When Our Partner is Silent

As a couple’s therapist I find it so reassuring that almost each couple I help has two different types of people in the relationship. One person is expressive and forthcoming and the other one is silent and isolates.

In the beginning of any relationship these traits are not seen. We are all so busy just finding our person that we are entranced with them and they are for the moment, perfect.

But after a several months we all start to see that what we thought about them is not exactly who they are. You see what we do is put them into our minds as the perfect person. We fit them into what we have been wishing and waiting for.

Many of us in our lives end up in situations that we hadn’t expected. We find ourselves just planted in a life and we might even wonder, “How did I get here?”

This is not uncommon, especially in relationships. We enter the relationship with the highest of expectations. And it might sound like, “I love this person. They love me. We are so happy. I have never felt like this before.”

This is a wonderful feeling. The problem comes when it changes and then we wonder what we were thinking. “Was it really so great I didn’t notice things about my mate that I should have seen? Did I miss some of these important cues?”

All of us have the capacity to love our partners. And there are times when we do and feel so close to them. There are also times when we can’t feel any further away because we got our feelings hurt.

Many of us in relationships vacillate between loving our mate and wishing they were different because the part that we don’t like keeps grating on us.

This is pretty common. Many of us wish we could design our partner to be just what we want so we can be completely comfortable. Some of us don’t even want to hear what they have to say because our needs are not getting met.

Sometimes when I work with couples, I see something that is hard to see. Two people who love each other who can’t hear each other. This often happens when there are two strong willed people in the relationship.

I know I am very strong willed. When I met my husband-to-be, I had been working on myself in my own personal counseling and I was pretty sure I was ready to meet my soulmate. And I did.

“What do couples fight about?” It’s not uncommon for couples to fight and argue with each other, so it’s natural to wonder why. As a couples counselor, I most often help people with communication issues.

People in relationships commonly argue about the same things. Although the way couples argue belongs to the two people who are in the relationship, the content of what they are arguing about is often the same.

Sometimes when we get our feelings hurt, we want to lash out at the one who caused us to feel bad. This is pretty common for some of us. I know it was for me.

I grew up in a household where my mother was overwhelmed and released her frustration by yelling at her children. I know she loved us, but as a child I learned that this is what you do when you don’t like something: you yell.

When we are in a relationship and we get our feelings hurt we often forget that the person who hurt us is one we love. We might even see them as the enemy because they did something to us and it made us feel bad.

But what if we had the ability to remember all of the good qualities in the person that we fell in love with? Wouldn’t that make it a lot easier for us to return to our connection with them instead of hating them for what they did?

Yes, I know this is a big stretch for many people, but here is the thing. Most of the time when our feelings get hurt it is not intentional. We might make it into a war, but the beginning misunderstanding is usually just something that didn’t feel good.

Oftentimes in our relationships our partners will speak and act in ways that seem very strange to us. We will wonder why they are doing what they are doing or saying what they are saying, and our brain will immediately figure out what is wrong with them.

After they finish, we might even tell them that the reason they are talking the way they are talking is because of how they grew up and how they now sound like their parent and how this is something that isn’t resolved.

It is not uncommon for two people in a relationship to argue or disagree with each other. In fact it should be expected. We do not live in our partner’s head and we can’t always know when we step on a sensitive area.

These sensitive areas can release a big reaction and that can create a problem between two people who care about each other.

As a counselor I try and help people understand what happens during these instances. First we look at what happened but I always try and identify what the feelings were that prompted the reaction.

We all start out loving our mates. This is just how all relationships begin. Everything is perfect for a time and then things start to get more difficult.

This happens to all relationships. When the difficulty begins, that’s a signal that each person has to do some adjusting to make the relationship work. Only most of us have been single before we got into our relationship and we know how to be single a lot better than we know how to be a couple.

So, when we start to get our feelings hurt, some of us build a safety wall around ourselves so we don’t get hurt anymore…

I'm retired.

Author Archives: Linda Nusbaum

When Our Partner is Silent

When We Wait for Something Better

We Relate to Our Partner With Love and Fear

When Couples Can’t Listen to Each Other

What Do Couples Fight About–and What Can We Do About It?

When Couples Argue: Breaking the Cycle of Anger

Think of Their Good Qualities

When We Analyze Our Partners

When One Partner Stays Mad

When We Build Walls in Our Relationships