At this point, the importance of “talking about your feelings” is almost a cliche. We all know we should do it, it even sounds like good advice, but when it comes down to it?
Talking about your feelings isn’t always that easy.
In my relationship coaching sessions, clients sometimes share something with their partner during our session that they had not previously told him.
🤔Is there anything you’ve been thinking about that you haven’t shared with your partner?
Sometimes, what they share is relatively boring while other times it’s a bombshell. Here are some things clients haven’t gotten around talking to:
- A change in work schedule
- A guy they’ve been talking to and thinking about hooking up with
- Disappointment over not having started planning the wedding yet after having gotten engaged
- Starting to take viagra sometimes
- Wanting to finalize weekend plans
- Wanting to have more sex
There are two main reasons folks you might put off talking to your partner about something:
- You’re waiting for the “right” time because you don’t want to be a buzzkill or make your partner upset or anxious
- You’re worried how your partner will react to what you say
Sex and relationship therapist Esther Perel has some wisdom on this:
“We listen quite well when people say nice things. The challenge is how to listen when someone says something that hurts us or annoys us or that we disagree with. And research tells us we have the capacity to listen for 10 seconds when someone tells us something we don’t agree with. That’s 3 sentences.”
If you have something important to talk to your partner about but you haven’t done it yet, there might be a really good reason why: you’re worried it won’t be received well.
That means, in a relationship you need to practice two skills:
- The stamina to listen just a little bit longer and just a bit more carefully when your partner is saying something you disagree with or that you’re having a negative reaction to. Can you stay present long enough to really understand?
- The courage to say the things that need to be said, trusting that your partner loves you and cares about you and is also working on his own stamina to really hear you.
One of the benefits of a relationship coaching session is that you get me as a skilled facilitator to help your partner slow down and really listen to you. You also get a time set aside each week or month where you don’t have to kill the buzz by bringing something up, that’s literally what you’ve set the time aside for.
If you think it would be helpful to have some conversations with your partner with a coach present, book one-off Breakthrough Session or if you’d like a multi-session or on-going support, apply relationship coaching
