Communication Challenges

Dear Lori and Jeff,

My wife and I are soon to be empty nesters and I’m worried about how our marriage will feel when the kids leave. There aren’t any major issues, but our daily communication causes concern. We do a good job of managing responsibilities together, but our interactions are often short and filled with snippy responses. It seems like we are constantly misunderstanding each other and feeling frustrated or annoyed as a result. We know we love each other. How can we start creating more ease and enjoyment when interacting?

Signed, Challenged By Communication

Dear CBC,

Lori and Jeff: In the early years of relationships, partners invest more time and energy into interacting with intention. As the bond strengthens and life becomes more hectic, it’s common for couples to take their connection for granted. It becomes easy to justify prioritizing kids, work, and managing the multitude of daily tasks over nurturing the marriage. But healthy communication is not an on-off switch. When patterns of shortness, frustration and resentment have been established, couples need to understand and address the deeper feelings and create a new approach.

Lori: Repairing communication starts with exploring the felt experiences in the marriage. Shortness and snippiness are often signs of being in a state of emotional self-protection, or metaphorical marriage shields and spears. These reactions are indications that neither of you feel safe in expressing what you really feel and need. Over the years the connection in your marriage has waned, leaving you both more vulnerable to accumulating wounds and scars. And each of you have developed narratives about each other and the marriage to explain why those hurts occurred: “He never listens, I have to do everything, It always has to be her way…” These unaddressed stories are what are truly being expressed through the reactive responses in day-to-day interactions.

Often these narratives are reflections of our greatest fears and vulnerabilities, our insecurities about not being enough, being too much, not being lovable or deserving, or of being alone.  Focusing on your children has provided a distraction or buffer from feeling these common relationship fears. As you prepare for them to leave, your emotional vulnerability will likely continue to grow. You’ve been allowing your discomforts to drive you apart by taking your frustrations out on one another. It’s time to name and face your fears together.

Jeff: Learning to navigate the seemingly less significant daily interactions is one of the most important elements in maintaining a healthy and sustainable relationship. Each exchange, regardless of how mundane it may seem, has a ripple effect on the overall tone of the relationship. These moments of contact—from a simple greeting to deeper, more complex interactions—all begin with a bid. A bid is any attempt to connect with a partner and we often don’t pay attention to them or we take them for granted. How bids are made and responded to has a significant impact on the foundation of the relationship.

It is important to learn how to make a bid from a place of authenticity and awareness, being clear about what you need at any given moment. An ambiguous or obscure bid often falls flat and doesn’t convey the real message, leaving the bidder feeling unheard and often rejected. While at the same time, the receiver of the bid is at a loss of how to respond. If a bid is unclear, the receiver can acknowledge that a bid is being made and then lovingly ask for clarification. It’s equally important to learn to recognize when your partner is making a bid and to respond with honesty and compassion. Met bids create a stronger bond while missed ones lead to more detachment and tension. Author Brené Brown writes, “Disengagement triggers shame and our greatest fears—the fear of being abandoned, unworthy and unlovable.”

Lori and Jeff: The key to reversing the drift is to foster emotional connection. Explore together the stories and vulnerabilities that are keeping you both in protection mode. Work on clarifying your bids so they express your needs and feelings with authenticity and if you’re unsure what your partner is trying to convey, ask rather than react.