I know you’ve either said it or have heard someone say that a couple has “a communication problem.”

When people don’t understand why it’s so hard for two people to get along, it’s easy to point to communication as the problem. The solution to a communication problem is also an easy one to assign: Talk more, agree to disagree, learn how to compromise, apologize, forgive, say 40 positive things for each negative thing you say, etc.

Poor Communication isn’t the Problem, It’s the Solution

Many times when couples are having a difficult time getting along or seem to have a difficult time communicating or are having trouble getting on the same page, communication is not actually the problem. In fact, rather than being the PROBLEM, unhealthy methods of communicating can be an attempted SOLUTION to the real problem. Passive aggressiveness, sarcasm, forced apologies, criticisms, revenge, anger, and other ineffective ways of communicating are the attempted solutions to the problem of “my spouse doesn’t care about me or my thoughts, feelings, or opinions.” 

Here’s how that happens. When you attempt honest and healthy communication and it releases an onslaught of tactics to get you to do things your spouse’s way, to agree with your spouse, or to stifle your thoughts, feelings, and opinions, then it’s natural to begin to revert to other methods of communicating in an attempt to walk the line between doing what you “should” do to keep peace in the relationship and your desire to maintain your personal power (rather than handing control of your thoughts, feelings, and opinions to your spouse). [Read about how emotionally unhealthy people turn everything into a power struggle]

Here’s an example. Let’s say your spouse does something that feels unkind to you. You attempt healthy communication and say “That felt very unkind.” A healthy response from your spouse might be a sincere “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to come across that way. I can see how that felt bad. Let me try that again differently.” But instead, when you say “that felt very unkind” your spouse says “Stop making it all about you” or “That’s not my problem” or “You’re too sensitive.” 

Because of this insensitive response, rather than trying to communicate openly with your spouse again, you revert to getting angry, getting even, giving the silent treatment, being passive aggressive, getting sarcastic, forcing yourself to apologize, or any number of other unhealthy responses or mistakes that are ruining your relationship.

Communication Problem or Character Problem?

The reason your response is unhealthy isn’t because you don’t have good communication. Your response is unhealthy because you learned that a healthy response isn’t well-received, that healthy communication doesn’t happen in your relationship, and that the only way to communicate how you feel is to get angry, get revenge, etc.

What looks like a communication problem on the outside is actually the symptom of your spouse’s character problem that is being addressed the wrong way. Many people don’t know what to do when they share their thoughts, feelings, and opinions with their spouse only to have them trampled. You can end up feeling desperate for your spouse to show they care. And that desperation leads to an emotional reaction that can result in desperate (and unhealthy) attempts to communicate.

If you’ve communicated with an emotional response . . .  

• you might feel bad for your emotional reaction and apologize and try not to respond that way next time

• you might question whether your expectations for the relationship are too high and try adjusting them so that you don’t expect so much

• or you might start to believe that the problem is you

So you try hard to communicate better and you shove down how you feel about being ignored or treated unkindly. You try to keep the peace. 

But after a while it’s really hard to shove down the resentment that you begin to feel. And trying to have a good relationship while feeling resentment is not possible. But don’t try to make the resentment go away! That feeling is major clue that something isn’t right and that the problem might not be you. 

You can’t have a healthy relationship with an unhealthy spouse

If you are in a relationship with someone who consistently lacks good character, no amount of your effort is going to change that. In a situation like that, many people find themselves trying to be more kind, more selfless, and more forgiving, but that only leads to a deepening of your spouse’s character problem because the root of the problem is selfishness, and you are feeding that selfishness by being selfless and overlooking your spouse’s “flaws.”

What can you do to effectively communicate?

1. Become aware of your feelings and use them as information

When you try to communicate in a healthy way with your spouse [get my free guide to healthy relationships] and their response is anything but healthy, be aware of how you feel. Do you feel powerless? Unheard? Indignant? Frustrated? Angry? Worthless?

Those feelings are a sign that your spouse’s response opened a wound for you - a place where you feel inadequate, where you don’t know how to recover from how you feel, where you feel desperate for love that you aren’t receiving, where you feel unappreciated.

You have to work at healing that wound so that you don’t get triggered by your spouse’s unhealthy responses but, rather, are able to respond in a healthy way. Then, next time you recognize those feelings, you’ll know what they mean and what kind of response they call for. [Get my workbook and guide to healing - it will walk you through exactly how to identify your wounds and heal from them]

2. Don’t give up your attempts at healthy communication

Just because your spouse refuses to hear it doesn’t mean that you can’t keep doing the right thing. Galatians 6: 9 says “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”

When your attempt at communicating is met with unhealthy tactics, rather than giving up on the healthy communication and reverting to unhealthy emotional reactions, stop and consider the next right thing to say. [Get my step-by-step guide to healthy confrontation here]

3. Don’t hand over your power

When you try to communicate and your spouse responds with an unhealthy tactic, getting upset with them results in you handing your power over to them and falling into their trap. In other words, getting upset with someone is equivalent to giving them permission to affect you when the fact is that you always have a choice as to how you are affected by someone else - don’t hand that permission and power over to them.

Instead of taking the bait, don’t get derailed - come back to the topic at hand and insist that what you communicated be directly addressed. Your spouse may try to turn on you with blame or accusations or they may try to play the guilt card or display some emotion designed to take the focus off of what you are going for, or they may head down some rabbit trail or create a mixed-up word salad. [Get a list of all the tactics that emotionally unhealthy people use to derail you and maintain control] Simply restate your point and refuse to let your spouse take over the conversation. However, if the discussion becomes unproductive, utilize the 3 Cs:

a) Stay Calm and don’t READ: Reason, Explain, Argue, or Defend. This means:

• don’t try to Reason with them (they aren’t interested in listening to reason)

• don't try to Explain yourself or the situation (they only wants to see it their way)

• don't Argue with them (this only increases conflict)

• and you don't need to Defend your perspective in an attempt to help them understand – they won’t understand anyway - don’t waste your time explaining yourself to someone who is committed to misunderstanding you

b) Understand what you can Control and what you can't - and communicate only what you can control. In other words, don’t tell your spouse what they can or cannot do (or should or should not do). Simply say something like "I can't agree to that" or "I don't see it that way" or "I don't want to be treated like that."

c) Minimize Contact. Keep the conversation short and feel free to repeat yourself to enforce your boundaries as necessary.

4. State your expectations

Let your spouse know what kind of response you would expect from themt. This takes some deep personal inventory and a lot of self-control, but most of the time what we really want is to be heard and cared about. [If you do coaching with me, I’ll help you dig deep to get to the heart of what you need].

Ask for what you need. Say something like “I need you to care.” If necessary, describe what “caring” looks like to you - a healthy spouse will care for you the way you want to be cared for rather than insisting that you adopt their definition of care.

5. Know what good actually looks like

Most people think of communication as talking. The truth is that good communication isn’t about talking, it’s about listening. Someone who truly listens and understands what you are saying will be able to genuinely reflect back not only what you said but also the heart-message behind it. [Read my article that explains why whether someone can do this is a huge key to knowing what’s wrong in a marriage]

Much of what people communicate, particularly when there is conflict, has an emotional basis to it - it isn’t that we are trying to get what we want on the surface (the “issue” usually isn’t the issue) - it’s that we desire to get our deeper needs met - our need to be heard and known and loved.

When we feel heard, our hearts become open to all the other surface “ingredients” of good communication: talking, compromise, agreeing to disagree. But the foundation of that communication has to be based on feeling heard.

6. Know that someone is free to choose but is not free from the consequences of that choice

Every decision has a consequence. We experience consequences to all of our choices, no matter how small, every day. Sometimes the consequences are good, sometimes they are unpleasant. When you attempt to communicate well and don’t get a healthy response, understand that your spouse has the freedom to respond to you in the way they did, but they aren’t free from the consequences of their unhealthy response.

A natural consequence to someone’s unhealthy behavior is to pull away. Let your spouse experience the natural consequence of their actions. Sometimes the pain of an unpleasant or unexpected consequence can be the nudge someone needs to see it from your perspective. [Get my workbook on 10 tips from the Bible on how to do relationships to learn how those natural consequences can leave room for God to do the supernatural]

The Key To Change

It can be easy to believe that communication is the problem when you’re having trouble seeing eye to eye with the one you love, but don’t accept that at face value. Instead, consider whether there are deeper character issues that are creating the communication barrier. Once you’ve nailed down the truth of what the problem is, you will discover that…

hope isn’t found in our situation changing; it is found in our situation . . .

Sometimes you just need someone to help get you on the right track. Talk to Abigail from Changing Us.

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