As a marriage counselor, I have seen many situations where couples enter counseling in
a state of crisis. There is great pain and ambivalence for both partners as they seek to
communicate and reconcile.
One goal of counseling is to develop the couple's communication skills. The object is
not to win the battle of "Who is right?" but to learn to understand and
emphatically respond to the partner's feelings. This takes concentration and willingness
to stick to good communication rules.
The habits of non-listening are so strong that it takes the presence of a counselor to
demonstrate the skills, observe the efforts at communication, make helpful suggestions and
step in to enforce the rules. Listening for understanding is a difficult task for someone
who is used to redefining everything to fit into his or her perspective.
A third party is necessary to teach, coach and model the skills needed to break through
the impasse. Here is some advice I've found effective in counseling couples.
Cease private discussions about areas of conflict. These discussions will take
place in counseling sessions. Private attempts have gone nowhere, and further failure just
leads to more discouragement. All "hot" issues are put on hold. This reduces
tension and the anxiety of needing to do something which usually means more fighting and
arguing.
Encourage positive behaviors. Behaviors such as doing more things for each other,
being more tender and loving, giving attention, doing favors and meeting a mate's needs
are encouraged. Specific examples are spelled out so the task is clear. Let the loved one
know he or she is cared for and appreciated.
Apply "active listening" techniques. The couple is taught "active
listening" techniques. One partner is the listener, the other is the speaker, and the
counselor acts as a coach.
The listener can't interrupt, offer an opinion, or rebut or dispute what is being said.
The listener is to follow the speaker's line of thinking, ask questions, draw the speaker
out, and - using the speaker's words - reflect back the speaker's main points.
The listener is coached to explore deeper and to help the speaker connect the complaint
to other situations (usually in childhood) when similar feelings may have been felt. The
listener discovers something unique and special about the partner. Behind the complaints
and conflict is a man or a woman with a past, with feelings and with a legitimate point of
view.
Then the speaker and listener roles are reversed. The new speaker then has the
undivided floor and gets to respond with his or her point of view.
This technique is used over four or five sessions - with practice at home
- until the listening techniques are learned and are established in the couple's routine
of communicating.
The improvement in communication has to be matched by effort at being more loving and
considerate with each other. Accepting a mate's insensitivity is easier if the problem is
seen as a communication problem rather than as a lack of caring. If no improvement takes
place at home, the counselor can assume that one partner is either resisting change or has
significant family-of-origin issues that prevent him or her from developing a mature adult
love relationship.
The counselor as coach. Listening is hard for people not used to concentrating or
keeping their own thoughts and emotions under control during sensitive discussions. The
listener has to learn to sit on his or her emotional reactions and mounting frustration
while they are discussing highly personal material is being discussed.
The coach has to prompt, remind, model, and suggest lines of response that keep the
listener on the task of identifying and restating feelings. The coach teaches the listener
to listen for key phrases and use them in the feedback process. The listener's task is to
aid the speaker in expressing himself or herself and to push for deeper insight. The
listener will want to veer off track. The coach's role is to prevent the old patterns from
taking over.
The more detached and relaxed the listener becomes, the more the speaker perceives the
listener as being emotionally available. The speaker is free to share deeper feelings
instead of calculated retorts. The speaker, too, becomes more detached, relaxed and
unemotional in the thinking and presentation of ideas.
Initially, the coach may have to help the speaker avoid provocative or abrasive
expressions that arouse the defenses of the listener. The speaker is also coached on how
to confine comments to three or four sentences so as not to overload the listener.
"Active listening" balances power between husband and wife. The pattern of
blaming, attacking, interrupting, criticizing, labeling, ignoring, interpreting,
discounting, withholding and denying is halted. Automatic assumptions and thoughtless
retorts about the partner's motives and feelings are delayed until true listening takes
place. The couple is free to learn about each other.
These new communication skills are like turning on a light bulb. The couple can
experience intimacy, with each finding their partner to be an emotional resource. The
acquisition of good communication skills offers new hope for married couples caught in a
cycle of emotionally draining fights.