Couples Counselling with Paul McManus

As human beings we’re surprisingly bad at communicating how we feel and asking for what we need. But for the most part, we don’t know we are. We imagine we’re pretty good at it. We also imagine that our partner magically knows what it is we need when we’re feeling whatever it is we’re feeling. So when they don’t respond the way we want them to, we feel like they must be doing it on purpose. And that hurts. But (because we’re surprisingly bad a communicating how we feel and what we need) we might not say anything or, what we say might not be the response they wanted, and so they’re hurt too. Tiny hurts, back and forth, too small to register on their own, too small to mention. But they add up until somewhere, out of our awareness, instead of expecting our partner to be one who’ll sooth us, we expect them to hurt us. And who wants to live with that?

As a starting point, I help couples communicate with each other, safely and clearly. Because if you can start taking the hurts away, you’ve got a good chance of remembering what it was about your partner that made you want them in the first place.