Why Communication with Your Spouse Is Difficult + 3 Strategies to Fix It

Have you ever noticed that when you’re trying to communicate with your spouse or partner that you get to a point where you can’t think clearly and your body is completely reactive? This can make it difficult to communicate because you can’t think through what you want to say. You shut down, fight back, or want to withdraw. After, you wonder what has just happened and–more importantly–you wonder how you can communicate better with your spouse.

If this is you, you’re not alone. When you get to this point, it can be frustrating and confusing to figure out where communication is going wrong, let alone know how to fix it.

Here’s why:

Your threat response turns off your ability to communicate effectively.

It turns off your spouse’s ability to communicate effectively too. This can create a vicious cycle causing more hurt and making communication more difficult in the long run.

In this post, I’m going to talk about three ways to interrupt your threat response, and how to drastically improve communication with your spouse.

First, let’s talk about what the threat response is and how it affects communication.

The Threat Response Is a Built-in Alarm System

It’s responsible for getting you to safety. It causes physiological processes in your body to gear it up to fight back or to get out of the situation.

Here’s an example: 

Imagine that you’re preparing to cross a street. You step into the street but then notice that a fast-moving vehicle is coming straight at you. 

Are you going to stop and think, “Gee…it looks like a car is coming in my direction. Hmm…is it going fast enough to hit me? Or is it going slow enough that I can safely cross the street?” 

Heck no!

You’re going to simply react. Your body is going to jump out of the street before you’ve had a chance to think about it. 

This is the exact same process that is happening when you’re going into a threat response while in a conversation with your partner. 

In the heat of the moment your body is going. “WARNING! WARNING! THREAT!” and responding.

It goes straight to fighting back, withdrawing, or shutting down. You don’t have a say about it once you get to that point.

Your history determines what you find threatening. Something that you find threatening may not be threatening to someone else and something that is threatening to someone else may not be threatening to you.

If you experienced trauma in childhood or in previous intimate relationships, it can be particularly difficult to communicate with your spouse because your threat response is on hyper alert. It can be difficult to tell whether your sense of threat is coming from your partner or if it’s coming from your past.

When you go into a threat response, your body uses all of its resources to survive. It amps up certain functions in your body and it turns off other functions. Your heart rate and blood pressure increase. Your breathing increases. And your muscles tense. 

Meanwhile, non-urgent functions like logic and reasoning go offline.

This is why communication becomes difficult…

The Threat Response Turns Off the Logic and Reasoning Part of the Brain

This part of the brain is unique to humans and makes it possible for us to be at the top of the food chain. It makes it possible for us to do the many things that are unique to our species like plan, organize, think logically, reason, and manage emotions.

It makes it possible for us to do things like solve problems and communicate effectively with our spouse.

When this part of the brain goes off-line, we can no longer respond in a rational way. We can’t talk through the problem and we certainly can’t solve the problem.

You’ve probably experienced this before: you’re talking with your spouse or partner and all of a sudden you have a flood of overwhelming emotions. 

Depending on how you tend to cope, you may automatically respond in one of a few ways. You may attack back by saying things that you would never say when you’re feeling calm and rational. You may withdraw and abruptly leave the conversation. Or you may freeze and shut down like a deer in headlights. You have no idea what to say and you have no idea how you got here.

What You Can Do Interrupt Your Threat Response

So, what can you do about this threat response? Here are three strategies to help you communicate better with your spouse or partner.

1. Build in a Pause

Begin by building in a pause. When you build in a pause, you create a space between stimuli and response.

Victor Frankyl, a Jewish-Austrian psychiatrist who survived the Nazi Auschwitz concentration camp and wrote the book, Man’s Search for Meaning said, “Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

When you can notice what triggers you, you can choose how to respond.

Build in a pause by noticing when your body is under threat. Pay attention to the things that cause you to go into threat mode. Is it something that the other person says? Are there certain topics that are upsetting for you? Is there a look or a certain look or tone of voice that’s upsetting to you.

This awareness raising is really important. It shifts your body out of threat mode, keeps your logic and reasoning online, and gives you a space to choose how you want to respond. Building in a pause can take practice, but the more you practice, the easier it becomes.

2. Take a Break

When you notice that you feel reactive rather than rational, it’s time to take a break. It will be difficult to stay engaged in the conversation at this point and the best thing you can do is step a way and give your body time to reset.

Dr. John Gottman, a Marriage and Relationship researcher at the University of Washington refers to the activation of the threat response as emotional flooding. He has found that people need at least 20 minutes to reset. He also recommends that couples regroup within 24 hours. Once your logic as reasoning is back online you can come back and respond in the way you want to.

I recommend having a conversation with your spouse or partner ahead of time, if it feels safe.

This conversation could go something like this:

“I just learned about this thing called emotional flooding. I learned that when people are having difficult conversations that can get triggered and feel threatened and it makes it so that they can’t think clearly. I’ve noticed that sometimes when we’re talking that happens to me and I’ve noticed that sometimes this happens to you. I would like to work toward having a conversation where all of our faculties are online. In order to do that, if I notice that I am feeling flooded, I would like to take a step away from the conversation and come back when I have had a chance to regroup. Does that sound good to you?”

Feel free to adapt the verbiage in a way that works for you. The idea is to acknowledge ahead of time that emotional flooding is a thing and to come up with a strategy or a plan with your partner so that you’re not all of a sudden stepping away. When you step away without your partner understanding why, it can lead to a sense of abandonment and this can cause a breach in the relationship.

3. Learn to Regulate Your Emotions.

When you can regulate your emotions, you can stay in the conversation longer while keeping the logic and reasoning part of your brain online. 

When you regulate your emotions you don’t get triggered as easily. If you do get triggered, you’re able to interrupt the threat response before you get to the point where your logic and reasoning go offline.

I teach all about how to do this in my course Emotions Made Simple. This course walks you through a step-by-step process to identify your triggers, break down your emotional response, and transform your relationship with your emotions

Even if nothing changes with your spouse, being able to regulate your emotions will become a superpower that will help you to think through how you want to respond and how to navigate the conversation.

Go to sheenakaascounseling.thinkific.com to learn more.

Conclusion

Your threat response can cause your logic and reasoning to go offline. This makes it difficult for you to navigate through a difficult conversation with your spouse or partner. With some strategies, you will be able to communicate better with your spouse.

Remember to build in a pause, detect when you’re under threat, and learn strategies to regulate your emotions.

I would love to help you. Check out Emotions Made Simple to learn more about how this course can help you regulate your emotions. Even if nothing changes with your spouse, you will have tools to navigate conflict in a better way.

Thank you for trusting me with this part of your healing journey.

The information in this post is general information for educational purposes only. While Sheena Kaas Mudaliar, MA; LMHC is a licensed mental health counselor, the information on this site is not intended to be a substitute for therapy or psychological advice. The information provided does not constitute the formation of a therapist-client relationship.