what and when).
2. Slow the conversation down.
3. Focus on understanding the deeper emotions driving your spouse’s concerns.
4. Use their body language to inform you as to how they feel.
5. Ask open-ended questions to help them express and expand upon their thoughts and emotions.
6. Listen intently.
7. Briefly, restate what you heard them say. (Note: It is important for both members to willingly engage in this change process).

For example, when your spouse is loudly criticizing you don’t become defensive and begin debating the details. Rather, explore the underlying emotions driving them to act that way by asking open-ended questions. 

• I can tell I’ve upset you. Can you please tell me why you’re so angry?
• Honey, slow down. Let’s take a minute to talk this through. Can you please tell me what’s bothering you?

Spouses who engage in this process and are willing to be open and vulnerable with each other, literally create an environment where true emotional connection will begin to be experienced. Spouses who turn on each other by attacking, blaming, criticizing when attempts at emotional connection are made, rapidly create an environment of anxiety whereby increased bids for connection or withdrawal will be made (Johnson et al., 2005). You get to decide which type of environment will exist in your relationship.

Thriving Onward

This article was based on the notion that all couples disagree, but there is a way to communicate which enables couples to break the negative cycles preventing them from truly understanding and connecting emotionally with one another. I am confident that as you and your spouse apply what you’ve read, you will begin to experience a deeper form of conversation characterized by greater openness, vulnerability, and security. Having a marriage that is thriving onward is possible, it just takes work at doing things differently than before.

For information on my counseling practice and Christian-based approach to couple relationships, please go to seattlechristiancounseling.com.

 

References
Bradley, B., Furrow, J., & Johnson, S. (2011). The emotionally focused casebook: New direction in treating couples. New York, NY: Routledge.
Gottman, J., & Gottman, J.S. (2011). Bridging the couple chasm: Gottman couples therapy, a new research-based approach. Seattle, WA: The Gottman Institute.
Gottman, J., & Silver, N. (1999). The seven principles for making marriage work: A practical guide from the country’s foremost relationship expert. New York, NY: Three Rivers Press.
Johnson, S., Bradley, B., Furrow, J., Lee, A., Palmer, G., Tilley, D., & Woolley, S. (2005). Becoming an emotionally focused therapist: The workbook. New York, NY: Routledge.

Photos
“Bride And Groom” by phanlop88, freedigitalphotos.com; “Crying and laughing,” courtesy of Quinn Dombrowski, Flickr CreativeCommons (CC BY-SA 2.0)