Dear Whitehurst:

The two of you can learn and practice effective communication skills and benefit so much from such learning. You can learn it in competent couple psychotherapy, a few sessions can do wonders. And/ or you can get a good workbook with exercises and work on it together.

I just googled “couple communication skills/ exercises” and a lot came up, but not all is going to be useful to the two of you- pick and choose the exercises, one at a time, that makes sense to the two of you.

Lend each other an EAR: Empathy, Assertiveness, Respect in your communication. Respect means no aggression, no manipulation. Ask each other questions so to understand how each one of you thinks, don’t assume, don’t mind-read. There is much more. Ongoing practice, day in and day out, of what you learn, of what works, is necessary.

anita