Fighting Fair: How to Ditch Toxic Communication and Truly Connect
You love your partner, but lately, it feels like every conversation turns into an argument! Maybe you keep having the same fight over and over, or one of you shuts down while the other gets frustrated trying to be heard. This can look like giving the cold shoulder, being passive-aggressive, raising voices, yelling, name-calling, or even swearing at each other. Instead of resolving issues, you both walk away feeling hurt, misunderstood, and even more distant. A lot of the time this can snowball into a larger pattern at play such as giving the silent treatment for days or weeks to then sweep it under the rug where nothing gets resolved. “Sweeping things under the rug” becomes a graveyard of unresolved issues that will haunt you over time. They’re never truly gone. Couples will go on as if nothing happened, but the same issue pops up later and devolves into the same argument and feelings.
Many couples get stuck in unhealthy communication patterns. (Communication is 90% of what couples work on in therapy.) Nothing ever gets fixed with this pattern. Over time, these habits can erode trust, connection, and intimacy in a relationship. But the good news? You can break the cycle.
What does toxic communication actually look like?
Toxic or unhealthy communication can look a lot of different ways:
Raising voices: yelling, screaming
Using unkind words: Name-calling, swearing, insults, making someone feel small/less than,
Passive-aggressive habits: using unclear/passive-aggressive statements, giving the cold shoulder, silent treatment, not talking (also known as stonewalling), sarcasm
Using blame: blaming rather than working on coming to a conclusion
Manipulation: gaslighting, changing the subject, using someone’s feelings against them, shifting the focus one partner’s feelings being more important, keeping score
Although these are all very different, they tend to come from the same place. These happen when someone is being defensive and closed off. The root of feeling defensive can come from our feelings being hurt or not feeling validated by our partner. Acting defensively against our partner at the core, is meant to protect us. Although these patterns are meant to protect, they are not okay and can seriously damage trust in the relationship if done repeatedly and over time. When we look at patterns and behaviors, it’s always helpful to understand the WHY, but it never outweighs the accountability- that we still need to be accountable for our own actions. On a positive note, these things can change. When we identify our patterns we put ourselves in a better position to fix them to create a happy, healthy, relationship. A disclaimer: BOTH partners need to put in an effort to create positive change. If there is ever an instance where you are in a dangerous, or physically abusive relationship then the focus needs to be on safety.
Why does toxic communication happen?
Before we dive into the “why”, I want to be clear that anyone can have toxic communication or unhealthy communication patterns. They are learned. It does not mean someone is ultimately “bad”. Anyone can fall into unhealthy patterns, it means nothing about someone as a person. We call this a “learned behavior”.
The most common place we see toxic communication come from is family dynamics. We learn how to communicate early on from our family of origin and caregivers. It will most likely be from mom and dad but is generally learned from anyone who was a primary caregiver at an early age. Kids are like sponges, they pick up on anything and everything. I like to explain it like that Jim Carey movie, The Truman Show. A family system is like its own little bubble and you only know how things are done from that little bubble. So if your family yells a lot, well guess what? Yelling seems like an acceptable form of communication …. until you become independent and step outside of that bubble. Then we learn that people do things differently and maybe what we learned was not the most healthy. There is a whole world out there and we only ever knew what was in our little bubble. How would you know any different if you only ever saw people yell to communicate?! We learn these things over time but they can be unlearned too.
Another way we can learn toxic communication is if we have unmet needs from our partner and we notice that when we behave a certain way, we finally get that need met. What does this mean? Say we try to communicate to our partner that we miss them. They are at work, they come home, and are consistently on their phone. We are missing that social interaction with them. It feels like they are here but not really. We want them to pay attention to us. Maybe we even say “hey, could you put your phone down and hang out with me"?” They say, “Sure, no problem?” but they don’t follow through in the long run. Eventually, they pick the phone back up and ignore us which leaves us feeling disappointed, hurt, and vulnerable. So we try to say it again, and the same thing happens. Until we snap. That might be exploding and yelling, maybe even crying and telling them that we’re fed up. THAT gets their attention and they LISTEN. You see more results than in the past, albeit probably still temporary. But now, we’ve learned that every time we actually want them to listen that it has to escalate to that point to be taken seriously. TA-DA, there’s your learned pattern. It’s all about getting our needs met. In this instance, your brain says “hey, remember that time we EXPLODED. They listened that time”. Your brain wants to be efficient but unfortunately, it can’t determine between efficiency and unhealthy.
What does is cost you in the long run?
Everything has consequences. As I mentioned in the previous paragraph, sometimes these toxic communication styles can actually help you get your needs met (temporarily) but it still has consequences over time. Communication in these ways can erode trust in each other until we have none left. When trust is gone and we aren’t getting what we need, resentment starts to set in. We start to feel resentful towards our partner for them not meeting our needs or listening to us. Arugments start to feel repetitive. We fight about the same things over and over again yet nothing ever gets resolved.
Where does that leave the relationship then? With two partners who are emotionally distant, don’t know how to communicate, and are essentially coexisting. At this point, people are not usually having meaningful or deep interactions because they simply don’t trust each other anymore. They’ve gone so long without being listened to, taken care of, or validated that they’ve given up trying. Over time they will resemble something similar to roommates. This is also where cheating can come in because people want their needs met and will look outside of the relationship to do so. (Not saying it’s right but it happens!) Ultimately, if partners don’t work on this it either ends in divorce or a meaningless, loveless marriage.
Breaking the cycle
Acknowledging the patterns
Identifying that something isn’t working for you is the first step to breaking the cycle. We need to acknowledge that our communication style and pattern is a problem and it’s something to work on … for both partners. It can be difficult to see change when only one partner is willing to put in an effort. Start to become aware of what starts your communication patterns. What sets you off? What’s the catalyst or trigger that initiates it? Sometimes we react without thinking. When we feel that happen, stop yourself and look around. What just happened in your environment? Start to become curious and ask yourself questions.
2. Pause before reacting
When you stop yourself and notice what’s going on, pause before reacting. This is difficult to do at times. I equate it to a train leaving a station. If the train has already left, there’s no calling it back meaning that if you’ve already started to react and are IN your feelings, it is hard to press pause at that point. Try noticing what your body feels like when you are in your emotions. Gaining awareness of how feeling triggered feels will help you notice when you start to become triggered. As a result, you can “press pause” earlier before the train has left the station.
3. Use kind language
Shifting our language is essential to healthy communication. We don’t want to play the blame game but instead, allow space for each other to share their feelings. Using “I Statements” is an excellent way to start doing this. Follow this formula: “I feel (feeling word) when you (action) because (explanation) ”.
An example is “I feel upset when you don’t text me that you’re on your way home because I get worried”.
“I Statements” are NOT “I’m sorry you feel _____” or “You make me ____ when you ____”.
We also want to stay away from name-calling, insults, and sarcasm as these things don’t serve a purpose other than hurting the other party.
4. Change your mindset
We often view arguments as being pitted against each other. Someone has to be right and someone has to be wrong. It automatically opposes us with the mindset being that we need to have a “winner” and a “loser”. Everyone loses with this mindset because you’re not on the same team. You’re in a partnership, in a marriage, where you work together and love each other yet diametrically opposed from the get-go when you take on this mindset. Shift the mindset of being opposed to “we’re on the same team, let’s figure this out together”. It takes out the winner/loser mentality and brings into it space for problem-solving and teamwork.
Reaching out for help
While things can get better if both partners are committed to working on communication, sometimes it can hit a stopping point. Communication can be difficult to address simply because we’re “in it” and sometimes are not completely aware of how we are interacting or coming off to another person. That being said, counseling is an excellent tool to use. It offers a safe space and input from a trained, neutral third party to help address your patterns. There may even be patterns that you’re not aware of! A counselor can help flush these patterns out and teach you healthy coping and communication skills to put you back on the same team. Keep in mind that a counselor is trained to be neutral and to balance the room meaning they will ask one partner their side and then switch and ask “what’s your experience of this?”. It helps in seeing all sides while giving space to both partners in the session.
Katie Bonanno, LMFTA
Katie is a couples and relational therapist in Charleston, SC. Katie enjoys guiding her clients through discovering their self at their core. She believes that we always have a choice in how we view things and in that, we always have the power to change things for the better. Katie delights in helping others discover their unique strengths and working through heavy emotions.
Katie has openings for clients both virtual and in-person!
