Why couples have problems communicating with each other

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Communication failures often cause problems in personal relationships. It is the No. 1 reason people seek marital therapy. It hurts parent-child relationships. And it leads to rifts in close friendships.

My experiences in treating couples in the therapy room, and relationship science, reveal that these problems often result from a mismatch in two specific types of conversations.

Most conversations can be categorized as either understanding or problem-solving, according to researchers who study cognitive behavioral couples therapy (CBCT) and other mental health treatments. Understanding or empathy conversations aim to better understand thoughts, feelings, opinions, hopes, values and experiences. Problem-solving, decision-making or strategizing conversations aim to solve a problem or make a decision.

Despite evidence for gender differences in language, everyone is likely to want, at various times, to have one kind of conversation or the other. We want to share emotions to relieve stress, connect and be deeply understood. We also want to be able to discuss what isn't going well in a relationship and what can be done to make it go better.

But people often don't agree on an optimal conversation type or know what the other person wants. Studies show that people are overconfident in their knowledge of what others want or intend in their conversation, particularly in close relationships.

I teach my patients that if they can have clarity on what they want and convey that to their partner, they can ease many of the communication problems that arise in their relationships.

• Repetitive conversation patterns

In therapy sessions, I have observed instances when one partner wants the other to understand them better only to be met with a problem-solving response (or vice versa). And when this pattern becomes repetitive, partners grow frustrated, increasingly disconnected and even bitterly resentful.

For instance, in one couple's therapy session, a husband wanted to discuss how hurtful and scary it was that his wife had hidden purchases from him. His wife, perceiving his frustration as a problem to be solved, said, "fine, I'll give you the passcode to my account - you can check as often as you need." Rather than being mollified, the husband grew angrier because his wife missed his concern by jumping into problem-solving mode. He wanted his wife to understand that he felt their relationship was lacking in shared goals around both spending and proactive transparency.

A different couple struggled with a conversation mismatch about prioritizing intimacy. One woman expressed frustration that both weren't making time to connect, which made it difficult to cultivate emotional and physical intimacy. Assuming that this was a conversation to promote better understanding, her wife validated her experience, then began to share her own. But instead of appreciating the efforts to understand, the first woman became irritated and said, "we never exit insight mode and do the conversation where we actually figure out how to find time for one another."

• Mismatch can lead to disconnection

Charles Duhigg, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of "Supercommunicators," told me he was years into his marriage and had just become a manager, when his wife and direct reports began to express that they did not feel heard by him.

This feedback troubled him; he cared about and prioritized listening to those close to him, he said. These were also skills he relied on for his work as a writer and manager - and as a partner. "It felt like this plague that I could not get rid of," he said.

Not being able to match conversation types with others can contribute to a sense of profound disconnection, as well as communication ineffectiveness. It's like rowing a boat with someone else when, unwittingly, you've each decided on a different destination. The effort expended by each person isn't aligning with the progress being made.

That dissatisfaction is more than behavioral; it's also neurological. One study showed that in conversations with better connectedness (measured as consensus), people's brains become synchronized.

But different types of conversations activate different parts of our brains, making it hard to synchronize. While sharing emotions, core structures of the brain such as the amygdala fire, whereas in problem-solving mode, prefrontal cortex activity heightens. Different conversations place us on different wavelengths, neurologically speaking.

Without brain alignment, we may not be truly heard. But we can use some strategies to better match our conversation type, helping us get back into alignment with one another.

• Understand what you want

Sometimes we don't know what we want out of a conversation, particularly around more challenging conversations. Get curious and ask yourself, "do I want to vent or get support, or do I want a thought partner to help me problem-solve?"

• Share what you want

It is natural for one person to incorrectly guess what the other wants. So be explicit. You can say, "I had a hard day, I'd really love to vent, not problem-solve, okay?" Or, "Ugh, I'm really struggling with my health issue. I don't just want sympathetic support; I want a thought partner to help me figure out next steps. Would you be willing?"

• Look out for clashing communication types

We will miss opportunities to be clear, we will assume we know what others want even when we don't, and we are sure to clash in communication desires. Recognizing these inevitable blunders can help us remain open to a course correction.

When you notice yourself getting frustrated that your partner is not hearing you - even though they seem engaged - pause and ask, "What kind of conversation are we having, or should we try to have: understanding or problem-solving?"

Duhigg said he now frequently checks in with his wife about whether they are having a brainstorming session or an emotional understanding conversation. Some might think it would annoy others to be asked, but it helps people clarify their conversation desires for themselves, as well as for the other person.

And, he added, "When someone asks you what do you want, it's kind of nice. It shows that they care about what you want."

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Yael Schonbrun is a practicing clinical psychologist, assistant professor at Brown University and author of the forthcoming book "Work, Parent, Thrive."