Why Communication in Relationships Is Completely F*cked (And Why It’s Not Your Fault)
Your survival guide to the emotional shitshow known as “trying to talk to the person you love."
Communication in relationships is a complete dumpster fire.
Not because you’re broken.
Not because your partner is unhinged.
Not because your marriage is being haunted by three generations of unresolved family trauma.
It’s because the process itself is impossibly complex, and no one—literally NO ONE—was taught how to do it.
If people understood what actually goes into a single emotionally vulnerable conversation, we’d be sending sympathy cards before opening our mouths.
And remember—sympathy cards are designed for death.
Which tracks, because most people feel like they’re dying when trying to communicate.
Ready for the wild breakdown of how completely shitty this whole thing is?
1. Step One: You Have to Know How You Feel (Good Luck With That)
Before you even open your mouth, you must perform an emotional acrobatic stunt that 90% of families never modeled:
You have to identify your feelings.
Real ones.
Not:
“I’m fine.”
“I’m annoyed.”
“I’m stressed.”
We’re talking the layered emotional lasagna underneath:
Irritation
Shame
Fear
Disappointment
Resentment
Hopefulness
Loneliness
Guilt
Anxiety about feeling guilty
…all at the same time.
Inside most adults is an emotional cocktail that tastes like regret, childhood abandonment, and half a Xanax.
Yet somehow, when communicating, you’re expected to isolate ONE clean feeling and present it neatly.
That’s like asking someone being mugged to describe the exact temperature of the sidewalk.
Matt, this is just the first nightmare?
How many are there?!
Ten.
2. Step Two: Translate Those Feelings Into Words Without Triggering the Other Person
If you do identify your emotional burrito bowl, now you must articulate it in a way that doesn’t detonate your partner’s nervous system.
(Chipotle is the bomb—but your communication shouldn’t be.)
This is where the wheels fall off.
You say:
“I felt overwhelmed.”
They hear:
“You failed.”
You say:
“I needed space.”
They hear:
“You’re too much.”
You use the wrong word?
Game over.
Now you’re stuck in a 45-minute argument about vocabulary while the actual emotional point freezes in the driveway like a toddler in a snowsuit.
3. Step Three: Your Partner Must Hear You (But Their Childhood Gets There First)
Even if your message is perfect, your partner must:
Interpret tone
Decode body language
Compare your words to the emotional dictionary written by their dysfunctional family
Manage their triggers
Regulate their nervous system
Not take it personally
Not get defensive
Stay open
That’s a lot to ask from someone whose entire nervous system was trained to scan for emotional danger.
It’s like asking a smoke alarm to stop reacting to burnt toast.
Actually—not even burnt toast.
It reacts to water vapor because it LOOKS like smoke.
Does it get better?
No.
4. Step Four: Now THEY Have to Express THEIR Emotional Maze
If—by some miracle—they understood you?
Great.
Now they start THEIR emotional process:
“What am I feeling?”
“Why do I feel this way?”
“How do I say this without triggering you?”
“How do I translate 40 years of emotional programming into a coherent sentence?”
Congratulations.
You’ve entered the Communication Loop of Doom™.
This is why couples say:
“We feel like we’re going in circles.”
Because you ARE.
And this isn’t the calm therapeutic circle with candles.
It’s a NASCAR crash where all the cars pile up and the entire race gets postponed.
5. The Nervous System Problem (Where 93% of Communication Fails)
People think communication is about words.
Nope.
Words are only 7% of communication.
The other 93% is:
Tone
Posture
Facial tension
Eye contact
Sighs
That eyebrow twitch that screams “I disagree but I’m trying not to say it.”
You say:
“I’m listening.”
But if your face looks like you’re doing calculus?
Your partner hears:
“You’re on your own—good luck.”
This is how we end up in a marital Mexican standoff—two partners silently threatening each other with their neck muscles.
Is it politically correct? No.
Is it unforgettable? Absolutely.
6. The Emotional Oxygen Crisis
Here’s the biggest issue:
Both partners want emotional oxygen at the same time.
Each person is thinking:
“Validate me first.”
“Hear me first.”
“Understand MY feelings first.”
“Reassure me before I reassure you.”
When both are gasping, no one can communicate clearly.
It’s not a conversation.
It’s a competition.
And let’s be honest—this dynamic was probably modeled for you growing up.
Matt… we’re only at #6?!
Yes. Buckle up.
7. People Don’t Communicate Feelings — They Communicate Defenses
Most adults THINK they’re communicating emotion.
Nope.
They’re communicating:
Anxiety
Protection
Learned helplessness
Childhood conditioning
Shame
Avoidance
Anger
Stonewalling
Perfectionism
People-pleasing
“Don’t leave me” fear
Old wounds dressed up as current reactions
Your Useless Skills article the other day? If not, here it is!
Useless Skills! What's Yours?
Every adult I work with is haunted by one thing: a childhood coping skill they still believe is a personality trait.
Yeah—people got rocked because it exposed this exact truth.
Most partners are trying to resolve conflict with emotional tools built for a childhood they barely remember.
8. The Black-and-White Thinking Problem
Most adults were raised in emotionally immature families—aka the emotional philosophy of:
“Let’s just agree to disagree.” (Translation: “Let’s not think too hard. It hurts my heart.”)
This creates:
Nuance = threatening
Complexity = overwhelming
Multiple truths = impossible
Paradox = unsafe
So instead of two truths, people default to:
Right vs wrong
Villain vs victim
Good vs bad
My way vs your way
But real communication requires:
“Yes, and…”
“I understand you, and…”
“I see how that makes sense, and…”
“I’m hurt AND I still love you.”
Most couples cannot do this because nobody taught them how to tolerate emotional ambiguity.
Matt… we’re on 8 going into 9?!
Yes. And you chose to read this.
9. The Process Over Content Problem
Here’s the biggest mindf*ck:
The content almost never matters.
Couples want to debate:
Wording
Tone
Details
Timing
Examples
Small incidents
But what actually matters is:
The emotional process
The sequence that shaped the feeling
The meaning their mind created
The history beneath the reaction
The vulnerability under the protection
You’re not trying to understand what they said.
You’re trying to understand how they got there.
This is the entire game.
And it’s massive.
10. The Final Boss: Projections & Family-of-Origin Programming
This is where communication truly falls completely apart.
Under stress, people do not respond as adults.
They respond as the child who first learned what conflict meant.
In one argument, partners are carrying:
Their father’s tone
Their mother’s reactivity
Their family’s conflict style
Cultural conditioning
Abandonment fears
Attachment wounds
Emotional enmeshment
Shame
Defensiveness
Survival strategies
They THINK they’re responding to their partner.
They’re actually responding to:
Their mother’s criticism
Their father’s withdrawal
Their childhood helplessness
Their old pain
Their old fear
You’re not fighting your partner.
You’re fighting everyone who came before them.
Great, Matt. Let me just go tell my partner that.
I’m sure THAT will go perfectly.
11. The Grand Conclusion: Communication Isn’t Broken — It’s Overloaded
Communication isn’t failing because couples are incompetent.
It’s failing because the process is basically the emotional equivalent of trying to defuse a bomb with oven mitts on.
It’s not that you “just need to communicate better.” It’s that every single conversation is overloaded with:
Emotional identification (What am I even feeling?)
Emotional articulation (How do I explain this without sounding insane or attacking?)
Tone and timing (Is now safe? Is this safe to say?)
Body language and nervous‑system signals
Your history
Their history
Triggers
Useless skills from childhood
Projections
Family‑of‑origin ghosts
Competing emotional truths
Ego, fear, shame, and the quiet terror of losing the relationship
No wonder it’s a shitshow.
So if communication feels hard, heavy, or downright impossible at times, it’s not because you’re broken as a couple.
It’s because you’re trying to do HIGH‑LEVEL EMOTIONAL SURGERY with tools you were never given.
Excellent. Many of my clients face these challenges. Looking forward to the next article. I typically recoomend a simle 4-part style: this is what I observe. This is how it makes me feel. This is what I need instead. This is my wish to you.
Looking forward to the next article!