How to Talk to Your Partner: Start with Knowing Yourself

It is common to be misunderstood in your relationship. I’m a couples counselor. The number one thing people want fixed, when they come to my therapy room, is “being misunderstood.” Only they don’t call it a misunderstanding: they call it “communication”.

So if we are not being understood by our partner, or we don’t know how to communicate with them, what do we do? Well there are a lot of things that I know about, and none of them come naturally to us at all. But we can learn them.

All of us dream of having the perfect relationship with the person we love. In fact, when we meet our perfect person we imagine that everything will always be wonderful and that we will have a great life with them.

But what happens when we are in the relationship for a while is that we might start to notice that not everything is perfect, and we actually are now in love with and committed to someone who we see has some, well, flaws.

As a counselor, I often meet people who love their partners, but who just wish their beloveds were a bit different. They tell me, “If only my partner were such and such, or did this and that, then everything would be better!”

I hear this in one form or another many, many times. I know when people come in they just want to feel better in their relationship. I also know if they knew what to do, they would do it. I understand that most people try everything they know before coming in for counseling, because everyone who has ever been in a relationship believes that they can fix their own problems. Who needs someone from the outside to weigh in?

In most relationships people have good intentions. They often think of their partners and try and do things that would please them. This is common. But in some relationships, the couple doesn’t talk to each other about what they like and therefore there could be a lot of misunderstanding.

I witnessed this recently with a couple I met. They have great intentions and actions designed for the one they love, but there is no discussion about these good thoughts and actions and whether they are what the other person wants. Each person just stays inside their own mind and keeps doing what they have always been doing and they don’t get what they really want which is understanding from the other person.

I'm retired.

Monthly Archives: July 2018

How to Talk to Your Partner: Start with Knowing Yourself

Accepting Flaws in a Relationship Is Important: Here’s Why

Want to Be Happy? Don’t Change Your Partner; Understand Them

My Partner Doesn’t Get Me! Not Feeling Understood in a Relationship