Chapter 3: Understanding

Chapter Questions

Take turns asking your partner the following questions: 

1. Where are places in our relationship where you feel understood? What things can I/do I do to help you feel understood?

 

2. Where are places in our relationship where you feel misunderstood? Where do you think our communication process might be breaking down? What interpretative filters are we bringing to our communication with each other that might be impacting the messages we are perceiving? 

 

It is worth noting that couples counselors can often serve as a valuable tool in helping couples identify where interpretive filters might be breaking down. Couples counselors are trained at being attuned to the encoding and decoding process. Because they are more objective, and have spent time studying human behavior and working with many different people, they are generally highly skilled at observing where emotions, trauma, differences in personality traits or other factors are interfering with the process of encoding and decoding for both partners, and they often have methods and lenses through which a positive model of communication can be practiced and carried out.