Ask Beatty: How the Lost Art of Conversation Is Destroying Relationships

Winning is everything! You don’t want to be a loser, do you? I’m right, so that makes you wrong. These are deeply ingrained messages in our culture that we consciously, or unconsciously, teach our children at a very early age.

There is nothing inherently wrong with wanting to be the best and wanting to win. However, if it becomes the be-all and end-all, it makes it exceedingly difficult to lead a happy and contented life. It’s the primary reason why nations continue to battle each other and can’t resolve conflicts, and it’s the number-one reason why people in both their personal and professional lives continue to struggle.

Our need to be right all the time shuts down opportunities to hear, learn and listen to other people’s feelings and perspectives. In doing so, we insulate and isolate ourselves from expanding our awareness, self-awareness and knowledge about life and life’s possibilities. It exacerbates our fears and narcissism and makes it exceedingly difficult to develop empathy, compassion and respect for others. Needless to say, it creates havoc in our efforts to have healthy communication and problem-solving skills. At worst, it keeps people feeling lonely, alienated, angry, depressed and resistant to engaging in meaningful dialogue.

In my private practice in New York City and East Hampton, I treat many individuals, couples and families who enter treatment convinced that the problems they are experiencing in their significant relationships are because of what someone else is doing, or not doing, to them. How often do we sit down and ask ourselves how we may be contributing both positively and negatively to the state of our relationships?

When was the last time you sat down with your partner, parent, colleague, friend or child and were willing to honestly talk about your relationship and how to go about repairing any misunderstandings, miscommunications, hurts, pain and damage? Relationships can never truly flourish unless people are committed and willing to have honest and meaningful conversations, with the goal being to ideally find win-win resolutions.

This process is not easy or fun, and as I remind people all the time, we don’t need to navigate the ups and downs of life on our own. Most people wait too long to reach out and ask for help. If you find that your own mental health and relationship issues are wreaking havoc on your life, do yourself a favor and find a qualified and experienced therapist who can help you wade through the muddy waters.

CASE STUDY

Meet Joanna, 65, and Jonathan, 67, who recently contacted me for marriage counseling. They have been married for 35 years with grown children and grandchildren. They have several houses around the world and have been able to live a very lavish lifestyle. No one who knows this couple would ever imagine what really goes on behind closed doors. People see them as the perfect couple. He’s handsome, rich, enormously successful and a 4.5-rated tennis player. Joanna is intelligent, warm, empathic and beautiful inside and out. So what could possibly be the problem with people who appear to have it all?

Apparently, their problems began even before their wedding. There were issues of trust, gambling, cheating, and substance abuse of various kinds that were never acknowledged, addressed or resolved. Why, might you ask? First, the newly married bride learned early on that her feelings were not important, and any attempt to have a real conversation typically ended with both of her parents berating her for causing trouble. These deep-seated, unconscious lessons have been Joanna’s way of relating in all of her relationships — to her detriment! She rarely, if ever, confronted her husband’s insensitivity toward her, choosing instead to withdraw, sometimes for days on end. Her husband, on the other hand, learned from his own emotionally and physically abusive father that men were in charge and in control. And despite the fact that Jonathan hated the way his father treated him, he has become his father in many ways.

The wedding night was a disaster. The newly married wife was so furious with her husband that she refused to have sex. Their sex life never improved. In fact, they rarely had sex during the marriage. Their dynamic of never being open, willing or capable of having honest conversations lasted until recently. What precipitated the change? It was certainly not the couple’s desire to improve their communication and problem-solving skills.

Recently, Joanna discovered that her husband was having an extra-marital affair, and in looking through his texts and emails, she made the startling discovery that he bought an apartment and was planning to move out and begin a new life with his girlfriend.

As painful as this crisis is, it’s probably the first time in their marriage that both finally have agreed to talk about the real state of their relationship and life together. Their marriage counseling with me has just begun. Jonathan promised to stop seeing his girlfriend — at least until the couple makes some decisions about their marriage. Whether they will decide to stay together or to divorce remains to be seen.

Beatty Cohan, MSW, LCSW, AASECT is a nationally recognized psychotherapist, sex therapist, author of For Better for Worse Forever: Discover the Path to Lasting Love, national speaker, national radio and television expert guest and host of the weekly Ask Beatty Show on the Progressive Radio Network. She has a private practice in NYC and East Hampton.

Beatty would love to hear from you. You can send your questions and comments to her at BeattyCohan.msw@gmail.com. For more info, go to beattycohan.com.