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222: Emotional vs. Problem-Solving Communication with Shane Birkel

Welcome back to The Couples Therapist Couch! This podcast is about the practice of Couples Therapy. Each week, Shane Birkel interviews an expert in the field of Couples Therapy to explore all about the world of relationships and how to be an amazing therapist.

In this solo episode, Shane breaks down emotional vs. problem-solving communication. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and your other favorite podcast spots, and watch it on YouTube – follow and leave a 5-star review.

  • Episode Summary & Player
  • Show Notes
  • The Couples Therapist Couch Summary
  • Transcript

The Couples Therapist Couch 222: Emotional vs. Problem-Solving Communication with Shane Birkel

Learn more about the Couples Therapy 101 course: https://www.couplestherapistcouch.com/

Learn more about the Couples Therapist Inner Circle: https://www.couplestherapistcouch.com/inner-circle-new

In this solo episode, Shane breaks down emotional vs. problem-solving communication. Hear why this misunderstanding happens a lot with couples, how to discuss difficult emotions, how to get partners on the same page, how long it takes to recover from an affair, and the times when it’s important to problem-solve.

This episode covers everything from communication to affairs. Here’s a small sample of what you will hear in this episode:

  • What's the disconnect between emotional & problem-solving communication?
  • How do you get partners on the same page?
  • What happens after a couple goes through an affair?
  • Why should partners speak from the first-person?
  • What motivates someone to never have an affair again?
  • How do you create an emotional connection?
  • What are partners looking for after an affair?
  • Is emotional or problem-solving communication better?

Join The Couples Therapist Couch Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/295562197518469/

Check out the episode, show notes, and transcript below: 

 Show Notes

 

What is The Couples Therapist Couch?

This podcast is about the practice of Couples Therapy. Many of the episodes are interviews with leaders in the field of Relationships. The show is meant to help Therapists and Coaches learn how to help people to deepen their connection, but in the process it explores what is most needed for each of us to love, heal, and grow. Each week, Shane Birkel interviews an expert in the field of Couples Therapy to explore all about the world of relationships and how to be an amazing therapist.

Learn more about the Couples Therapy 101 course: https://www.couplestherapistcouch.com/

Find out more about the Couples Therapist Inner Circle: https://www.couplestherapistcouch.com/inner-circle-new

Transcript

Please note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.

Shane Birkel 0:00
Stay connected to those emotions, breathe talk less.

Intro VO 0:09
Welcome to The Couples Therapist Couch, the podcast for couples therapists, marriage counselors, and relationship coaches to explore the practice of couples therapy and now your host, Shane Birkel.

Shane Birkel 0:26
Hey everyone, welcome back to The Couples Therapist Couch. This is Shane Birkel, and this is the podcast that's all about the practice of couples therapy. Thank you so much for tuning in. I'm a licensed therapist, and I try to bring you the best in the world of couples therapy. Most times, I do an interview with an expert in the field, and sometimes, like I'm doing today, I talk about a topic related to something I've been seeing with a lot of the couples I've been working with. Right now is a really good time to join the inner circle. The Inner Circle is actually something that I formed. You know, when people were listening to the podcast, they wanted to go more in depth. They wanted to get more education on how to work with couples. And right now, it's a really good time to join. You can I think you can join until Thursday, and at that point I'm going to close it down, because I just need to help the new people settle in. I give people a lot of support, a lot of education, a lot of you know directly answering your questions, and there's the ability for you to bring cases and talk about cases. So if you're looking for a little bit more support, if you're not ready to invest 1000s of dollars, is a really reasonable investment. You can pay per month, and you can click on the link below to find out the specific details of what's included with that. But there's hundreds of hours of recorded content at this point that you can go back and listen to and watch. So if that sounds like something that you're interested in, definitely check it out. Definitely get signed up by Thursday. There's a guaranteed, you know, seven days where you can try it out. And if it's not a good fit for you, then you don't have to pay anything. So take advantage of that. If it sounds like a good fit. This week, I'm going to be talking about something that I see happening a lot with couples, and it's a misunderstanding. I do think people have good intentions, but oftentimes, when somebody is trying to talk about their feelings and their experience, what they're looking for is connection and validation from their partner. And the mistake that I see happening is their partner goes to a place of problem solving and trying to fix, you know, trying to change their partner's emotions. So if, let's say their partner says, Hey, I'm feeling really hurt and sad today, then the other partner again, because they have good intentions, they want to make their partner feel better, they might start to say, Well, you shouldn't feel bad, you know, let's do something positive. And they're trying to make their partner feel better. But what really happens is their partner feels invalidated and misunderstood and disconnected because the other partner isn't meeting them in those difficult emotions. And I think that in our society, we're socialized to to do this, right? If you are not happy, if you're not feeling great, if you're depressed, then you just take a pill, right? We are socialized to just fix the problem and to do whatever we can to avoid difficult emotions. When, if you're a therapist, you probably understand that the pathway through those difficult emotions is leaning into them and experiencing them and walking through the discomfort that often comes up when we're sitting with the reality of it. So there, there is a place for problem solving and planning and making it making agreements, but I think couples have to understand what conversation they're having. They have to each partner has to know, what are we doing here, right? There might be other partners who say, Hey, I'm feeling hurt and sad, and they actually want their partner to problem solve and fix for them, and, you know, brainstorm ideas of what's going to make them feel better. So that I'm not saying that that's a bad thing, that can be a really helpful thing as well. And different people have different strengths, but I think that one of the most important things is for each partner to feel like they're on the same. Same page about what's going on, and I see this all the time, where both people have good intentions and there's a big misunderstanding of what we're doing here and what this what is the purpose of this conversation? I recently had a couple who had been through an affair. And one of the things that happens, one of the things I've seen many times, is the reality of, you know, let's say it's six months after an affair happened. It's perfectly normal for the person who was betrayed to continue feeling hurt and sad and afraid. You know about the affair that happened six months ago, and oftentimes what I see is the partner who had the affair getting sort of impatient and frustrated, because what their perspective is, in their mind, they know that I've been showing up in an authentic, honest way for the last six months. I've been following through on our agreements. I've been trying my best, and my partner's still upset. Why can't we just move on so the hurt partner will bring up their feelings the partner who had been involved in the affair will start to go to this place of feeling dismissive or expressing dismiss, making the other person feel dismissed about what they're bringing up. And we have to, you know, oftentimes I try to coach people to, you know, it's the person who had the affair to show up in a way that's different. It's not and I have to coach the person who has been hurt and betrayed that in this present moment your partner isn't doing anything hurtful to you, no matter how hurt you feel about the affair that happened six months ago in this present moment, and assuming, for the last six months, assuming that they're being honest, that they've been following through on their commitment and the agreements that you have, because the reality is, no one can really know what's in someone else's head or what they're doing when they're not with you, but assuming that they've been following through for the last six months on what they say they've been following through on, and assuming you know you feel good about how they've been showing up in the present, they haven't done anything but really, really positive stuff for the last six months. So how can I sit if I'm the hurt partner, how do I sit with that a feeling of, on the one hand, gratitude that they've been showing up and doing things in a different way, in a really positive way, in a helpful way, and with this incredible hurt and pain, which is normal, six months is a short period of time when we're talking about a fair recovery, people need years oftentimes. So it's perfectly normal for the her partner to continue feeling the pain of the affair, even six months later. So how do I sit with the gratitude that my partner's showing up, and I'm still incredibly hurt and angry at them for what they did? And this is where couples often get confused, and it gets kind of sideways and the communication and people feel overwhelmed because they don't know what the goal is. It's like the person who feels bad they want the other person to connect and validate their emotions, but there's only so much the other person is capable of doing. You know, they had the affair, they can't change that. And they'll often remind you of that. They'll often say, you know, I can't change what I did in the past, which isn't helpful in the communication. I don't recommend saying that, but it's true. They had the affair. They have been showing up for the last six months, and so we have to understand what's going on in the Okay, so let's say, let's play it out in the example where two people are trying to have this conversation, one person who was the her partner, who, you know, wasn't the One who had the affair, who found out about the affair, is bringing up their feelings and saying that the you know, they're feeling angry and hurt and afraid. Now,

what I want to remind them is that there's nothing useful about continuing. To punish your partner over and over, especially after it's been six months that the affair was something that was hurtful and harmful to the other person and completely inappropriate, completely you know, nobody wants to do something that's harmful to another human being. But if the her partner continues beating up their the other partner, by calling them names, by criticizing them, by, you know, making them feel bad, shaming them, then they are doing something hurtful to the other person, and that's not something that anybody should be doing in relationships with someone they love and care about. I mean, the her partner has the option of leaving the relationship if they want to. That would be understandable. They could make a plan to do that, but if they're deciding to stay with this person, if it's been six months and they're still deciding to there's enough good here that I'm willing to try to work through it with this person, then there has to be some uh, commitment to being respectful, even no matter how hurt I am, I am taking ownership of my behavior and my actions and trying to bring a level of respect in the way that I'm communicating with my partner. So So I always encourage people to speak from the first person and be clear about what am I hoping to get from my partner, you know, whether a lot of people have the inclination in these situations to ask a lot of questions, to want to replay what happened, to go over it again and again and that and that, all of that is fine, but I always ask people, What is the goal? If you are trying to ask questions and find out more information. What is really the goal for you? Because a lot of times it's not really about the question itself. Like, you know, hey, how often did you get together with this person, or did you really love them, or things like that? I think what the what the her partner is really seeking is reassurance and validation that we can have the relationship that feels good for us, that whatever you are getting from that other person. Am I enough to give that to you? Right? And that is a place that in these affair situations, oftentimes people go is to this place of, I'm not maybe I'm not enough. Maybe I wasn't doing things that you know made you feel love for me, and you know, it taps into that feeling of self esteem and worthiness that can be such a struggle. And so I encourage people, when you are bringing this to the communication, try to speak from the first person. This is how I'm feeling. This is what's coming up for me. This is what I'm making up about it. This is the story I'm telling myself. The goal is that your partner can sit with those difficult conversations, and I'm going to teach the person who had the affair. I really want to teach them how to be a good listener and create space for the feelings of the hurt partner. I want them because a lot of times what will happen if, if they go right into fixing and problem solving, it's almost like they want to brush it under the rug and not give any oxygen to the conversation about how hurt this partner feels and how afraid they feel, and how this is going to the their very essence of worthiness as a human being, because that oftentimes makes the person who had the affair feel terrible, because they don't want to make somebody feel that bad, but, But it's an important thing for them to feel, if somebody feels terrible about what they did, that's the energy that will motivate them to never have an affair again. So we have to help them sit with that to create space for their partner to feel hurt and sad and afraid, and if the person who had the affair is feeling terrible about that, I reframe it as being a good thing. That means you're feeling the healthy sense of guilt that you should have felt when you were having this affair that would have stopped you from doing this you would never want to make. Someone feel this way, and a lot of times, when people have an affair, they actually compartmentalize their emotions and their feelings for their family and their love that they actually have in their relationship. And when they actually stop compartmentalizing and become conscious, they feel absolutely terrible, and sometimes they feel really afraid themselves. What's going to happen if my partner finds out that I've had an affair, and I would do anything to save my relationship? I can't tell you how many times I've seen somebody who had an affair, their partner finds out, and they feel absolutely horrible, and they tell they tell me that I wish there's nothing else except that I could go back and to change my behavior and To never have that affair. This is the absolute worst decision I've ever made. I don't know what I was thinking if I had known how much damage this would cause in my life, in my relationship, in my family, if I had known I would never follow through on having the affair. It's totally not worth it. But there's that, that level of disconnecting from our own emotions, that compartmentalization that some people are capable of to the extent that they can have these affairs, and part of it too is the the opportunity, if, if the if they have the ability to disconnect from their emotions, and there's an opportunity like that. Sometimes people fall into these things in a way that completely damages their life, and they wish they could go back, but they're just caught up in the moment and it happens so

so back to the present. It's six months after the affair. We're dealing with the present day reality, the her partner is bringing up their thoughts and feelings. What I really want to encourage the person who had the affair to do so so it's already likely a person who has a hard time connecting to emotions, you know, and those are the people who are good at fixing things and problem solving and thinking through things, right? But I often talk about the difference between existing in your body, in your feelings, in your heart, versus existing in your head, because there are a lot of people who have a hard time with the emotions. Have a hard time connecting to their body, and as soon as their pardon will start bringing up their sadness and their their fear and their their anger, the emotionally avoidant person will sort of go up into their head and start trying to problem solve, trying to make them feel better. And that's the opposite of what their partner is looking for. Their partner is looking for an embodied connection where, and that's part of the creating space where they can slow down, take a deep breath, stay connected to the discomfort that's part of what's so hard. Lean into the discomfort. If my partner's telling me how sad they are, and it's because of something I did that feels really uncomfortable, it would be much easier for me to buy my partner flowers and have her be happy and everything's going to be okay, but that's really like sweeping it under the rug, what I have to do, and that's nice too. You can do those things. You can do nice things like buy flowers and take care of your partner in a nice way. Do do tangible things in the world that make your partner happy and feel good. But this is a really important skill that I find myself teaching people a lot, which is that ability to don't rush to problem solve. Don't rush into your head problem solving, trying to fix it. Stay connected to those emotions, breathe talk less, or say less, as my teenage kids tell me, and just breathe and stay connected to what's going on for your partner, which is going to be really uncomfortable. And that's part of oftentimes, what will give the person who's been betrayed. That's what will give them the reassurance that you're showing up in a different way. You do want to be careful that your emotions at that point are connected to compassion for your partner and not your own shame. Spiral, and I could talk about that at a different time, but, you know, a lot of time or sometimes, what will happen is the her partner will start talking about their emotions and feeling bad about what the affair partner did, the involved partner, and the the person who had the affair will just start going into a shame spiral. Oh, I'm such a terrible person. Now I'm feeling terrible. I'm feeling horrible. I'm such a bad per you know, and to me, that's, um, they're sucking the energy out of the room. They're no longer staying in compassion for their partner completely. They're sort of shifting it to now I'm feeling hurt, and sometimes the other partner will lean in and start taking care of them, which is kind of twisted, if it's happening in a way that's not appropriate, because we want the energy to feel like the person who had the affair, as we're going through that recovery process, the energy is still toward taking care of the person who's been hurt by that and betrayed, so that that can be sort of complicated to to know what, how that's happening, but as the listener, as the person who had the affair, you want to make sure that your emotions are connected to what your partner is going through, staying in compassion for them. So you want to create space. You want to give them you know you might as they're talking about their hurt and their anger. You want to give them a lot of validation. You could mirror back with their say. What I hear you saying is that you're feeling really hurt and angry, and you can give them validation. It makes sense that you're feeling really hurt and angry, you can be accountable. That's really helpful. You know, what I did was terrible, and I was willing to put myself in a situation that could have destroyed our relationship. You can be curious. You can say, tell me more about what you're feeling and what this is like for you. Is there anything else you wanted to share with me? Just keep the energy on the person who's been betrayed on if they're the one who's talking about what's going on for them, try to stay present, and even if it feels uncomfortable, you're trying to stay with them and help them through that. And again, that is what will give them the reassurance and validation, hopefully, that you are willing to sit with the discomfort. You're willing to do things in a different way. You're and a lot of people just talk about wanting to feel connected, wanting to feel like we have some kind of emotional connection, and this is one of the best pathways to get there, and it doesn't have to be in a fair situation. I mean, your partner could just be saying, you know, I'm really sad and angry about what you said to me yesterday, and we can even practice being a listener in those situations. So the other thing I wanted to say, just to sort of wrap this up, is it is important to problem solve. And I talked with couples a lot about coming up with agreements that when we're dealing with reality, let's say there's no right and wrong. We shouldn't assume that what I think is right and wrong is right or wrong for my partner. So we have to come up with agreements. If I feel like being on time is really important to me and my partner doesn't share that idea. It's not going to be helpful for me to shame them and come at them with the right and wrong thinking, saying what's wrong with you that you're never on time. I can't believe you're always five minutes late, like they don't even share that same viewpoint, maybe as being something that's important. But what I can do is request an agreement. I can make a request. I can say, hey, when you were late the other day that felt really hurtful to me. That's something that's important to me. I'm really struggling with that. Can we make an agreement that if we say we're going to be here at this time, that we'll, we'll both do our best to be there at that time, and if we're not, then we'll text each other, you know, something like that, where I'm not criticizing them or telling them they're wrong for their viewpoint or what they think about the topic, but I am trying to work toward coming to an agreement, and sometimes that's really hard. You know, if you're trying to decide, are we going to live in this town or this town? And both of you feel. Really strongly about it. It's going to be a lot of work coming up, but I'm talking more about day to day stuff. But you know, in those situations where you have to come up with a decision about something big in your life, I think it's important to have that emotional feelings, type of conversation first, where each of you get a turn to feel heard and seen and understood, where you're talking about your perspective, you're talking about how you feel, you're talking about what it means to you, and the other person's just listening, validating, being curious, making sure they understand. And then you switch, and the other person gets to say what they think. So you put, it's like you put problem solving aside. While you're listening to each other, you're trying not to get into trying to convince your partner of who's right or whose idea is better. You're putting that problem solving aside, and you're both just giving each other a turn to really express what you want, why it's important to you and the other person's listening while they do that. So but I want people to really be clear about what conversation they're having. Really make sure the next time, if it feels like it's getting stressful and overwhelming when you and your partner are trying to communicate, really try to be clear. Is this a conversation where I'm just listening to their feelings and get creating space for that, or is this a problem solving conversation where we have to come up with what we're going to do? So really think about that. As I said at the beginning, right now is a really good time to join the Inner Circle. If you have any follow up questions about the podcast episodes, that's a really good place to connect.

We have these types of conversations a lot. You know, we were just talking about a case that was recovering from an affair recently, in the Inner Circle, I do live calls where I can talk to people about cases. But there's also the membership area where you log in and you can post, you know, questions, and other people can chime in and tell you their thoughts about cases you're working with. We have all kinds of different topics that we talk about in there. And at this point, you know, there's hundreds of hours of content that you can access. So it's a really good time to join. Try to join by Thursday of this week, September 12, because at that point it'll be closed for a while. While while everybody gets settled in, I make sure to give people the best service as possible, you know, and helping them, you know. I don't want to take on too many people or leave it open for too long, because I just want to make sure that the people who are in the membership in the inner circle are getting the best education possible, the best when it comes to couples therapy, and definitely the most affordable. I mean, some of these programs are, you know, upwards of $10,000 or something like that. You know, I wanted to make sure that everybody has access to getting good education in couples therapy and learning how to work with couples this is something that shouldn't require a huge investment, so I'm trying to continue providing that for people. I just thank you all for listening, and even if you don't join, that's totally fine. I just appreciate you as a podcast listener, and I hope you get something from the show, but definitely feel free to reach out. Feel free to leave a rating or a review or reach out to me personally. Let me know if there are particular guests or topics that you want me to cover on the podcast. But I'm just so grateful for all of you. Thank you so much for tuning in. Go to CouplesTherapistCouch.com, or you can just click on the link in the show notes to find out more. There's some freebies there too, if you're not ready to to join the paid membership. But I'm Shane Birkel. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist, and this is The Couples Therapist Couch. Have a great week, everybody. Take care!

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