A lack of communication in a relationship is something that’s often named as a major reason for relationship breakdown.
But why is that even such a big deal?
Well, humans are complex social creatures, and we tend to value relationships above almost all other things.
If you doubt that, just ask anyone who is depressed to tell you the top reasons why they’re depressed.
You’ll invariably find that one of the most common things they say is that they feel their relationships with other people are lacking in some way.
Either they don’t have the number of relationships they think they should have, or the relationships they do have are somehow less satisfactory than they feel they should be.
This isn’t something that you really need a scientific study or survey poll to figure out because it’s depicted in virtually every piece of popular media or literature ever produced, and everyone alive will know the pain of losing someone they care about at some point.
*Note: Depression is more complex and is usually not caused by only one thing . However, most depressed people will mention some perceived deficit in their relationships with other people.
*Another Note: “Relationship” doesn’t only mean a romantic relationship. It can also mean your relationship with your family, coworkers, and anyone else who is somehow part of your life.
It’s clear that our relationships with other humans are one of the primary sources, if not the primary source, of most of our greatest joys and sorrows.
So, if there is anything disturbing or hindering those relationships, it’s worth looking into and understanding.
And therapy is a great way to do that because it requires you to work with a third-party professional (therapist) to dig into what exactly is going wrong and identify the origin of that problem.
After that has been done, you can proceed to work with your therapist to unravel and resolve that problem.
And if the problems you’re having are primarily caused by a lack of communication in a relationship , this can involve things like what we’ll start getting into now.
Therapy Can Help You See How You Might Be Blocking Others Out This is something that is very frequently dealt with in therapy but less commonly discussed in articles about therapy.
We think that’s unfortunate because most people dealing with a lack of communication in a relationship don’t realize that they may have some role to play in the problem.
We don’t say this to throw shade on anyone since it’s something most of us are guilty of at various points in our lives.
Rather, we mention it because it is one of the most common reasons we see someone struggling with relationships, especially if the same person is having trouble in multiple different relationships at once.
As the saying goes, if every relationship you have is problematic, you might actually be the common denominator because their relationship with you is probably the only thing all those different people have in common with each other.
But that’s great news because if the problem is just something you’re doing wrong, then you can learn to stop doing that thing, and then the problem just goes away.
What Do You Mean, Though? An example of this that will hopefully be easy for most people to understand is the phenomenon of what you might call “competitive conversations.”
More officially, it’s called “pseudolistening .”
This is where someone doesn’t listen to the person they’re conversing with so much as they wait for that person to stop talking so they can say whatever they want to say.
In most cases, the other person eventually gets the message and starts behaving in the same way.
And then you have a situation where two people are not talking with each other so much as they are both talking at each other.
This is to the mutual waste of both their time because neither of them will come away from the experience with any new knowledge or insight they didn’t have before, and they’ll probably both feel drained and unheard.
So, What’s The Solution? Well, there can be many solutions to this and other things that cause a lack of communication in a relationship.
But one of the things we like the most is learning and practicing conversation skills with your therapist.
Conversation skills are something that used to be commonly taught to children from a young age .
If you want more info on the history of this, you can Google “the classical trivium.”
Unfortunately, this practice fell out of fashion long before many of us were born.
Learning to Make Someone Else Feel Heard and Valued Things like learning how to phrase your thoughts in your head before you say them, pausing between sentences, and sticking to only one subject or thought at a time are great ways to minimize the risk of misunderstandings or stress in conversations.
Additionally, if someone you’re talking with mentions several different points at once, it is good practice to try to only address one of them at a time before moving on to the next one.
You do this to allow yourself the time and mental space necessary to fully address that person’s point while also letting them know that you’re listening to them and giving their point the attention they feel it deserves.
Effective Communication Is Something of a Lost Art Form Another way to prevent a lack of communication in a relationship is to ask questions.
Seriously, ask lots of questions, even in your own head, when you’re not talking with anyone.
Asking questions, especially open-ended questions, is how we come to discover and understand more about whatever it is we’re thinking about or interacting with.
And this includes other people.
But How Do I Ask Better Questions? This is yet another thing your therapist can help you with.
In fact, we’re kind of experts at it, and it’s mostly what we do all day in our patient sessions.
Your therapist can basically help you learn how to do more of what they do.
For instance, if someone you’re talking with mentions 3 problems in your relationship in one breath, you can fully investigate each of those problems individually instead of trying to rapidly spout off your defense of yourself in one breath before the other person has time to respond.
Likewise, try not to only make your own counterpoints or ramble off into your own defensive monologue about how whatever they said is wrong.
Instead, you can replace the statements you might have in your head with open-ended questions related to whatever it is that the other person is saying.
This makes them feel heard and shows them that you are actually interested in listening to what they have to say.
It goes without saying that your therapist can help you learn and practice this and many other communication techniques that will often help you avoid or repair a lack of communication in a relationship.
Relate To Others In a Healthier Way And also be more relatable yourself.
Along with resolving mental health troubles, deprogramming self-destructive habits, and other things like that, this is a major thing that therapy can help you with.
A lack of communication in a relationship is something that’s common but usually unnecessary and caused by either misunderstandings or undeveloped communication skills.
But the fact that a lot of this can be effectively addressed by learning a new set of skills is great news for you because it means that this problem does not need to be permanent. 🙂
