How to get your partner to listen

Episode Summary of “How to get your partner to listen”

Welcome back to The Communicate & Connect Podcast! I’m your host, Elizabeth Polinsky, a military marriage counselor passionate about helping military and veteran families strengthen their relationships through better communication. In today’s episode, we’re tackling a challenge that many couples face: how to get your partner to listen. Have you ever felt like you’re speaking, but your words aren’t being heard? Or like you’re stuck in a cycle of miscommunication and frustration? You’re not alone. We’re diving into why this happens and how to change it.

In this episode, we’ll explore destructive communication patterns, known as the “four horsemen,” a concept developed by renowned relationship experts John and Julie Gottman. These patterns—criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling—often create barriers in communication and, if left unresolved, can predict relationship failure. Understanding these behaviors is key to unlocking better communication and learning how to get your partner to truly listen.

But awareness alone isn’t enough, so I’ll share actionable strategies to help you break free from these negative cycles. You’ll learn how to cool down when emotions run high, express your feelings using “I” statements, and foster a connection through active listening. Real communication isn’t just about making your point—it’s about understanding your partner’s perspective and feeling understood in return.

This episode is packed with practical tools and tips to help you express your needs more effectively and create a culture of mutual respect and understanding in your relationship. I’ll even share a special listening challenge to help you take these skills to the next level. Plus, don’t miss details on our free email course designed to provide even more support in your journey to improve communication.

Whether you’re struggling with feeling heard or simply want to deepen the connection with your partner, this episode will equip you with the tools to bridge the gap and figure out how to get your partner to listen. And as always, a quick reminder: while I’m a therapist, this podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional therapy.

Don’t forget to rate, review, and subscribe to stay updated with our latest episodes. Let’s dive in and start transforming your communication today!

Free Relationship Pattern Assessment

Many couples assume they have a communication problem when they’re actually stuck in a relationship pattern that keeps creating the same conflict.

Take the free Relationship Pattern Assessment to discover what pattern may be keeping you stuck and learn what to focus on next.

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Episode Transcript for “How to get your partner to listen”

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:00:01]:
This podcast is sponsored by Communicate and Connect Counseling, where we have a team of therapists who provide individual couples and family therapy services, all tailored to meet the needs of military and veteran families. To learn more about our services, visit www.connecticateandconnect.com.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:00:28]:
Welcome to the Communicate and Connect podcast for Military Relationships with your host, Elizabeth Polinsky, a military marriage counselor. If this is your first time listening to the Communicate and Connect podcast, please take a second to go, rate, review, and subscribe to make sure you get all our future episodes. We also really want to know what it is you love about our podcast. And if for some reason you’re not loving it, we want to know that, too, because we’re committed to providing the best quality content to help you improve your relationships. This is episode three on how to.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:01:06]:
Get your partner to listen. All right, so today’s episode is going to be all about communication. And this is really one of the foundational components to the Communicate and Connect podcast. And a lot of couples and even individuals, when they come work with me in therapy, they often want to know, how do I get my partner to listen to me? How do I get them to give me what I’m asking for? How do I get them to listen to what I’m saying to them?

And so this is inherently a problem with communication, and communication is actually really challenging. So I’ll give a story from my own life, and I’ll kind of tell how that ties into communication. But there I remember a fight that I had with my partner at some point in the conversation. You know, now I have no idea what we were even fighting about, and I don’t think it even mattered at that point. But he said, this isn’t productive.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:02:21]:
Let’s talk about it later. And on the surface, that seems like a very logical thing to say in a conversation. It might help calm everybody down until you can have a more productive conversation. But what I heard, what that meant to me during that conversation, was that I was too much, that my partner couldn’t handle me, and that I wasn’t worth his time.

And this happens a lot in relationships is that the words that come out of my partner’s mouth, they don’t translate into what I hear. And it’s not just I use the term I a lot. I think that’s just based on the type of therapy I do. But it’s not just me.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:03:05]:
This is relationships with people in general. So when your partner is talking to you, you do not always get the messages that they’re trying to send. And that’s because only 7% of the words that they say actually reach you. The rest of the information that you get, 93% of the communication that you receive is based on their tone of voice and their body language. And when I’m listening to or when anyone’s listening to tone of voice and body language, that’s what they’re going to respond to.

People respond to the messages that they get, and 93% of the message is based off of tone of voice and body language. So when my partner, you know, shut down, didn’t want to talk about it, I heard, I’m not worth his time. That one’s the real example.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:03:56]:
Right. But I think that’s a. It’s also an example that a lot of people could. Can relate to. And a lot of the couples that come work with me, that’s something that I hear pretty frequently as well. So the second part about what makes communication so hard, when you listen to your partner, you aren’t actually. You’re not very often actually listening to your partner. Most people listen to.

Responding instead of listening hinders effective communication.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:04:23]:
Formulate their response to the other person. So instead of listening to understand what your partner is saying, you might be standing there kind of like thinking as they’re talking, wanting to jump in and have a rebuttal, and how are you going to respond? And this can also lead to missing the message that your partner is trying to convey. Oftentimes when couples are talking about whatever, it really doesn’t even matter what they’re talking about.

Any conversation, there’s usually emotional content there. If we go back to the example between me and my partner, I don’t remember what we were talking about. Let’s say we were talking about the dishes because that’s, you know, one of my sore spots. So maybe I really don’t know what we were talking about. But whatever we were talking about, I didn’t hear that.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:05:15]:
My partner was probably feeling like this was a hard conversation, like we were about to get into a fight, that he didn’t want to have a fight. I was hearing, I’m not worth your time. My partner wasn’t hearing the emotional content from me of, I want to really know that you care about me and that you consider how I’m going to feel. I really want to know that I matter to you. He was just hearing, you know, Liz is upset and this conversation isn’t going anywhere. I don’t know what to do. I’m kind of. I don’t even really remember what we were talking about.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:05:50]:
So I’m filling in some of These extra details right now, but this would be how this type of conversation goes for a lot of couples is that they miss the underlying message because they’re listening for. In terms of how are they going to respond? They’re responding about the dishes. So instead of responding to the underlying message of, do you care about me? Do you respect my opinion and my time? Are you going to value me?

Which is usually the core underlying emotional message that somebody is trying to send in a discussion. So let me kind of summarize so far. So communication is hard. It’s hard for everybody. It’s hard because 93% of the message that someone receives is based off of tone of voice and body language. It’s also hard because usually we’re not actively listening.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:06:46]:
People just are listening to figure out their response. When someone does that, they don’t get the full message. They just respond to the dishes or the chores or whatever it is instead of. Instead of fully listening and getting that. It’s not actually about the dishes. It’s about, I want to know that you care about me.

The next reason that communication is really hard is because we don’t say what we really mean or what we really want in relationships. So I addressed this kind of briefly in the last episode, but I’m going to talk a little more detail here, and this maybe is like a slight refresher for some people, but I think the very first thing is that people kind of avoid talking about difficult topics altogether.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:07:40]:
When you’re feeling really good in a relationship, it’s easy to talk, and you want to talk about your past and how people have hurt you in the past and all your hopes and dreams for your life. This is easy when the relationship is going well. But when I have challenges in my. In my romantic relationship where this is also the person that I go to for comfort, it’s very hard to talk about it.

Nobody wants to say, hey, when you didn’t do this, I felt like maybe you didn’t want me anymore, or maybe you didn’t actually care about me, or maybe you don’t respect me. Those are very scary things to talk about with the person whose opinion of you matters so much. So people just kind of avoid difficult topics altogether. And then if they do talk about it, they kind of hint that something is wrong, but they don’t really send a clear message about what they need in the relationship or what they want in the relationship.

Partners often miscommunicate meaningful needs and intentions.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:08:44]:
And so the underlying message of what I need or what I want or why it’s important, that never gets across to the other partner, they’re just getting kind of like this vague hint, or they are. Sometimes they maybe even directly ask, like, if I, I’m going to keep going with the dishes, since I brought it up. You probably hear a lot about dishes over this podcast, but maybe, maybe somebody just says, hey, can you do the dishes?

But they didn’t convey, like, the deep meaning that doing dishes has for them. That for them, it’s a sign that their partner really loves and cares about them and cares about fairness in the relationship, or also respects their time and respects them as like a person that, you know, lives with them because they hint at it or they don’t, or they avoid the discussion altogether.

The partner doesn’t ever get that information. The other part about communication is that that’s kind of related to this about people don’t say what they mean or what they really want is that people end up speaking two different languages. So when they’re avoiding the discussions or when they’re hinting the partner, one partner is thinking, we’re talking about the dishes, right? Just the dishes and whether or not they get done and when they get done. And it’s fine if they get done a different day, right? That’s like the very kind of like, logical, content level discussion that the couple is having.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:10:14]:
However, usually the one that’s more upset, you know, the one that’s like really wanting the dishes done, which would probably be me in this scenario with my partner. But the underlying concern with the fight is actually about is, are you going to be there for me? And so really, couples end up having these very two. They’re having like two different discussions. One person’s talking about the dishes and the other one’s talking about in our relationship, do I know that you care? Do I know that you’re going to be there for me, that you’re going to respect me and care about my needs?

So that’s kind of. That recaps a little bit from last time, but that it is relevant for today with information on communication. The next part about communication that I really want to talk about is some research by John and Julie Gottman. So the Gottmans are one of. They’re like one of the top researchers on couple relationships out there in our current time.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:11:14]:
And they talk about something called the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. I would maybe argue are some of these ways that people try to protect themselves. But I’ll get into that in a second. So the four horsemen are criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling. And the Gottmans, based Off of how long they’ve been researching this and how much they’ve been researching relationships, they can actually Predict with a 90% accuracy that relationships that have this.

These qualities that they’ll fail if those qualities aren’t changed. It’s not that this never happens, but they also have a ratio that’s really important, which is that relationships that are happy and healthy, they have a five to one ratio of positive to negative events. So that’s five positives for every one negative in the relationship.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:12:16]:
For couples that are headed towards divorce or separation, they have a 0.8 positive to 1 negative ratio. So they’re having fewer positive things between them than they are having negative. They’re having more negative. And oftentimes that is criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling. And if these aren’t changed, relationships are going to end. They’re going to fail. So let’s talk about kind of what those are. So criticism is when you or your partner, it could really be either of you, but it’s when somebody is attacking a person’s character instead of their behavior.

Use “I” statements, focus on behavior criticism

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:12:58]:
And so things like, you’re selfish, you clearly never loved me, statements like this, or you are so lazy, or, you know, you’re, you’re slow, or you’re stupid, or any type of, like, attacking some, you’re not trustworthy, you’re not responsible. I’m getting on a roll here, you know, so it’s. It can be easy to criticize people, especially when. When you’re angry or you feel hurt. But this is when criticism is when you attack who the person is instead of saying, hey, that behavior, I didn’t like it. And that is really the antidote to criticism is to focus on the behavior of the person that you didn’t like instead of attacking their character.

So in order to do that, according to the Gottmans, the best thing is to use I statements and to talk about your feelings. So going back to the dishes, when I got home and the dishes weren’t done, I felt frustrated because I was thinking that you didn’t care about how hard I worked that day.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:14:08]:
That would be an example of focusing on the behavior, of using an I statement and talking about your personal feelings instead of attacking someone’s character. The second Horseman of the apocalypse is contempt, which is sort of like a feeling of superiority to it. And it can come out in a lot of different ways.

But so, like, sarcasm is a really common way that contempt comes out. Sneering at somebody, name calling, eye rolling, these are all different ways of showing contempt and it’s really kind of saying, like, I’m superior to you. You’re ridiculous. I’m superior is kind of like the big message that gets across. And it can also come out in hostile humor, which is kind of like jokes.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:15:03]:
You know, jokes and humor that really are not just funny. They’re actually pretty mean. And they. They have this undertone of, you’re inferior to me. Contempt is really, of the four horsemen, contempt is the biggest predictor of relationship failure. And so this. I mean, all of them. They all gotta go.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:15:25]:
They all gotta hit the highway. But contempt is the biggest one that if that’s present, it can actually predict that your relationship is gonna fail. And so the antidote is to. It’s not even in a fight, really. It’s about how you interact in your relationship as a whole. And sometimes this means changing the entire dynamic and the culture.

So a lot of places talk about what’s the organizational culture of your job or what’s the culture of the church that you go to or the culture of the school that you went to type of thing. But we could talk about the culture of a relationship, which is what are kind of like the norms in the world view that you guys have in your relationship.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:16:11]:
And really, we need to change that to being where what’s normal for your relationship is that you guys respect each other and that you appreciate each other in the relationship. So the fix for contempt is really doing a whole culture overhaul for your relationship and developing a sense of mutual respect and mutual appreciation for each other. The third horseman is defensiveness. And so this usually has a very close relationship to criticism. So if one partner criticizes, the other might get defensive. Seems logical, right? But defensiveness is the. Is the third horseman. And this is.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:16:57]:
It comes out in two ways. Some. One is people can kind of have this sense of righteousness, righteous anger, righteous indignation. Like, how dare you accuse me of that? How dare you accuse me of being lazy? I am a very responsible person. It might be like, you’re the one that’s irresponsible. And then it would go off into mutual criticism. So righteous anger and indignation is one way that defensiveness comes out. A second way that defensiveness comes out is by when people play a victim.

Blame deflected due to mental health issues.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:17:33]:
So they say, it’s not my fault. I had X, Y, and Z happen today. Let me see if I can think of a better example. I’ll say that the really common one, and we could probably talk about this for a very long time, but the common one that comes up in the couples that I see is somebody saying, like, it’s not my fault because I have PTSD or I have depression or I have anxiety, or I have some other mental health diagnosis, bipolar disorder, whatever it is.

They say I have a disorder or it’s not my fault because I have this medical problem, or it’s not my fault because the kids did this. That’s another really common one. It’s not my fault because of the kids, because really it’s the kids fault. You know, I’m not saying it’s the kid’s fault, but that’s what often comes up in the couples that I see. So I definitely think, you know, there’s for real, there is room there for some grace around different situations, especially mental health.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:18:35]:
And at the same time, this defensiveness that comes up and it says it’s not my fault through righteous anger or because I’m a victim and I’m playing kind of like my victim card, then that doesn’t help relationships. And it may be very true. Like someone may be completely justified in their righteous indignation or they may really be a victim. And at the same time it does not solve the problem in the relationship.

And even more so, when people get defensive in these ways, it’s sort of like an underhanded way of blaming their partner. Like, it’s really your fault that you are mad at me because I’m going through whatever I’m going through. In terms of relationship dynamics, when one partner is critical and one partner gets defensive, their defensiveness is really another way to blame and attack their partner. And so it gets into a criticize, defend, criticize, defend.

Reduce relationship conflict by taking responsibility.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:19:37]:
And now we’re just attacking each other back and forth. So the way to deal with defensiveness in relationships, especially if you’re the one that tends to get defensive, is to take responsibility. Oftentimes this is what the partner who’s being critical really wants from their partner. From the partner who’s being defensive. They really want their partner to take responsibility and just say, yeah, I didn’t do the dishes, I’m sorry, I didn’t get to it.

They want to know that you, outside of wanting to know that you really care, part of part of you taking responsibility shows them that you really care, but they want to. They want to know that you care about them and that you’re going to take responsibility for doing the things you say you’re going to do and for not doing the things that you said you were going to do. You don’t always have to take responsibility.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:20:33]:
The Entire conflict. This is a thing that often comes up in therapy is people think, like, if I take any responsibility, then I’m to blame for everything that happened between us. And that is absolutely not the case. You just have to take responsibility for your part in the interaction. Just for your section. You don’t have to take responsibility for your partner’s section. So even if it’s a small part of the conflict, instead of getting defensive, take responsibility. Say, yeah, I didn’t do what I said I was going to do.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:21:13]:
I’m sorry. Or, yeah, I said, I said this to you, and I meant it as a joke, but I can see that it hurt your feelings. And so I am responsible for saying that joke. And it wasn’t my intent that it would hurt your feelings. Even that is. So that would be like another example where maybe the partner wasn’t being critical, but it was an area where somebody got defensive. And you might have to take responsibility even for something small. And taking responsibility instead of getting defensive is going to help your relationship a lot.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:21:49]:
The fourth horseman is called stonewalling. And so stonewalling usually happens when the other three Horsemen have been going on for a while. It takes some buildup of negativity in the relationship to get where stonewalling is a regular occurrence. With stonewalling, it takes a while to get to where stonewalling is normal part of the relationship. It’s usually been where there’s been criticism, contempt, and defensiveness. And those have been going on for a while in the relationship, creating all sorts of negativity. And finally someone is like, I am just so tired of all of this negativity that I just can’t deal with it. So they shut down.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:22:37]:
Sometimes that looks like going into another room, but oftentimes they just kind of go blank, like right in front of you. Like they’re, you know, they’re physically there, but they’re not emotionally there. Or it’s almost like there’s an invisible wall between you, or you’re invisible. They can’t see you. They’re not interacting with you. They’re focused on whatever it is they’re doing. This is a very. It’s emotional shutdown.

Stonewalling in relationships: Overwhelm solution, take break.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:23:02]:
And really what it is, you know, the person who’s stonewalling and shutting down, they’re not just being an asshole. What’s happening is that they are feeling so overwhelmed with the negativity that they just want the negativity to stop. And so they are going into kind of like a self protective mode of like, fight, flight, freeze to Calm everything down. Sort of like if I remove the oxygen from the situation, the fire will burn out. And so they’re removing their part in adding to this flame of conflict between the two of you.

So how do you move forward when there’s been stonewalling in the relationship? Really the key to that is to take a 20 minute break. If stonewalling is happening, then it’s because things got too heated, too intense. So take a 20 minute break, allow both of you to calm down, and then you can return back to the conversation or problem solving or dealing with whatever you guys were talking about.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:24:05]:
To summarize, communication is really hard. Part of that is because most of communication that actually gets across is because is tone of voice and body language. It’s also partially because people, they don’t actually actively listen to their partner. They’re thinking up what are they going to respond to their partner. Instead of trying to listen to understand what their partner’s saying, they avoid conversations.

Maybe they don’t say what they actually mean or what they really want, and they hint at things instead of saying it directly. And then we’ve got the four horsemen of the apocalypse, which are very common relationship patterns of communication that they really, they can pretty much predict whether or not a relationship is going to fail. And so the title of this episode was how to get your partner to listen to you.

Actively listen to improve relationship communication.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:25:00]:
And what I was really hoping for is that you would walk away from this episode with an understanding of what makes communicating so hard. Because oftentimes when someone comes and talks to me and they say, how do I get my partner to listen to me? Often they are kind of in an indirect way blaming their partner. They’re saying, they’re saying, my partner doesn’t listen to me.

But maybe that person hasn’t been listening to their partner because of all of the things that make communicating so, so very difficult. And so the very first step in getting your partner to listen to you is for you to actively listen to your partner. For you to stop and kind of think with some intentionality of do I get critical? Do I get defensive? Do I have contempt for my partner or do I stonewall? Do I hint at what I want and what I’m trying to get my partner to listen to? Do I hint at it or do I avoid talking about it instead of being really direct?

So the first step in getting your partner to listen to you is to really think about how do you communicate with your partner? Do you listen to your partner? The culture in your relationship, one of where you can be mutually listened to and understood and respected and appreciated. And so that is the takeaway for you today. And maybe like the challenge that I have for you after this episode is to go just listen to your partner.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:26:44]:
Don’t try to think about what you’re going to receive. You don’t need a response. In fact, I often tell couples, just repeat back to them what they said. Don’t worry about what you’re going to say, just repeat back to them what they said. You summarize it back to them and confirm that you actually heard what they were trying to say to you. And this is like a great, great first step in terms of active listening.

And if you are being intentional about creating this pattern with your partner where you start start summarizing what they said, saying it back to them, confirming that you got the message of what they said, they will likely start doing the same back. We all take relationship cues from each other and we co create and develop habits and patterns and we start to interact together with a sense of symmetry in the relationship.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:27:43]:
So the more you do this yourself, the more your partner will likely reciprocate this and you’ll know. When they start summarizing and repeating things back, you’ll know. Also, is that actually what you intended to convey to them or did they hear something that was different from message you were trying to send?

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:28:16]:
I hope you enjoyed today’s episode. If so, please take a second to go, rate, review and subscribe so you get all of our future episodes. Make sure to check out the show notes to sign up for our free Ten Week Relationship Email Course.

This email course is really designed for people who are maybe having trouble with communication or connection in their relationship and helping them develop some quick wins right away to start improving it. While I am a therapist, this podcast is for educational purposes only and is not considered therapy and it should also not be a replacement for therapy. If you think you need a professional of any kind, you should definitely go find one.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:29:12]:
Until next time.