We often ask for things in our relationships using words we barely understand. Not to mention you and your partner may understand them differently. It’s worth having this conversation together as a path to enhance your lives. Reassurance is an example of one of these words, and I’ll ask if you know what the word means. Do you know how to reassure someone? Do you know how to tell if someone is reassured?

In the absence of information, we too often write our own stories (we make assumptions). The problem with the stories is they come from our own pain and fear, and they are almost always wrong.

And, that’s the topic of this blog. Marriages fail because of ignorance. Trigger alert! I just cried a tear for all of the pain and desperation turned to futility and hopelessness—and ultimately to divorce and broken families. We’re done in by ignorance. Not monsters or villains, crazy partners or pandemic narcissism or willful neglect or gross incompatibility or the lack of good relationship options or even being unlovable/unworthy. We lose because we’re ignorant.

I want both partners to feel safe to say what they want to say. What we’re changing is the pace of the conversation. I show the couple how to slow their speech, how to create space between thoughts and sentences, and how to break the conversation into smaller bites.

It’s amazing the impact slowing the process down has on the outcome. It seems nothing else gives couples as much hope they can change the way they communicate as slowing it all down in session.

You’re tired. You look up from that pile on your desk, and it hits you. What am I doing? Am I even happy? My partner feels like my roommate—or worse, my sister. He’s always annoyed with me. She thinks I’m dumb. He treats me like his mother. She doesn’t even like me. All we do is argue. How did we get here?