What If I'm not a Talker or Emotional? Will I Fail at Couples Therapy?

You and your spouse may be interested in couples therapy, but maybe you consider yourself to be quieter and more reserved. Maybe you feel like you are an unemotional person and don't feel a whole lot. With that you might wonder, "Am I really going to be able to contribute well in therapy? It's an hour of talking and I don't talk much or feel like I talk well, so will I just fail at it? Will it just not work for me, for us?"

These concerns are so valid, and I would imagine that you really want to help support your partner or spouse. The last thing you want to experience is going to see a professional and finding out you're just making the process fail because you're not a talker nor emotional. In this blog I want to help ease some of your valid concerns.

1) You Won't Fail:

A person's silence or 'lack' of emotion does not determine your success in therapy together. Often times the moments in therapy where someone doesn't know what to say is just a marker that we have touched a place that is containing a lot of important information that we just haven't put language to just yet.

Think about if you were painting a paint by number canvas and a quarter of it you have completed and the rest is not filled in yet. If someone asked you to tell them the colors and the picture in the part you completed, you would be able to talk about it because you have put in the brush strokes. If they asked you to tell them about the colors and the picture in the portion you haven't completed it would understandably be very hard to talk about the colors and the picture. This is because there has not been time spent in putting in the brushstrokes to it yet. I think of our emotional world in that way. The places where we are met with an 'I don't know,' just means we are hitting the part of your emotional canvas that the 'brush strokes' have not been done for yet. Therefore, of course there aren't going to be words for those emotional experiences just yet. To me, an 'I don't know' is a beautiful marker point of progress and that we are getting closer to some really important information.

2) There's Purpose Even in Your Silence:

If we park with the silence long enough and ask ourselves the right questions, really important meaning and purpose behind the silence starts to surface. Your silence or 'lack' of emotion often has really valuable messages speaking to why the silence is occurring, and why it feels important to do so within the context of the relationship. You might feel like you are not an emotional person, but the part of you that numbs out feeling and remains silent is more emotionally intelligent than you probably give it credit for. I say this because even though you may not be expressing emotion in between you and your partner or spouse, that part of you telling you to stay silent or disengaged actually needs to be really good at identifying emotion in order to time itself right of when you need to start numbing emotion and speaking less. In my experience, people who are really good at speaking less and numbing out emotions are often highly attune to identifying their partner's emotions.

3) Take the Pressure off Yourself:

Finding the words to describe what we feel and think is really hard when maybe you feel like you are often in a state of emotional paralysis. Maybe it just feels blank inside like there are no thoughts and no feelings. Coming into therapy you don't need to already be good at labeling your internal experiences. This is what your counselor is for. If you find a counselor that is a good fit for you, they are going to help you begin to put words to these places that feel blank and mysterious inside. A counselor trained in emotionally focused couples therapy is not going to view you as failing if you do not know the answers, instead it will be a cue for them that this is a place to do some deeper work and begin to help you start to put some words to these empty spaces and build a clearer picture of what is actually happening for you in those moments when you just don't know. Just come as you are to therapy and your counselor will collaboratively help you with their training to begin putting words to your experience.

If you find your relationship needing marriage counseling or you are wanting your own individual therapy to begin putting words to your experience and communicating more clearly, feel free to contact us.  We would love to help you on your journey in gaining clearer communication and understanding for yourself, and each other, in the relationship.