5 Communication Mistakes You're Making (& What to do instead)
In today's episode, I’m sharing five communication and conflict mistakes that I often see people making in relationships and what you can do instead to bridge a positive connection with your partner.
WHAT WE’LL COVER:
Why we shouldn’t avoid the hard conversations
What happens when we suppress our emotions
How to express your desires with your partner
Why we shouldn’t expect our partners to be mind readers
FURTHER LINKS & RESOURCES:
Apply for my 6-month Homecoming Mastermind
Follow me on Instagram: @stephanie__rigg & @onattachment
You might also like…
Episode Transcript
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You're listening to On Attachment, a place to learn about how attachment shapes the way we experience relationships and where you'll gain the guidance, knowledge and practical tools to overcome insecurity and build healthy, thriving relationships. I'm your host, relationship coach Stephanie Rigg and I'm really glad you're here. You welcome back to another episode of On Attachment. In today's episode, I'm going to be sharing five communication and conflict mistakes that I often see people making in relationships and what you can do instead in order to cultivate greater understanding, mutual respect, and ultimately to be able to have conflict in a way that feels not only not scary, but actually positive, actually a bridge to connection and an effective way to cultivate greater understanding of one another and feel more connected rather than feeling like conflict. Is a one way ticket to really painful ruptures and disconnection and misunderstanding, which I think is certainly the case, or at least the starting point for a lot of us.
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So I'm going to be sharing, as I said, some of the things that I think a lot of us do, and this will not exclusively be true for people who tend towards insecure attachment patterns. I think even if you are broadly secure in your attachment, you might have had less than ideal modelling around communication and conflict in your family system. But more often than not, I think that people who are either anxious or avoidant in their attachment strategies tend to be somewhat conflict averse and that can lead to a starting point of being really self protective when it comes to conflict. And so as soon as we're in that self protective mode straight off the bat, then obviously our strategies are going to be infused with that energy of self protection and it's really hard to connect from that place. So I am going to be talking about all of that and more.
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Before I do, I just wanted to share the featured review for today, which is thanks for all you do, Stephanie. I've recommended On Attachment to all of my friends. This podcast has helped me own responsibility for my attachment style and actions while helping me bring compassion and understanding. It's been incredibly grounding to hear about the thousands of people just like me that Stephanie's helped. This podcast has made me feel less alone at a time when I felt so trapped in old thought patterns and anxieties.
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Thank you, Stephanie, for your honesty, kindness and hopefulness. For the first time, I'm starting to feel like a healthy relationship is a possibility for me. Thank you so much for that beautiful review. I'm so glad that that's been your experience and I couldn't agree more that the experience of feeling like we are not alone and that reassurance of realising that other people are going through a very similar thing to us makes us feel so much more optimistic about there being a path forward. So I'm glad that you found that in the podcast.
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If that was your review, please send an email to podcast@stephanierigg.com and my team will set you up with free access to one of my master classes as a way to say thank you. Okay, so let's dive into this conversation around communication, mistakes that you might be making in your relationship and what to do instead. Now, this will apply somewhat to non romantic relationships, although, as always, this being a relationship focused podcast, I will frame it in that way. But just a note, if you're not currently in a relationship, there are certainly principles here that you can apply to non romantic relationships, whether that's with family, friends or colleagues or anyone else. So the first tip I want to give you here is don't avoid the hard conversations.
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As I said in the introduction, I think that a lot of us, particularly if you are either more anxious or more avoidant, have a level of conflict aversion. And we can really avoid those hard conversations until we're at a boiling point, until the conversations sort of force themselves on us because we've put ourselves through so much stress by trying to avoid it or sidestep it or bypass it or tiptoe around it, and it just gets bigger and bigger and bigger inside us until it all comes out. So I think that if you are someone who really does struggle to have hard conversations, this is a really important thing to reprogram in yourself and it is a skill that we can learn. I think it can be a really vicious downward spiral. Because if you haven't got a lot of experience in having hard conversations in a safe and healthy way, then every time you do have these big conversations, if you're not having them in a way that sets you up.
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For success. Then you're probably going to have these big, awful fights or attack, defend, or you say something, but you say it in a bit of a demanding way and then someone shuts down. And what does that do? That reinforces to your system hard conversations are unsafe, they threaten the relationship, they lead to people abandoning me or attacking me or whatever other story you might have. That might not just be a made up story, it might be based on your experience.
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But I think it's really important, if that's the case, to recognise, okay, how am I contributing to the perpetuation of that experience and of that story that I have? So, noticing that as much as avoiding the hard conversations feels like it's something that we're doing from a place of keeping ourselves safe, if we think that the hard conversations are not safe, then of course we're going to want to avoid them. But it really costs us a lot because, as I've said before, usually when we try and avoid those conversations, this is more for my anxious folk, we suppress our needs, we suppress our concerns, but it's like the less we talk about them, the more we think about them. I've said this to my partner before that if we're not talking about something that we both know is going on and it feels like an elephant in the room, it's deafeningly loud to me inside. And the more that we avoid it, the louder it is for me.
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It takes up so much space inside of me to avoid it. And so if that's true for you as well, just consider, am I really achieving anything by trying to avoid these conversations? Because if you're anything like me, it probably just comes out in a more distressed and escalated way somewhere down the track as a result of trying to suppress it. So one of the best things that you can do, and if you take nothing else away from today's episode than this, please learn to have the hard conversations and trust that the earlier you have them, the less hard they will be. And the more often that you have them, the less hard they will be, because they just don't come with the same energy of pent up, stressed, overwhelmed.
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I've spent three weeks building up the stories around this and making a lot of meaning and interpreting everything you say and do and don't say and don't do through the lens of this story. I've been telling myself the more we can fast track that and nip it in the bud, have the conversations when something first arises, we're much better off because we're going to be able to cheque those stories, connect, get our needs met, share what's bothering us and just air the grievances or whatever else is on our heart and on our mind that it's pretty rare, that just avoiding something and letting it grow and fester is the path forward. So that's the first mistake. Try not to keep avoiding the hard conversations. As I've said many times before, whatever scary truth you think might be revealed in the conversations you're avoiding, if it already exists in your relationship, it already exists in your relationship, the conversation is just the thing that's going to reveal it, right?
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So I think we have to be courageous and have those conversations and trust that we will be all the stronger for it. Okay, the next communication and conflict mistake that I see a lot and again have experienced myself, as with most of the things I talk about on this podcast, is fighting about fighting. So what do I mean by this? Have you ever been in an argument with someone and it starts as an argument about a situation or a set of circumstances or what you're feeling or needing or whatever it might be, but very soon you start fighting about the way you're fighting. So it's things like, are you going to say something?
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Or I can't believe you're just sitting there, or Why are you ignoring me? Or don't speak to me like that. Or whatever it is but it becomes less about substance and more about form. So we start attacking each other on the way that we are talking rather than actually engaging with the substance of what we were meaning to talk about, what was bothering us. And it should be obvious that this is completely ineffective.
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When you notice that happening, then just know that the horse is bolted, the conversation is a dead end and you are much better off to just take a break, take a time out, call it for what it is, say look, we're clearly not getting anywhere, let's regroup in an hour, or whatever it might be. But don't just keep following that rabbit hole of attacking and defending not even the substance of what was bothering you, but actually just fighting about the way that you are fighting. This is just so common. And if it's not something you've been aware of prior to now, I promise you, now you'll notice it and you'll realise just how common it is to nitpick at each other about the way that we are communicating. And really when we're doing that, as always, we can go, okay, what's behind my complaint or my criticism?
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What's the unmet need? And if you're getting angry at someone for not saying something as quickly as you would like, or for getting defensive or whatever it might be, it's like what do I actually need here? And try and voice that say I know that you're just processing, but it's really hard for me when you go quiet for ten minutes or whatever it might be. Right? But share the vulnerability that is within you rather than armoring up and attacking because that will almost always make it worse.
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So that leads me nicely into my third communication mistake, which is criticising rather than voicing desires. So a really, really helpful and easy rule of thumb is instead of criticising your partner, express what the desire is underneath your criticism or your complaint. So if you're frequently criticising your partner for whatever it might be, you never are affectionate with me, or you're always on your phone or you never let me know when you're running late or whatever. Right? Think of all of the things that we can be critical about, whether we voice them or not.
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But with a little bit of interrogation and really not much, because oftentimes the desires sit pretty close to the surface, with a little bit of interrogation, you'll see that there is a desire underneath that. So as I said, we tend to armour up and lead with our sword. We attack someone because that feels less vulnerable than sharing. When you're on your phone, when I'm talking to you, I feel really unimportant to you and that scares me. It scares me to not feel like you care about what I have to say, even if it's just telling you boring stuff about my day.
0:11:21.05 → 0:11:48.92
It would mean so much to me to have that time protected and connected for us to sit together without our phones, is that something that you'd be open to doing? Can you see how that is so much more likely to be received in a way that invites engagement and reflection and response rather than telling someone, why do I even bother being in a relationship with you? Because you're always on your phone. I may as well just live here by myself. That's how disengaged you are, right?
0:11:49.02 → 0:12:25.06
When we go with that, it's like, yeah, I'm keeping myself safe somehow by leading with that level of aggression and attack. And it's not to excuse or explain away someone's behaviour that you might be unhappy with, but it is to take responsibility for the ways in which our response to that behaviour might be entrenching us in painful dynamics rather than forging a path out of those dynamics and towards greater connection. So think about it. What is the desire underneath my complaint or my criticism? And can I be brave enough to show my heart and voice that?
0:12:25.24 → 0:13:05.69
And even if my partner can't meet me in it or doesn't meet me in it, I am still so much better off sharing that honesty and that vulnerability from a place of integrity and open heartedness than if I join them in some sort of negativity and criticism and whatever else might be the dynamic of the relationship. You don't win by joining them in the trenches in that. So take the high road without being high and mighty about it and voice the desires that sit underneath your criticisms and see what happens. You might be surprised. Okay, the next communication and conflict mistake that I see a lot is schoolkeeping and kitchen sinking.
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So what do these terms mean? Schoolkeeping should be obvious enough. It's when we go, well, why should I have to do this when you haven't done that? We can do this in lots of different settings. Maybe it'll be I've called you the last three times that we've met up for a date and you haven't called me since.
0:13:23.95 → 0:14:41.04
This time we're really keeping tally on inputs to the relationship, on effort, on who does what and when and all of that. And really, apart from the fact that that's exhausting to be in that mode of scrutinising and score keeping our relationship, it really is just an indicator that we feel a sense of imbalance and maybe we don't feel valued for our contribution and so we feel the need to keep jumping up and down and making a point of it. I think, relatedly, we can sort of gatekeep our love from this place. We can become very protective and feel like to the extent that there's an imbalance in contributions or in inputs, we don't want to be loving because we don't want to skew it further and feel like we're going to send that imbalance to further extremes. So if we do feel like we are the one who usually initiates contact or plans dates or does more stuff around the house, whatever it might be, we start getting really defensive of our contribution and contributing less or becoming very resentful about it because we are so acutely aware of this perceived imbalance and all
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of the stories that come with it.
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So we usually are doing a lot of meaning making when we're in this score keeping mindset, we're making it mean that someone doesn't care about us or that they're entitled or that they take us for granted or that they're lazy or they don't respect us, right? There's a lot of pretty significant stories that come with that that can be really harmful. So when you notice that score keeping mindset in your relationship, the first thing that you should be doing is getting really curious around what's going on with you. What are the unmet needs that are leading me to use this strategy of scorekeeping? Whether it's just me huffing and puffing and internally scorekeeping and harbouring that resentment or whether I'm waving that in front of my partner and trying to get them to see what is the underlying need.
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And can I ask that? Can I be really clear around my communication rather than just spinning around in the resentment and the kind of victim mindset? Because I think a lot of us can go there when we feel hurt or unsupported but again, it usually doesn't help us to get what we really desire. The other part to this one that I mentioned was kitchen sinking. So this is not exactly related but it's this tendency to raise one issue and then raise 234-5678 other issues when we have a conversation with our partner.
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So we might start a conversation about one thing and then our partner might get defensive and then we might pile on another one and another one and another one. So it's you didn't take the rubbish out last night and you didn't do this and you didn't do that and you were late home last Tuesday and you never even put in effort anymore and I can't remember the last time you cooked dinner for me and right. Again, this is kind of the flip side of the suppression of our needs is that we say nothing and then when we finally get the opportunity, it's like we finally have our moment. We have the microphone, we have centre stage and we just come at someone with this barrage of things that we've been suppressing and tell them all of the ways, seemingly unrelated, that they have been inadequate or that they've been messing up or that they've missed the mark or not meeting our needs or expectations. And I think this is particularly common among anxiously attached people.
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Again, never any judgement when I call this out because I am guilty of it. But it's this thing of I've been suppressing my needs because I don't want to be too needy, too burdensome. I don't want to be a nag, I don't want to be critical, but I still have all of these grievances that I'm very aware of. And so when I finally get the opportunity, if we're having an argument or I do feel like that window is there for me to say these things, I can feel a sense of scarcity around it. I don't want to keep it to one issue because what if I don't get another opportunity for another month or something to share all of these other things that have been bothering me?
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So I just have to ram them all in there now and let you know all of the things that you've been doing wrong. Now that I have this opportunity and now that I have your attention and I feel like this is my moment, needless to say that this is not a very effective strategy, particularly if you have a more avoidant partner, they're going to feel really very quickly overwhelmed and demoralised by that kind of communication style. This sense of you're just hitting me with a tidal wave, of all of the ways in which I am inadequate and all of the ways in which I am failing you as a partner because you are so unhappy with me. Now, you might see it differently, but that is, I guarantee you, how they will see it and experience it and we can kind of understand that if we can step outside of our own stuff and look at that situation a little more objectively. Just being hit with this long list of complaints about all the ways in which you aren't stacking up or you aren't fulfilling your partner's needs, can feel really attacking and in.
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Most people will trigger defensiveness. So as much as possible, try to keep your conversations to one issue rather than leading with this long list of things and capitalising on the opportunity and trying to air every single grievance and resolve every single issue and just keep the conversation going for hours and hours because you feel like that is your one window of opportunity. The fifth and final communication mistake that I wanted to share is stop expecting your partner to read your mind. Now, I know that this is not romantic. I know that we all wish that our partner was a mind reader and that we wouldn't have to tell them what we need and tell them how we would like our needs to be met and tell them how we're feeling and tell them what might be bothering us or whatever other thing might be on your mind.
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And feeling heavy and taking up a lot of space. But the more we have that expectation, which is just not realistic, the more we then again make meaning out of the fact that our partner hasn't been able to read our mind and we get really upset and we probably start engaging in some of those protest behaviours to indirectly get their attention. Maybe we get a bit quiet and withdrawn or sulky or short tempered and try and elicit that what's wrong? Kind of response in our partner so that we then get the space to share because we don't feel comfortable expressing it. So I know that this can be really hard and I know that, as I said, in an ideal world, our partners would be mind readers and we would never have to step into the vulnerability of sharing and asking for things and being direct and being open because it is vulnerable, right?
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It opens us up to rejection. It opens us up to the possibility that our partner cannot or doesn't want to be there or support us or meet our needs or that they just might not respond in the exact way that we would like them to. It's vulnerable, it's edgy, it's scary, but it's also just part and parcel of being in a healthy relationship is being direct and being communicative. And the more that we play these games of pretending to be low maintenance or not asking for things or shapeshifting or trying to not have needs, I mean, you tell me, how is that working out for you? Because I know that when I've tried that, it hasn't worked terribly well.
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It just leads me to feel more anxious and stressed. And as I said earlier, the less you talk about it, the more you think about it. And it just takes up a lot of space and really occupies a lot of real estate in your mind and in your emotional body. It's a heavy burden to carry. So as much as it's not the most romantic or sexy thing in the world to have to spell it out for our partners, try and believe that they care and that they really want to be able to support you.
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But you might just have to be a little more of an active participant in that process, rather than expecting it all to happen magically. Okay, so that was five communication and conflict mistakes. I hope that that has been interesting and helpful for you. As I said, I know a lot of people really struggle with this and it's a very commonly requested podcast topic to do stuff around conflict, so I might have to do some more on this again soon. But I hope that that's given you at least a starting point of things to think about, of ways that we can go wrong and what you can do instead to create conflict that's not only not excruciatingly painful and stressful, but actually helps you to feel more connected and really understand each other's needs and feel closer as a result.
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Because it is possible. As much as that might feel totally alien to you if it's not been your experience, I guarantee you it is possible and it's a skill that you can learn. As always, if you've enjoyed this episode, I'd be so grateful if you could leave a five star review, a rating. You can leave a little comment on Spotify underneath the episode, share it with the people in your life. All of those good things really help so much in getting the word out, but otherwise, I look forward to seeing you again soon.
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Thanks guys. Thanks for joining me for this episode of On Attachment. If you want to go deeper on all things attachment, love and relationships, you can find me on Instagram @stephanie__rigg or at stephanierigg.com. And if you enjoyed this episode, I'd be so grateful if you could leave a review and a five star rating. It really does help so much.
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Thanks again for being here and I hope to see you again soon.