73: Communication Tools Every Couple Needs (Part 1)

Every couple disagrees — the real question is how you handle it. 

In this episode, therapist and relationship coach Jason Polk shares practical communication tools he's developed over 10+ years of working exclusively with couples, drawing on the work of Terry Real and Stan Tatkin.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why self-regulation is the single most important communication skill
• The difference between speaking from your anger vs. as a representative of it
• How to stay on your side of the street and avoid triggering defensiveness
• Why requests work better than criticism — and how to make them
• The Feedback Wheel tool (link below)
• How to create agreements around persistent issues
• When and how to use a timeout before things escalate
• Why accepting that reality is subjective can transform your conversations

Resources mentioned:

• Feedback Wheel worksheet
• Fair Play Card Deck

Whether you're in couples therapy or working on your relationship on your own, these strategies will help you communicate more clearly, fight less destructively, and reconnect more quickly.

This is Part 1 — stay tuned for Part 2!

Learn more about our core offering: Marriage counseling in Denver & Colorado Springs

Transcript

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welcome everyone. This is solving disconnection and creating connected relationships for couples and parents. My name is Jason Polk, and I've worked this exclusively with couples as a therapist and coach for over 10 years. On this podcast, I share my experience professionally. Personally and those of our amazing guests. Hey everyone. I hope you're doing well today. We're gonna keep it simple and talk about communication tools. Often when couples call me, call our agency, they want communication tools. In other words, they want to have agreements and rules in order to be able to truly get through to each other. So every couple disagrees. The question is never whether conflict will arise because it will is what you do when it does. And obviously communication is a foundation of a healthy relationship, and I wanna share tools below. And they've come with,, working with couples. They've come from studying with Terry Real, Stan Takin, and whether you're in couples therapy or working on the relationship on your own, these strategies can help you communicate more clearly, fight less destructively, and reconnect more quickly. And so conflict isn't the issue, but it becomes the issue if it gets really intense. And it takes a while for you two to repair afterwards, partners have different histories, personalities and perspectives, and that's often what drew you to each other initially. So the goal isn't to eliminate disagreements. It's, as I mentioned, to reduce how often it occurs, lower the intensity, and to resolve issues quickly when they escalate. Here is the most important skill. It's called self-regulation. It's the foundation. It is the base skill, and essentially it's relational mindfulness, slowing things down, not getting caught up in your reflexes, not getting caught up in the moment, having bandwidth to respond instead of reacting Before you speak, ask yourself. Am I trying to improve this situation or am I just venting my upset? Now venting is totally fine, but you can't vent and work towards a solution. At the same time, if I angrily vent to my wife, I am not going to be truly heard because the thing is she is going to respond and react to the anger. And not the message. When she's receiving that anger, she's gonna have her defenses come up and there's gonna be a wall. It can either be shut down or fight. It's not. Oh, I hear you're upset, Jason. I know exactly why you're mad right now. No. And so we have to be clear on what's bothering us, and we have to slow down and breathe. We regulate ourselves before we just respond in the anger. This is an important point. There's a difference between speaking as a representative of the anger and from the anger. For example, I'm really angry right now that speaking as a representative of the anger and not from the anger, from the anger is like, oh my gosh, I can't believe you sue you, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Not the best of examples, but you know what I'm talking about. So speaking as a representative of the anger, a lot of this work, you know, can you be the functional adult? Can you be the wise adult in the relationship? So when you're able to self-regulate, then we're able to use communication strategies, basic strategies are staying on your side of the street. Speak from your own feelings and experience. Avoid making sweeping accusations like you always, or you never avoid assumptions. Don't assume you know what your partner is thinking, and this can usually trigger defensiveness and shut down the conversation. For example, you don't care about me. Alright? That maybe is how it feels to you, but. Your partner is going to be arguing that point instead of hearing what you're saying, which is, I feel like you don't care about me at times. Right. I know it's a subtle thing, but it's a big difference. Ideally, the partner who heard that, oh my gosh, I'm curious. Why are you saying that? No, I'm so sorry. I care about you so much. I'm really gonna work on it. Right? And so. That's another example of staying on your side of the street. Another one is using request, not criticism. Criticism points out what's wrong. Request direct your partner towards what you need. They help your partner help you. And the best communication tool I found is using the feedback wheel. And I'm gonna put a link to. The whole tool to the basic sheet that I give couples and I have them practice in my office. And so if you were to work with me, someone on our team, we would definitely lead you through the feedback wheel. Another tool is to create agreements for persistent issues, and not every disagreement will be fully resolved, and that's okay. And so the importance is to set agreements on those reoccurring issues. For example, if mess is something that you always argue about, you have agreements on who's gonna be taking, what you's gonna be doing, what chores you're gonna sit down when regulated and talk about'em. I even recommend using the fair play card deck, and I'll put a link in that in the show notes. And so the idea, maybe someone doesn't do their chore right, that they agreed on. You bring this up by, Hey, I thought this was our agreement. And then ideally, the person who heard that is, oh my gosh, you're right. Let me get on that. Or, you know what, I'm gonna do that tonight. Right? That is a big difference than, oh, you're so lazy. You never do the dishes right? And so that's important. Another really, really important communication tool is timeouts. That is the last line of defense, and when you're triggered, the conversation starts to escalate. If we stay there in that triggered state of mind and just spew whatever we're feeling. Chances are we're going to have to apologize for what we said in that moment at a later time as a result to avoid, I would say, verbal abuse, to avoid maybe even saying things like, I'm done with this. To avoid threatening the relationship, we need to call a timeout, and the timeout means we're stopping. We're taking a break. We're not going to interact again for another 20 minutes. And I wanna share some tools that fall under the category of emotional intelligence. One truth that will help you utilize a tool is to understand the reality is subjective. There is no single objective reality in a relationship. Two people can experience the same moment entirely differently based on their history, mood, attachment style, and emotional state. And both experiences are valid. So to be emotionally intelligent. We accept this fact instead of arguing against it, right? Couples who argue for their version of the truth is not helpful. I've seen it in my office and nothing good is really happening. So if we were able to know or remember that reality is subjective. We're more likely to be able to use this communication tool of curiosity we can become curious in our partner's experience, even if we don't agree with it, and it creates the base of a productive conversation. So you could say, you know, I'm curious about where you're coming from here. That's really important. Say you are having a objectivity battle with your partner. And nothing good's happening. Here is a tool, you know what? It doesn't matter who's right or wrong, what can we do to fix this? I think that's a great tool. instead of focusing on who has the better version of reality, it shifts to collaboration. It recognizes that both experiences are subjective and this encourages repair. What can we do to fix this? Those are some quick. Communication tools that is self-regulation slowing down. So then in theory, you're able to stay more on your side of the street. You're able to use requests, not criticisms. You're able to use the feedback wheel and then you can create an agreements on persistent issues. You're able to use a timeout and you have emotional intelligence. And one of the pillars of that is knowing that reality is subjective. I wanted to share those communication tools, and this is gonna be part one. I'm going to share part two at a different date. And again, thank you so much for listening. I really appreciate it.