S2E16 Chronic Communication Conflict

We talk through why couples get trapped in the same arguments and how the real issue is often the unresolved dynamic underneath the topic. We share practical ways to separate validation from agreement, navigate competing anxieties, and make small behavior shifts that change both relationships and mood.

• recurring couple conflict around finances, parenting, division of labor, intimacy 
• communication that keeps happening without real hearing 
• control and identity threats driving defensiveness 
• choosing connection over winning the argument 
• validation versus agreement and how couples confuse them 
• acceptance phase and living with unresolved tension 
• triggers tied to childhood patterns and self-awareness 
• inward processors versus outward processors and how opposites pair up 
• competing anxieties and scripts for asking what helps 
• melancholy and the need for movement, discipline, and habit change 
• challenging “I’m not enough” with evidence and replacement thoughts 

If you're enjoying the podcast, we'd love for you to follow, rate, or share it with someone who might appreciate it as well.

You can connect with the cohosts through their respective websites:

AFCCounselors.com (Dr. Shalley) / https://www.inyourdreams.coach/contact (Dr. Kelley)

Transcript

Section A

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Welcome to Therapy Coaching and Dreams. My name is Dee Kelly. This is Jim Shally.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Hello, Dee. How are you?

SPEAKER_00 0:18

Doing good. Good to be with you. We are in a season where we're continuing some of the STERM model from season one. We've been looking a little more thoroughly at dreams and how they tie in as a wonderful tool for self-awareness and growth. I'd like to move from that into some of the ways by which people present when they come to therapy. And I think it is it gives us the opportunity to identify some of the topics that are important to people that hit home with them, that are common to a lot of people. Some of them we've talked about before, but I'd just like to address them as kind of the presenting problem as somebody comes in for conversation. I'll give you an example. A couple comes in, and often I know that it is initiated more by one than another, but the person who has initiated both of them coming in says we fight over the same stuff over and over again. It never seems to resolve itself. We just seem to come back to the same issues. And I don't know in your experience, Jim, but for me, three of the more common issues would be finances, fight over that, fight, fight over parenting or parenting style, how we handle the children or divide up that responsibility. Sometimes that might include household responsibilities, division of labor. But then the third one is intimacy, sexuality, fighting over those kinds of things. So it doesn't matter what topic you want to pick. Somebody's coming in saying we just fight over and over again about the same thing, seem not to make any progress. So it's not that conversations aren't happening. It's just that the conversations aren't productive. Help us it kind of uh with some tools that get us through some of those stuck arguments. What do you do? How do you help them?

SPEAKER_01 2:18

And you're right, that's one of the m most normal conversations that that come into the office. Uh in lots of ways, it's it's symptomatic of uh things that haven't been resolvable in their minds. And the the topic isn't necessarily as important as the dynamic. So when people come in and say we have a we want help in communicating, I I always say, you're communicating just fine. You're not hearing each other.

SPEAKER_00 2:48

Pause just for a second, because I want to the line you said that led into that was so great. It's not the topic. It's the unresolved dynamic, yeah. The unresolved dynamic. Okay, great.

SPEAKER_01 3:01

And then that and that's another way of looking at it, I'm sure we talked about it in season one, the control issue. They're communicating just fine. They don't want to hear each other because the hearing of the other's opinion is threatening to your own sense of self. So whether it's whether it's parenting, whether it's jobs, whether it's extended family, all of those things will almost always bring up the need to resolve the control issue. How do I how do I feel heard and not lose my sense of self? So the challenge really is okay, what are you really saying? Well, I don't agree with how you're parenting, or I don't agree with your sex drive, or I don't agree with the way you handle your parents. Basically, it's a foundational disagreement of two individuals living together. And so they're trying to convince the other of their view as opposed to really listening and trying to hear it and then work to some resolution. It's really hard. I mean, I'm not I don't hope you don't hear me minimizing it. It's challenging to sit quietly when you have someone that you love say, you never listen to me. Because oftentimes it'll be you don't agree with me. And so that's where it comes back down to full circle to what we've talked about, I'm sure, which is, do you want to be right or have a relationship? So can I hear what you're saying and not feel threatened enough to have to respond and try to defeat your argument because foundationally it's not just a disagreement, it's a foundational view of myself. So I can't let go of that because it shakes who I think I am. And so then we have conversation that that sounds really deeper than I probably I want I want it to be. But does that make any s are you tracking with me?

SPEAKER_00 4:48

Aaron Ross Powell Yeah, absolutely. And part of what I hear you saying is that I, on the surface, am caught in this fact that we disagree on a topic. I may be less aware of the fact of how that disagreement plays into my identity or self-image or or worse. Aaron Powell That's very but well said. That's exactly what I'm saying. Yeah. So some of that is to pause long enough to s if you can, to say, why am I so vested in this? Why am I so incisive?

SPEAKER_01 5:21

Trevor Burrus, And that's why you have to- Yeah, that's why you have to catch it before you get so triggered that you start arguing, and that's why it always feels like here we go again. I hear that a lot from couples. Here we go again. He's not listening to me, she's not listening to me, when really it the brain gets triggered so quickly that I get into defensive mode as to trying to hear, what are you really saying? Well, usually, in my opinion, what they're really saying is, I want my way. I want you to agree with me. I want you to see that this is what we need to do. We never need to go see your mother ever again, or whatever it is. And they're saying, I'm always gonna go see my mother. But it causes such stress.

SPEAKER_02 6:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:04

So that's why I'm saying it comes down to I need you to do what I want you to do and not just hear me. And so that you have to sort through that part of it, realizing the limitation of a relationship is I can't make someone else do something I want them to do.

SPEAKER_00 6:17

I'm gonna take the example you just used and ask if I'm thinking about this correctly, is not the right way, but in a way that helps. I don't want to go see your mother. You want to go see your mother is is one of the obstacles to resolution that I want you to be an extension of me, and I expect in our relationship for you to function that way.

SPEAKER_01 6:50

That's a great way of putting it. Yeah. Because the resolution really is you go visit your mother and you're okay with me not visiting your mother.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

Yeah, yeah. But that's a tough solution if let's say I'm the one that wants to go visit my mother, if I feel like my mom's gonna judge me that my spouse is not coming with me.

SPEAKER_01 7:10

Absolutely true. Yep. That's that's how that's how entangled it can get. And also, I want you to want to go see my mother.

SPEAKER_00 7:18

Right, right. Okay. I've heard a statistic, and I'm probably gonna quote the wrong numbers, but most statistics are made up anyway. So I've also heard you reference it. And so I want to ask how it plays into this kind of a situation. And that is any relationship, 70% of the conflict is not going to be resolved. So you have to learn to live in that tension. Am I close to quoting that correctly?

SPEAKER_01 7:52

Aaron Ross Powell You know, again, that's that's that's kind of arbitrary, but I think it's it's based upon just anecdotal evidence plus some statistics that would suggest that most of the unresolved things are not resolvable. You have to figure out a way to to negotiate them. And I think that's just life, too. And and and in negotiation, you're faced with the limitations that you have in relationship. So yeah, the hope that, yeah, I think you're struggling. It's like, what okay, is there a resolution? And that's why what we're talking about is so important. The resolution really is the ability to see why something is so important to you that you're so invested in a conversation that you cannot see the mirror in some ways, to see why you're so invested. And that's that's just a threatening place to be sometimes for people.

SPEAKER_00 8:45

Yeah, it's uh I've I felt in that moment just a few seconds ago, like deer in the headlights staring, and I'm I'm I don't even know what direction to go. You mean there's no answer here? What?

SPEAKER_01 8:58

Yeah, and I think that's where a lot of couples get to because they that's why they hold on to the old answer. Just agree with me, just see it my way. And they would also say they didn't, they don't need their way in some way, which is another confusing aspect of it. Well, well, you kind of do. No, I don't. I just needed them to see it. No, that's again, that's the difference between validation and agreement. Some people would say they want validation, but they really want agreement.

SPEAKER_00 9:24

And and conflate the two that agreement is validation.

SPEAKER_01 9:29

And so that's why a lot of couples will will just not talk about certain things anymore. And then they they they feel like they're growing apart when really they've not been able to really resolve that. Because again, looking inward and saying, uh what's my role in this is so threatening on some level at times that they just avoid talking about it. And that, you know, again, that's not a it's not a right or wrong or good or bad. It's like different levels of intimacy. Some couples get to a really deep level where they talk about everything. Some couples get to, you know, two or three level, and and they they know what cop topics to avoid because they're not going to agree on it, and they're okay. They really are okay.

SPEAKER_00 10:08

So sometimes I think there's a difference between avoidance because I'm incredibly frustrated, and avoidance because I think this fits into the category of we're probably not gonna resolve this.

SPEAKER_01 10:23

Yeah, that's the yeah, that's the acceptance phase that I talk a lot about with couples. The acceptance phase is this has been ongoing for 25 years. It's probably not going to change. So can we just accept you're not gonna get divorced over it, you're not gonna keep arguing about it. Can we just realize that this is part of your dynamic? And it's it's okay. It could be frustrating still at times, but generally you've learned to navigate it. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:48

And I think that that acceptance phase has some nice reward to it, maybe not at the immediate outset when you're trying to step into it. But there is a recognition that there is more peace in the relationship that is incredibly gratifying, as long as it's not the kind of avoidance like this is really on my mind, and I'm struggling to avoid it. That's because that doesn't mean you're accepting it.

SPEAKER_01 11:19

Acceptance really means that it's really okay. It's like it's like she said that again. Okay, that's cool. Of course she's gonna say that again. It's not a it's like we take it personal. No, it's just how their their brain functions, and they they need to say this regularly because that's how they get rid of the anxiety they're expressing. Then I personalize it and I carry it, then I get mad at them. It's like, oh, okay, don't don't do that. It's like it's like, you know, that trip we were on recently where someone needs to say, well, this is stupid trail we're doing. If I'm the driver of the of the vehicle, it's like I could personalize that and think, okay, I screw really screwed up here. When really it's just their venting their frustration of saying, I wish I wasn't here.

SPEAKER_00 12:08

Yeah. I think one of the one of the portions of self-awareness that help you move more quickly toward acceptance is if you can identify that a partner's way of saying something or way of doing something triggers something in you that's not intended by them, and that trigger is connected to something else. Like if I had a parent who responded to me in a particular way and I've got real defenses that go up about that. When I hear that same phrase or that same furrowed brow, I might have a reaction to it that's not intended by my partner.

SPEAKER_03 12:50

Right.

SPEAKER_00 12:51

And if I can connect to that, I can let my partner be my partner and have whatever expression they want. If I am better at recognizing, yeah, this is just triggering my 12-year-old boy that felt disciplined when I didn't think I deserved to be disciplined.

SPEAKER_01 13:10

That's so true. Yeah. And that and that really is the value of taking the idea of acceptance full circle is the acceptance of self. So when I know myself as well as I can at a certain age, then I can also know when I get triggered and go, oh yeah, that's that's what's happening here. Aaron Powell Which is a great gift, great gift you give your partner.

SPEAKER_00 13:31

Yeah. Thanks, Jim. Let me shift a little bit. We've talked a little bit about the difference between inward processing and outward processing. This is an oversimplification, but for somebody who processes things inwardly, when they finally do talk, you get to hear the conclusion of their thought process. For somebody who's an outward processor, you actually get to listen to the brain operating. Yeah. And they're a long way from conclusion. They're just talking it out because they process outwardly. And very often, I mean, I I'm I I don't know that I'm surprised anymore, but I think early on was how those opposites often attract. And that in couple relationships, you very often have one who, even if they are not at the extremes, one is far more of an outward processor than the other who's an inward processor. If they're not aware of that, sometimes the dynamic is they come in to do some work, therapy, coaching, whatever it might be. And one of the comments in frustration, someone who might say, Yeah, my partner just won't stop talking. They talk and talk and talk. And maybe they don't do that when the other person is there. Maybe that's in one-on-one with you that they say that. But give us some tools. How do you identify that difference in a way that helps people become comfortable with the difference? Any thoughts?

SPEAKER_01 15:04

Yeah, it's the lim, it's the it's the uh the the limit to where my anxiety is higher than your anxiety. So it's like the classic thing is I need to talk about it or my anxiety goes up. I need to not talk about it, or my anxiety goes up. So that's why, again, I will frame it with couples as it's competing anxieties. And so how do you how do you how do you navigate that, realizing that it's just the anxiety that's driving the conversation? That's one side of it. The other side of it is the for lack of a better way of describing it, the narcissistic piece in all of us that wants to keep talking until someone agrees with me. That's a different, that's a different dynamic. I think what you're talking about is more likely an emotional extrovert. They need to talk out loud and and keep talking about it until their anxiety goes down. Well, they unconsciously, they want the other person to join them in their anxiety and carry it. So do I cooperate with that and then validate them and say, yeah, you're right. You should be upset. I can't believe they did that to you. Does that help them reduce their anxiety? It could. On the other hand, if if they're if they're ruminating and just spinning in their head and you know that's what they do, then it's very appropriate to say, you know, I'm gonna let you spin. I'm gonna go over here to the other room. It's not that I don't care. It's just that I know that that's how your brain works, and I can't help you with that. That's the growth in my mind of a good relationship, realizing the limitation of it. And so if if I'm gonna stay there and listen to you ruminate and spin in your thinking, absolutely my anxiety is gonna go up because I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be so filled up with, I'm just so tired of this, I can't do it. So then I'm gonna shoot back with some unconscious kind of mean things to cope with my own anxieties, like, oh my word, just be quiet. Good Lord, you're driving me nuts. Rather than do that, it's better in my mind to work out an agreement saying, that's how your brain works. Well, this is how my brain works, and I need a break from it. And that's again the negotiation piece of any relationship.

SPEAKER_00 17:08

Thank you. That is so helpful. And the notion of competing anxieties, man, that is a great image of needing to pause for a moment and try and be aware of the dynamic of the competition that's going on. I also wonder how this sometimes works for you in trying to encourage somebody who's on the receiving end of that kind of outward anxiety that's starting to flood the room to simply ask the question: what's helpful to you at this point in time? I mean, uh you are processing things outwardly. Do you need me to just listen? Do you want me to give you space and I'll go to another room? Or is that not paying attention to your own journey adequately?

SPEAKER_02 17:55

It depends.

SPEAKER_01 17:56

Uh early on, you're basically tending to your own anxiety. So you're you're reading your own body and realizing, okay, I'm this is gonna probably not settle. So I need to intervene and say, what do you need right now? So that's reading your own body. If the other person is not ready to do that, it could feel like you're just, you know, shutting them off. Like, what do you need right now? What do you do you need me to do anything? Yes, that's in my mind trying to address your own anxiety, but it also could address the other person's anxiety because that could it could kind of jolt them into something of, okay, what do I want? What do I really want right now? Which is which is a great question for all of us when we're when our anxiety gets up. What do I really what am I looking for here?

SPEAKER_00 18:39

Yeah. Yeah, that's kind of a a a pause in the content and allows you to step out just for a moment and ask the other question.

SPEAKER_01 18:49

Yeah, that's why the topic of conversation isn't as important as the dynamic that's happening inside the individual. But we all we almost always get sidetracked by the the the topic, thinking that that's a real issue.

SPEAKER_00 19:01

And sometimes it is, but usually it's not. I I think most of this portion of the conversation, we focused on the person who seems to talk a lot. I've also worked with couples where the frustration is I can't get him to join in or her.

SPEAKER_01 19:17

That's what I would say is the majority and and typically it's the woman will come in and say, he just quit talking. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:26

He doesn't talk much anymore. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 19:28

I mean he probably never did, but there's also kind of a clo For me, it's kind of a classic line where somebody says, uh well, in regard to a wanting a response, and the person says, uh let me think about it. And and the person who's dying for more interaction says, just don't think about it. Just tell me how you feel right now. Response is, I don't know how I feel until I think about it. So it's not an impasse, but it is this frustration that an inward processor struggles with knowing what to articulate until they've come to some kind of conclusion.

SPEAKER_01 20:10

Aaron Powell And trust me, the inward processor would love for the person that's an an outward processor to to be a little more inward. That's right. So once again, we want the person to behave the way that makes sense to us.

unknown 20:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:22

Mm-hmm. Yeah. And to be fair, person that that says, let me think about it, you have to distinguish that between an avoidance pattern where they never bring it back up, or genuinely they they're going to think about it and they'll bring it up tomorrow. Because lots of times it's just an avoidance technique, too. And that's what that can add incredible frustration to the person who wants to talk about it. You say you'll think about it, but you never bring it back up. Well, that's because it's a lot of conflict.

SPEAKER_00 20:52

Yeah. And a question in that moment is so tell me how you would like me to respond to this time span of you needing to think about it. Do you want me to bring it up again? Do you want to bring it up again? Uh do you want me to go to another room? Oh my word, no, I just want to think about it. You want to do this role play right now, Jim? Because we're really good at this.

SPEAKER_02 21:16

Absolutely, we would. It's like, oh my word, you're you're still talking. I said I want to think about it.

SPEAKER_00 21:26

Yeah, that's that's so common. And I'd like to watch a sport show while I'm thinking about it, please. Absolutely. Where it looks like I'm not thinking about anything. But trust me, I am thinking about it the whole game. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 21:45

Oh my goodness. Remember, we model the behavior we want from the other. It's so simple, but so true. It's like, oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:53

Yeah. In case anybody listening missed that, we uh you phrased it sometimes in a different way. Way we give away what we'd like to receive.

SPEAKER_03 22:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:02

But we model the behavior we would like others to engage in. Yeah. And it's you know, it's interesting in a work setting, if you're observant, you can watch other employees in a dynamic and how one of them is modeling a behavior that they hope another one participates in. It's and you can learn so much about an office space, about an office culture, if you'll watch others in their dynamic and you can pick up some amazing clues of what people would like. That's so true.

SPEAKER_01 22:40

Yeah. If you just are very observant, you will find out how to really engage with people or manipulate.

SPEAKER_02 22:48

True.

SPEAKER_01 22:49

True. And really good manipulators absolutely do that.

SPEAKER_00 22:53

Oh. Yeah. Read the room, but with motives that may be questionable. Yeah. Oh, you just gave me a big secret to your life.

SPEAKER_01 23:06

Okay, I can exploit this.

SPEAKER_03 23:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:09

Let's do one more question.

unknown 23:11

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 23:11

Or one more scenario. And that somebody comes in. It doesn't seem to be a couple related. Just person coming in. And the reason they're coming in is because they just feel melancholy all the time. Like if you're stuck in a place emotionally, sometimes that is a reflection of outward circumstances that have become stuck as well. So the inward and outward kind of mirror one another. And even though we believe that the true change comes when you change that inner and then the outward will begin to reflect that, you can also do some things with your outward environment that kind of startle you awake, change your patterns, get out of the house, regular hygiene grooming things that can change, that actually change patterns for you, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:06

Yeah. That's why I use the phrase an insight's one thing, but there has to be a movement to change it. So I can be aware of something, but there has to be a movement change. So I you're absolutely right. To and that's a challenge sometimes to get in the discipline or the habit of doing something different, even if it is getting, you know, I have a guy recently that just getting up at the regular time every day, it's so important, but so challenging in some ways. Just that alone, scheduling something, so I have to get up and get going. Those are all really important things. And then the brain will actually begin to say, okay, they're doing something differently. It's like anything, exercising, starting to eat right, all that stuff. The brain is not convinced until you do it. That's whether that's where the habit comes in, 30 days or 40 days or whatever, to change the way the brain functions, because the brain's skeptical. It's like, okay, you're going to do this for another two weeks, then you're going to stop, probably like you've done before.

SPEAKER_03 25:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:06

Yeah. And that's why the hard word, I wish there was a better word for it. But to change anything, there has to be a pattern shift of behavior or a discipline that's different.

SPEAKER_00 25:18

Yeah. We talked in a previous episode about making a bold move, which I believe in. But you can also be bold with several little moves. Absolutely. Sometimes you think a bold move is like I'm going to quit my job tomorrow. I'm doing it.

SPEAKER_01 25:36

I'm doing it.

SPEAKER_00 25:39

I got to pay your bills. Don't matter, I'm going to do it. Because Dr. Jim Shaley said I need to do a bold. Yeah. That's exactly right. But there can be little things that are bold to you simply because they change the pattern. And when you get to that point when the frustration is big enough, you go, Okay. Just thinking differently.

SPEAKER_01 26:01

Yeah. Just having a replacement thought that says, I'm not enough. Well, that's not true. Maybe I am enough.

SPEAKER_00 26:08

Yes. A simple challenge to a thought tape can be the bold move and can have significant consequences in a positive way.

SPEAKER_03 26:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:22

That's the one I hear a lot, is that I'm not enough. And I'll say, what's the evidence? So you know you use a cognitive approach to it. Well, what's the evidence? Well, I could I got lots of evidence. I said, well, give me some. And then they they can't. It's a feeling deep inside that they groomed since childhood. And I said, so what if you were enough? Because I my guess is your kids that you've raised pretty well, they would say you're enough. Your employer that you've worked for years, they would say you're enough. So why aren't you saying you're enough? I mean you can challenge them that way, but if there's a deeper, deeper devil a level of uh of angst about that, uh again, their definition is designed by I'm not enough, it's a pretty threatening thing to try to change that. So Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:05

When it when your identity is wrapped up in and I'm not enough. Yep. Mm-hmm. Because somewhere along the line, you have gotten something that reinforces and rewards that. Yep. It can be that you owe to avoid responsibility. It can be that's a t that's a tough one for people to uh to look in the mirror and face sometimes. Yeah. Well, this has been uh great discussion for me. I hope it has been for the listener. Jen, thanks for jumping in with me on some of these tough questions.

SPEAKER_01 27:40

I love I love the questions you asked. They're they're really insightful and uh I appreciate them and hopefully it's helpful.

SPEAKER_00 27:46

Yep. Good to be with you. We'll see you again next week.

SPEAKER_01 27:49

Cool.

SPEAKER_00 27:49

Yep. That's it for this episode of Therapy, Coaching, and Dreams. If you're enjoying the podcast, we'd love for you to follow, rate, or share it with someone who might appreciate it as well. Thanks for being here, and until next time, keep growing, stay curious, and take good care of yourself. Yeah, now it's good stuff.