The Communication Habit That Is Causing More Tension In Your Relationship

I'm a couple therapist. I teach couples how to communicate for a living. And yet I still mess up my own communication all the time. Get ready with me while I tell you about the most recent mistake I made. The mistake is using absolute words like always or never. So in my marriage, I'm the timekeeper. And recently I got a little bit irritated about how much mental load comes along with this task. And I snapped at my husband, Xander, that I always have to be the one keeping him on time. The first problem is that words like always, always, or never just aren't true. And in my specific example, my husband's a grown ass adult. There are plenty of times that he keeps himself on time. The second problem is that it puts your partner straight on the defensive. So Xander went right into lawyer mode, and all he had to do was come up with one time where he had navigated his own time and made sure he showed up on time to something. Which brings us straight into the third problem. When you start arguing back and forth about the semantics or the logistics, you miss the original emotions that came up for you. The frustration that I was feeling, the loneliness that I was feeling, the responsibility that I was carrying. And all of those emotions and those thoughts get lost when you just turn into an argument about whether or not something actually has happened before. So learn from my mistake and take the words always and never right out of your relationship vocabulary. Follow along for even more practical sex and relationship tips and advice.