Speaking & Listening

George: She calls me up at my office. She says, “We have to talk.”
Jerry: Ugh. The four worst words in the English language.
Seinfeld

Of course, we can all talk but can we communicate. All couple therapists hear the same complaints every week. As soon as clients sit down on the sofa, you hear: “We can’t talk to each other” or “She won’t tell me what is wrong” or “He bottles things up.” Yet the question is always the same: is the problem communication or is it we don’t like the message? Is the problem we can’t communicate or are we cautious of the consequences of honest communication and either say nothing or muddle the message?
But beyond these conscious calculations, there are inherent confusions woven within the very fabric of speaking and listening, specifically:

• How you say what you want to say
• How the other side hears what you are saying

Unfortunately, errors in both of these departments are common. We only say half of what we think or don’t say things we think or think things we don’t say. Or we only half-listen or our expectations of what we think is going to be said distort how we hear what was said. Or both speaking and listening systems are caught in the crossfire of other emotions such as anger, resentment and frustration.

Such issues are only compounded by gender. As outlined in John Grey’s 1992 Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus there can be significant differences between how men and women communicate. There has been criticism that such an approach is both simplistic and reinforces gender stereotypes, yet as evidenced by the multi-million sales figures, many, many couples fall into this pattern. A quick example mentioned in Grey’s book, is how a statement by a wife such as “we never go out,” which for her expresses a desire to spend more time with her husband, while for him it is heard as a criticism of his failure to show affection.

If you are speaking different languages how do you build a friendship, how do you display love or frustration? Simple answer, you need to talk about it. You need to be open and honest and try to say what you’ve got to say in a way they can hear and hear what they mean to say instead of what they say.

Speaking to Men

The target audience, and thus the focus, of most relationship books is women. Of course, it is important that women are happy, yet while women may be unhappy for many reasons, lack of communication tends not to be one of them. Women, on the whole, verbalise very effectively what they want from both a partner and a relationship. Many men, on the other hand, do not. Most men grow up with pressure to guard against showing too much emotion. And before we all rush to say that was the issue of the past and such traditions no longer exist, be aware that women are just as complicit with this dynamic as men. Yes, of course all women want a man in touch with his emotions, the issue is how in touch? If you were to meet a man who cried on a first date or disclosed he struggles with his feelings, if you are truly honest, would there be a second date?

There are obvious frustrations in dealing with a gender whose default communication style is to deny anything is wrong. Yet the bigger danger is the mis-assumption because your husband doesn’t talk, he doesn’t care. In my experience, if one party is deeply unhappy in a relationship, in all likelihood, the other party is just as unhappy.