Have you ever felt caught in this pattern?

You come home from a long day of work and try to vent to your partner, but they end up throwing solutions at you when all that you really want them to do is listen. Or maybe you fall into the pattern of trying to do the “fixing” and feeling frustrated that nothing you offer seems to land.

I see it all the time in couples therapy. It ends up looking like this:

Partner 1 shares a situation and feelings surrounding it (e.g., “My boss gave me yet another project today. I am so stressed and just don’t know if I can keep up with my workload!”).

Partner 2 offers solutions (e.g., “Maybe you should start waking up earlier. You’ve been hitting snooze on the alarm clock lately—I’m sure those extra minutes could be put to good use.”).

Partner 1 rejects the solutions (e.g., “I already tried that” or “Here’s why that won’t help…”).

In this pattern, Partner 1 ends up feeling frustrated and unheard. They want their partner to understand and validate the difficulty of the situation, how challenging it is, and the fact that there is no easy fix. Partner 2 also ends up feeling frustrated because their attempts to help their........

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