Communication Styles in Relationships

Episode Summary of “Communication Styles in Relationships”

Welcome back to The Communicate and Connect Podcast, dedicated to enhancing your relationships through effective communication. I’m your host, Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky, a military marriage counselor, and today we’re diving deep into episode 27, centered on communication styles in relationships. Whether you’re newlyweds or decades into your marriage, understanding how you and your partner communicate during stress can be a game-changer.

In this episode, we’ll explore why some couples never discuss crucial topics like finances or intimacy until it becomes a problem and how understanding your communication style can prevent these issues. I’ll share a personal anecdote that sheds light on how these styles impact our interactions and emotional well-being.

Our discussion will unpack the groundbreaking work of Virginia Satir, often hailed as the mother of family therapy. We’ll identify the four primary stress response communication styles—blaming, placating, being super reasonable, and distracting—and contrast them with the congruent communication style we should all aspire to.

I’ll provide insights into how these styles originate, often rooted in childhood experiences and insecurities, and explain why recognizing them can be pivotal for your relationship. By learning to identify and address these styles, you can shift from negative patterns to more authentic, constructive communication.

Plus, I’ll offer actionable steps and expert recommendations for those who might need additional support in developing these skills. So, stay tuned as we journey through the fascinating dynamics of communication styles and equip you with the tools to foster a happier, healthier relationship.

Download our Getting Ready for Marriage Checklist to take a proactive approach to building a healthy and thriving relationship.

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.

👉 https://pages.communicateandconnect.com/relationship-quiz

Episode Transcript for “Communication Styles in Relationships”

Dr. 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.communicateandconnect.com.

Welcome to the Communicate and Connect podcast for Milit 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.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:01:05]:
Hey everyone, welcome back to the Communicate and Connect podcast. This is episode 27 on communication styles in Relationships. So I’m really excited to be talking about this today. As you probably know, I’ve been doing this series on getting ready for marriage because oftentimes I have couples who come see me and even though they may be like years, years into their marriage, they’ve never had a discussion about finances or have never had a discussion about sex.

And so these are some of the things that I think are pretty foundational things that are helpful to go over at the beginning of your marriage. But if you didn’t do that and you’re just now starting, you know, it’s better late than never. So these are things that I think every couple should go over as sort of like part of the baseline to help you have a happy, healthy, long lasting relationship where the two of you are communicating and on the same page. So today is about communication styles and I’ll start with a recent story.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:02:23]:
So some of you know, my husband is about to start workups and is about to deploy and we went on this trip together and we, it was really fun. We went to this cabin in near Charlottesville, Virginia. We drank lots of wine and went to some wineries and you know, that’s really fun for me. And there was, we went with some other people as well.

And there was one night where I was, I don’t know, I was fiddling on my computer. My husband had been sitting right next to me and I was fiddling on my computer and then all of a sudden I look up and he’s not there. And it turned out that he had gone to the hot tub with a bunch of other people and didn’t tell me that he was going and didn’t invite me to the hot tub. And while this may not be a big deal for everybody, it really pissed me off.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:03:20]:
And so I got really angry at him for not inviting me to the hot tub. And this is because deep down on the inside, it made me feel like I wasn’t included or like he didn’t want me, or that I wasn’t even a thought to him when he did that, which was really painful. And then I got angry and I started blaming him. And that is because blaming is my stress style in communication.

And this is something that I think is really important for couples to be able to identify is what is your stress style in communication? Because oftentimes that is going to come up in your conflict. So there are five communication styles in relationships. And this is based off of Virginia Satir, who was like the mother of family therapy. She was a total badass, like hashtag, my hero, who I want to be when I grow up type of therapist.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:04:22]:
And one I have this quote from her from 1988. It says, “Once a human being has arrived on this earth, communication is the largest single factor determining what kinds of relationships she or he makes with others, what happens to each in the world.” And that really stood out to me.

So these four, five communication styles that I’m going to go over are from Virginia Satir. And her whole thing was that communication is the factor that determines the type of relationships we have. And I completely agree. And this is also one of the reasons why I named our podcast Communicate and Connect. The basic idea is that we all react to stress and especially threats to our self esteem.

Self-esteem threats trigger defensive communication styles.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:05:14]:
And so in this example where I went to this cabin with my husband and other people and he got in the hot tub, that was a threat to my self esteem. It made me feel that I wasn’t wanted, that I wasn’t worth thinking about these types of deeper, painful emotions around my self esteem and when that happens in relationships, when there is a threat to my self esteem, I react with one of the communication styles.

So the four communication styles are blaming, placating, being super reasonable or distracting. And then we’ll talk about the fifth one, which is the more congruent style, the one that we all want to strive for. So when we have stress and that threat to our self esteem, we’re often kind of deep on the inside. Emotionally, we’re feeling emotions like shame, I’m not good enough type of thing. People are going to reject me. These are sort of shame thoughts that go along with the emotion of shame.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:06:22]:
I might be feeling guilt, I could be feeling Afraid. And then there’s the low self esteem. And whether you blame placate are super reasonable or kind of distracting and irrelevant. All of those are ways that we protect ourselves when we have these threats to our self esteem.

And oftentimes they are coping skills. Coping skills that I learned in my childhood, that I still have in relationships now. If growing up there were often threats to my self esteem in my family, then that is when a lot of these communication styles developed as a way to cope with that insecurity. But it does become a problem in couple relationships and it is often of coping to the insecurity.

Blaming Style: Masking Insecurity with Criticism.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:07:19]:
And it’s kind of a mask that we wear to cover up the insecurity and to try to not feel so insecure. And so I’m going to describe the four styles in more detail and then at the end I’ll cover, you know, what a congruent communication style is since that’s what we’re all going to want to strive for.

Okay, so let’s start with blaming. This one is me. So I’ll just be like super transparent and honest about that. So on the outside, blamers tend to be very critical. They might complain a lot and then they always find fault in other people. I’m sure you can think of somebody in your life who responds in a blaming way on top of being kind of critical and complaining and saying like, oh, you’re not doing enough.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:08:10]:
Why did you do this? It’s your fault. You should be better, you should be doing these things. They often don’t take responsibility for themselves, what they’re doing in relationships, how they’re feeling in the relationship, what they want. And so that’s what you would see from a blamer on the outside or what you might see in how they’re interacting at least when they’re stressed. And there’s that threat to self esteem in the relationship.

On the inside though, they’re usually feeling pretty unhappy. There’s usually a lot of loneliness and feeling unlovable. And this developed in childhood because typically blamers, they grew up feeling that their needs were not going to be met by other people.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:08:58]:
And so the way that they coped with this is that they start going on the offensive. If my needs are not going to be met, then I need to complain. So that way the other person will meet my needs. And if they’re not meeting my needs, then I’m going to be critical and tell them what they’re doing wrong. So that way hopefully they’ll come meet my needs.

So this is how a Blamer is coping with this fear that I’m unlovable and my needs are not going to be met. And so I go on to the offensive, critical and blaming to try to get you to come meet my needs. Okay, style number two is placater.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:09:41]:
So this is your standard people pleaser. On the outside, they’re people pleasing. They’re saying yes. They maybe are never expressing a difference of opinion. They’re really trying to avoid conflict at all costs. So on the inside though, they’re usually feeling pretty helpless and they also feel kind of worthless.

That is that threat to self esteem, that’s that part, that’s the insecurity that’s on the inside for them. And this is because their sense of value, their self esteem, their self worth comes from other people.

Placators seek validation, fear disapproval, suppress emotions.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:10:24]:
And so because their self worth comes from other people, they want other people to see them as valuable, to like them, and so they go along with what other people want. They agree they might hold their feelings on the inside to avoid conflict and really they’re avoiding the risk of disapproval.

So it’s really hard for them to express any anger because if I express anger, if I express something I don’t like, maybe you will see me as not valuable and then that would be painful. Oftentimes they’re working really hard mentally to suppress emotions and that can actually cause depression for a lot of people pleasers.

So how did this coping skill develop for people who are placaters? Typically they grew up with a lot of fear of disapproval in their families. And so how they coped was by keeping the peace, kind of going along and trying to not either not be noticed, not be a problem to anybody, or also to be kind of like the golden child, the one that others sort of like being whatever they thought other people wanted them to be.

And so that is the placator style. And again, it’s, it’s different than blaming, but it is a stress style.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:11:52]:
When I have fear of disapproval, I go into people pleasing and then there everything ends up being about the other person and there’s no room for. They don’t take up space to have their wants and needs and feelings expressed or be met.

Okay, the third one is the super reasonable one. So sometimes I think like a computer. I think of a computer when I think of this style. They’re super logical. They’re kind of like calm, cool, collected, almost emotionless. They might quote facts and statistics.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:12:31]:
They really don’t like making mistakes or being seen as wrong. And at the same time they tend to have very good Memories for how you did something wrong. But it’s different than blaming. There’s not that heat of the anger, this is all your fault type of feeling to it.

The way that they might do it is almost from like an emotionless stance. Like somebody who’s more super reasonable might say something like, well, didn’t you read the instructions? Like, this isn’t my fault. The instructions were really clear. You should have done that.

Emotionally Detached Individuals Seek Acceptance and Fairness

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:13:09]:
And it’s sort of just factual and kind of emotionally flat. That’s what it would look like on the outside. On the inside, what’s going on for them? They’re very disconnected from their emotions. They’re pretty uncomfortable with emotions in general, both their own emotions and other people’s emotions. And they probably view emotions as dangerous and as something to avoid, which is why they go to logic so much.

Some people might describe this type of person as cold, you know, not very empathetic, and on a severe side, kind of like robotic in their approach to the world. So often what they’re really wanting, like deep down, there’s not just the disconnection from their emotions, but there’s also this longing for justice and fairness and to be accepted and to be seen as good.

And there is a fear of being seen as imperfect or being seen as lacking, you know, kind of not good enough in some way.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:14:20]:
And they’re really wanting to know that they belong and are loved. And so let’s. So let me explain it kind of how the coping style develops for people. So for the super reasonable style, they often grew up in families who conveyed to them that they weren’t good enough.

And so in order to cope with that feeling of not being accepted, of being found lacking, they try to become perfect. So it’s similar slightly to the people pleasing placating thing in that I want to be seen as positive. But they, instead of people pleasing, they go very factual and become logical, detail oriented. Try like dot all the I’s, cross all the T’s, very detail oriented to make sure everything is sort of spotless and done just right.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:15:24]:
So that way there is no argument for somebody to say I did it wrong and that in their family that is how they could gain acceptance. Instead of being found lacking and imperfect, which then would have resulted in rejection, there’s a fear of rejection and they cope by being super logical, making things spotless, errorless.

So that way there couldn’t be no fault, so that way they can’t be rejected. And then that’s how they cope. When there’s a fear in a Marriage that I’m going to be rejected. This person would cope by being super reasonable and logical.

Okay, the fourth one is the distractor or the irrelevant style. This person is very talkative.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:16:19]:
They’re kind of unfocused, all over the place, erratic. I think you would probably even at times say this person is a little bit out of touch with reality. They’re probably avoiding eye contact, not answering questions, directly changing the subject. That one is a huge one.

So, like, you might, okay, me being a blamer. I might say ask a question like, didn’t you know that I wanted you to do this instead? Maybe that would be like a blamer question, but a super reasonable. Oh, I’m sorry, not super reasonable. Distract or irrelevant.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:16:56]:
The irrelevant style in response to my question like that would either totally avoid. It would make a joke and change the subject, or would just totally change the subject, like, oh, there’s a party this weekend that I was thinking about going to. I think we should go. What do you think?

And then we’re totally on a different topic. And my original question never gets answered. That is what you would see from this distract, your irrelevant communication style. So on the inside, this person often feels frightened, kind of distrustful, worried, and they feel like if they ignore the problem, then maybe it’ll go away. This also develops as a coping skill in childhood.

Distraction coping style: Avoiding conflict and rejection.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:17:48]:
For a lot of people who have this style, it’s a much less common style. But for people who had this style, conflict was not a safe thing in their relationship with their caregivers growing up. And so the only way to cope with it was to avoid problems and to try to maybe get the person to not be angry, to focus on something else.

So that way then they could be safe for somebody who is the distractor on the inside, there’s a lot of fear about how the person in front of me is going to react if there is a problem. And so instead I try to distract away from it, navigating the conversation away from the problem to change that person’s emotional experience, get them on a different topic.

So if I can get you on the topic of a party versus the thing that you’re complaining about, then we’ll have peace and then I don’t have to be as afraid of how you’re going to react to me. These are the four stress styles they all relate to. Am I going to be accepted in this relationship or am I going to be rejected in some way?

These are ways that people learn to cope when there is a fear that I am going to be rejected or I’m not going to be accepted, or I’m going to be found as not good enough or unwanted.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:19:25]:
And to cope with that, I do these things. And so so often communication styles are about coping with insecurity. And you want to know which style you have and which style your partner has. So that way you guys can help each other kind of get out of the communication style and help each other with the insecurity part.

So Virginia Satir and her team of researchers, they estimated that about 50% of people are placators, about 30% are blamers, 15% are super reasonable, and only about 0.5% are distractors. And so then that only leaves four and a half percent communicating in a more productive way, which is called the congruent style. And Virginia Satir, she also called it leveler. Like I’m going to level with you was her phrase for it.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:20:32]:
But I think I like calling it the congruent style. So that’s what I’m going to call it. So a congruent style is what we all want to strive for. And this is where I’m expressing myself without blaming, without placating, distracting, or being super reasonable.

I’m not using one of the other four styles. Instead, my feelings, my behavior and my communication all match. They’re in sync, which is something that is missing in the other four styles. They feel one thing, but they’re doing something different or they’re saying something different.

Authentic Emotional Communication: Feel, Share, Connect Effectively.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:21:10]:
In order to be able to do this, in order to have my feelings, my behavior and my communication match, I actually have to be able to feel my feelings. And this is where this can be very challenging for people, especially when they grew up learning that emotions aren’t safe or they grew up in American culture, which is very logical and unemotional.

But I have to first be let myself feel my feelings. And once I can feel my feelings, which is a challenge sometimes all on its own, is getting to the point where I can feel my feelings. But once I can feel my feelings, then I have to do another thing, which is share them with others in an authentic and straightforward way.

And that is like the second skill that people have to learn in order to be able to communicate effectively, especially when there is stress in this threat to my self esteem. And ultimately that’s what we want to happen in couples, is for couples to be able to feel their feelings, share them in an authentic and straightforward way, especially when they’re handling conflict, when they’re trying to confide in each other, or when they’re trying to solve problems together.

So your action step for this episode is to see if you and your partner can identify your communication stress styles.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:22:37]:
And as a side note, because it does take some learning to be able to feel my feelings. That’s one skill. And the second skill, actually be able to share them in an authentic and straightforward way. If you guys find that you struggle with that and you want help working on that, the ways to do that are to maybe work with somebody who is a licensed marriage and family therapist or who’s a certified emotionally focused therapist.

And so those are my two recommendations for what type of counselor could assist you with that if that is a challenge for you in the relationship. But I think just in terms of preparing for marriage, just knowing, okay, this is what I do. When I’m feeling insecure, I go into blaming. Or when I feel like you’re not going to accept me, I start people pleasing.

Identify and communicate relationship styles effectively.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:23:37]:
Just being able to identify what your style is and what your partner’s style is and starting to communicate. That will help the two of you navigate when these styles come up because then you’ll be able to recognize that it’s happening. You’ll know that, okay, this is what I’m doing because I’m feeling a lot of stress and because something is hitting my sense of self esteem and that can really drastically change the conversation.

So if I like thinking about the hot tub incident, I go into blaming because that’s my style. You know, if my husband can say, okay, you’re kind of going into blaming, I can be like, oh yeah, you’re right, I am doing that. And then we can both start talking about, okay, well actually I feel pretty stressed out. I’m feeling like you didn’t want me.

And now that is a totally different conversation than just me blaming and him getting defensive or him doing one of his stress style that he might have.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:24:41]:
Yes, so sorry, I went on a whole spiel again after I told you the action item. But make sure you go identify what your styles are and start having a discussion about it. All right, Have a great day.

Dr. Elizabeth Polinsky [00:25:04]:
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 10 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.

Until next time.