Do We have Good Communication?

Hi everybody, it’s Maggie O’Connor at Breakthrough MFT helping you reach your”breakthrough moment”.

How do I know if I have good communication with my partner?

If you’re asking the question, you probably are feeling like there’s something missing in this area for you.

We know if we’re being heard. We know if we’re being seen. More importantly, we know if we’re being seen even for the parts of ourselves that we don’t share so easily; and in this pandemic, we are showing more of ourselves than we ever thought we would!

So I ask you, ‘How is that being received in your life?’ because here’s the part of communication that always gets missed: It’s not just about what you’re showing or what you’re saying, but how it’s being received by your partner.

For example, in a couples session, the wife was talking about how she was putting the baby to bed and she says, ‘…so I went back in to put a blanket on the baby…’ and the husband jumps in and says, ‘So you’re saying I’m a bad father!!!’

Does she think he’s a bad father? Probably not.

But something’s happening in that system that makes it hard for the husband to see her as nurturing, because he feels so criticized. It’s being expressed, this nurturing, but it’s not being received. This couple could get lost in a negative communication cycle very quickly – sort of like, ‘this is what I heard you say… this is what I made up about it… and that’s what i’m reacting to…’

We react to the narrative instead of the person.

Narratives are stories we construct about why people do what they do, and they can be really helpful as we organize our daily lives. But sometimes they’re more accurate than others.

In a healthy communication system, it feels safe to be curious and explore with your partner what just happened there. So, in in this situation the wife could say, ‘…hey, what’s going on? Do you really think I think you’re a bad dad?’ The husband could consider the question, and respond to that.

In a less healthy communication structure, the narratives are all we have so we hold on tight they repeat and make it reallllly hard to see the other person for who they are what they’re saying. This husband will insist that he can’t get it right with his “critical wife” and they will lock into a defensive cycle that will make it impossible for them to share this nurturing moment with their baby.

Neither of them will feel seen; neither of them will feel heard.

Therapy can help you recognize and define some underlying patterns or issues that might make it harder for you to be curious with each other. Therapy can help you run more accurate narratives rather than letting them run you.

I’m Maggie O’Connor, hoping this helps you to ‘break on through’.

How to Get What You Want from Your Relationship

Hi there, I’m Maggie O’Connor at Breakthrough MFT helping you reach your breakthrough moment.

Today I want to talk to those of you out there who are dating and wondering if this is the right person for you…

So the other day I went into a donut shop and I asked for a quinoa salad… I really insisted, although the lady behind the counter was saying to me, “We don’t have it, I’m so sorry… is there something else you want?”, and I just really didn’t want to leave without my quinoa salad!

This sounds ridiculous to anybody who’s listening, but…

Sometimes in dating, we find ourselves looking for what we need from someone who just doesn’t have it!

We’ll spend all kinds of time and energy trying to help them to understand how good it could be… how great this thing is if they would just try it. We even make excuses why they just don’t check that box. We don’t spend enough time wondering what’s important to us about it, and checking that out with our partner!

So what do we do about this? How can I be helpful?

I want to suggest to you that a little curiosity goes a long way. How are we gonna do that?

Number one, you’re going to identify your need and what’s important about this to you.

Number two, you’re going to check the evidence – is this person, is your partner handing out quinoa salads to everybody and not giving any to you?! That’s informative!

Number three, you’re going to ask them about it. This is really hard, this is the moment of truth.

You’re going to do it like this – identify your feeling first (i.e., “this didn’t feel so great to me when you… (fill in the blank).

What’s that about?”)

Number four, you’re going to be quiet you’re gonna really listen to the answer. Know that they’re always going to tell you what you need to know but it might not be what you want to hear so from something like, ‘I love you babe, but family time skiing it’s not my thing’, you could hear “I love you babe” and leave it at that, and you’re going to be disappointed. But if you really listen to the truth of, it’s not their thing you can…

Number five use this to make a decision about whether you accept it.

Accepting means ‘no harm no foul’; this means no resentment and this means I’m not gonna get it from you, so I’m okay getting it from somebody else. And if one of us feels lonely later we can have another conversation…

You can acknowledge that this is gonna be a source of conflict in the relationship but we don’t want to change it yet…

Or, we’re gonna change the nature of the relationship, and that doesn’t mean we have to end it but the nature of the relationship needs to change, if you’re not going to be able to get your quinoa salad from the donut shop.

I‘m Maggie O’Connor, hoping this helps you to ‘break on through’.