Couples Counseling and Communication
Couples counseling helps you and your partner learn and develop skills that you may have forgotten you even had, such as the ability to truly listen to your partner. One of the most common complaints when a couple comes into counseling is that their partner never listens to them anymore. Interestingly, almost always, it is both that say the same things.
Jacob said:
Dacia doesn’t listen to me anymore, no matter what I say or do its like talking to a wall. She looks right through me when I’m speaking and I just feel like nothing I do matters. The only time I can get her to listen is if I yell. I don’t want to yell, but volume seems to be the only thing that gets through.
Dacia said:
Jacob doesn’t talk, he screams. He’ll lecture me for hours on end until I can’t tell his voice from the background noise, and then he just starts yelling. It doesn’t matter what I say to him, it doesn’t stop the cycle of lecture, yell, speech, yell. He doesn’t listen to me, he doesn’t hear what I have to say, it doesn’t matter anymore.
In couples counseling, you and your partner will again learn what it means to really communicate with one another and that includes listening. It becomes imperative to genuinely listen to your partner, without becoming reactive. A reactive response only shuts down our listening and encourages us to formulate a response instead.
Related Posts
- Learning the Art of Communication with Couples Counseling
- The Assumptions of Communication in Couples Counseling
- Non Verbal Communication and Counseling for Couples
- Learning the Art of Blameless Communication in Couples Counseling
- Couples Therapy for Communication
