When you find yourself in a seemingly endless loop of arguing with your partner, where every conversation seems to end in tension and tears, it might SEEM like you have a communication problem.

But you don’t ;)

Logically, yes, you are struggling to communicate.

But thing is, studying communication best practices like active listening and embarking on learning about ‘love languages’ is NOT going to help you.

First of all, endless studies at the Gottman institute show that active listening alone does very little at all to improve communication.

Second of all, ‘love languages’ have been widely discredited by science as a load of pop culture BS.

But even more importantly…

You do NOT have a communication problem - you have a TRUST problem.

When you try to learn to ‘communicate better’ without addressing the lack of emotional safety between the two of you

Or clear out the past resentments from weeks, months, and even years back

Or overcome the blocks that you have towards them because of your own fear of intimacy and being vulnerable (which will have been with you since childhood)

It’s not going to work.

No matter how many times you ask ChatGPT for help, google the problem, read books, and even scroll through couples retreats wistfully fantasizing about things being better.

Because when you repair the trust between the two of you - communication will flow naturally.

You won’t need communication scripts, you won’t need to follow best practices - the goodwill between the two of you, the love in your heart, the assumption of positive intent, will make the communication flow beautifully.

Remember what it was like during your honeymoon period?

When you two just met?

You didn’t have any emotional baggage between you (yet)

You didn’t have resentment

You were excited about the potential of them

And you had a heck of a lot of goodwill

You were open to their ideas, wanting to listen, curious about who they are

And you assumed they had positive intentions

Yet over the years, because you both had your own internal blocks around vulnerability (which are extremely common) you likely stopped saying what was on your mind, stopped addressing things that hurt you, stopped making the effort to resolve annoyances.

You let things slide, you avoided confrontation

And negative stories began to take root in your mind

Whilst the emotional pain grew, and grew

Until eventually you’re in a situation where there’s not much goodwill left

You don’t trust them much anymore (deep down)

You’re latently annoyed at them already because you feel hurt and that was never addressed

And lo and behold, every bit of communication between you snowballs into a fight

It’s not rocket science to see that trying to band-aid some communication scripts here isn’t going to be all that effective.

Nope, what you need to do instead is work on building trust

And you START with that by building trust in yourself

Yes - before you can trust anyone else, including your partner, you have to trust yourself

Trust yourself to speak up when needed

Trust yourself to feel what needs to be felt

Trust yourself to have overcome your internal blocks towards intimacy

Trust yourself to show up as your best and most loving, secure self

Trust yourself to set healthy boundaries Trust yourself to advocate for yourself

It all starts with you

And once you trust yourself, you can start to build trust with your partner, by clearing out the past resentments, pains, and points of contention that have built up

From a healthy, secure, empowered place -

Rather than a reactive, wounded, scare place.

Doesn’t that all make a LOT more sense?

It sure does to me - which is why in my experience, couples counseling and trying to ‘talk about the problem’ rarely works.

It’s not more talking you need - it’s more digging deep and clearing things out, and reconnecting with yourself!

Which isn’t the realm of couples work

But that is precisely what I can help you with

In my 90 day program, I help folks like you liberate themselves from their own internal blocks, fears of vulnerability, and hidden patterns that are holding them back from feeling the love, connection, trust and intimacy they deserve.

Most folks have these, and I’m willing to bet if you’ve read this far, you will have them too. I had tons of these when I started out in this work.

Once the blocks are cleared, I then help them rebuild trust in themselves first, before learning how to communicate with their partner in a way that addresses the pain between them, and artfully manages to create intimacy out of what was previously conflict.

If this resonates with you, book a 20-minute call with me to learn more about how I can help you.