Communicating effectively with your partner without nagging or mansplaining
We have the best intentions for those we care about, but sometimes when we express ourselves, we aren’t understood in the way that we intended.
I communicate for a living—I write and teach, and also worked in corporate communications. Yet even for me, special finesse is required to navigate the emotional minefields of miscommunication in intimate relationships.
At work, you may be communicating to pitch an idea or justify your opinion with supporting evidence. In contrast, the objective in communicating effectively with your beloved isn’t to prove that you’re right—the purpose is to nurture your relationship and be happy together!
Blaming and Complaining
Let’s use a domestic example where one person has a lower tolerance for disorder and pesters the messier one to keep the house clean. Suppose you’re the neater party in a relationship. You made dinner, so your partner promised to take care of the dishes. An hour after dinner, the sink is still full of dirty dishes. On one extreme, you can complain:
“You’re not the only one living in this house. You’re so self-centered, like a 5- year-old.”
In this instance, you’re assuming that the motive for the other’s behavior is selfishness or immaturity. A judgmental assumption isn’t going to get you anywhere. Plus there’s no attempt to find a solution, only blaming.
It’s similar to getting mad at someone who is habitually late and interpreting their tardiness as a sign of disrespect, selfishness, or irresponsibility. One can frequently be late because they’re optimistic about how much time they have. A person can be late on purpose because it’s rude in their culture to be on time and not give the other party enough time to get ready. There’s a multitude of possible reasons and it’s presumptuous to think you know what makes someone else tick.
Nagging or Mansplaining
So appealing to logic, you try:
“Dirty dishes allow bacteria to grow faster, so it’s best to wash them as soon as possible.”
Despite the adult logic, it can be annoying to be spoken to as if you’re a child who doesn’t know any better. Unsolicited admonitions such as, “You should put on a sweater so you don’t catch a cold,” or “Don’t eat fried food, you’ll break out in pimples/get heart disease,” often go unappreciated.
But you protest, “It’s meant to be helpful and coming from a place of love and concern!” Consider another viewpoint—you’re imposing your opinion without being asked and asserting that you are in power and control because you know more than the other person.
This can be condescending and make the listener feel belittled. If nagging is the stereotypical term for a woman talking like this, then the male equivalent would be mansplaining.
Typical responses to this guidance include ignoring you, defensively arguing back, or continuing the behavior out of spite. What’s more, when you communicate in this manner to your significant other, it can put a damper on sexual attraction. How turned on are you by a lover who acts like your parent and treats you as if you were in kindergarten?
Couples Communication, Pretty Please
So you conjure your emotional intelligence, speak calmly, and suggest a solution:
“I would really appreciate it if you could please wash the dishes.”
Note that a pleasant request repeated multiple times because your partner hasn’t done it yet (or at least not matching the timeline you expect) becomes a bossy prompt that will be tuned out. Maybe your beloved believes it’s more efficient to do the dishes once at the end of the night, rather than multiple times—after dinner, dessert, and a late-night snack.
Worse than repeating the request would be nit-picking the way the task was done. Don’t find fault with only soaping up the dirty surface of the dish and not the entire dish. Perhaps your companion believes it’s a waste of soap and time to clean the parts that are already clean.
The coup de grâce for undermining your relationship is to redo the job yourself because it wasn’t up to your standards. This will result in your sweetheart feeling inadequate, chastised, and unappreciated, and extinguish any desire to help you with chores in the future.
I still cringe when I recall witnessing this between my friend and his wife when she was overwhelmed with housekeeping and caring for their newborn. She reprimanded him for washing dishes “the wrong way” and insisted that he wash them using her exact procedure.
. . .
Let’s go back to the statement, “I would really appreciate it if you could please wash the dishes.” Uttering it once seems like a reasonable request made by a mature adult, full of positive appreciation with an extra polite “please.”
However, Gladys Diaz, transformational dating and relationship coach of Heart’s Desire International, begs to differ. In Heart's Desire seminars on attracting and nurturing love, Diaz explains how even that courteous ask can be taken as criticism of what that person isn’t doing and an attempt to control. Whaaat?! This was a new perspective for me.
No matter how nicely you ask, no matter how many “pretty please with chocolate sprinkles on top,” or “you’re the best, most awesome dishwasher in the world,” the bottom line is the statement can still be heard as a command, “Wash the dishes.”
Relationship Communication: I-Statements
Years ago, I took a Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB) class, Organizational Behavior: Interpersonal Dynamics, which is popularly known as Touchy Feely. We were taught to communicate in a “when you do X...I feel Y" format. State the other person’s behavior and how it makes you feel. A Touchy Feely approach would be:
“When you leave the dirty dishes in the sink, I feel anxious.”
You describe the behavior you observed and leave out your projection of the other’s intentions. Then you express your feelings. “I” feeling statements work well because most people can’t argue with you over YOUR feelings.
Be careful about saying “I feel” when you are conveying a thought or hidden judgment rather than a true emotion. If you say, “I feel like I do all the work,” that’s not a feeling; it’s your opinion. If you say, “I feel unappreciated,” it’s a feeling at the surface, but underneath, there’s an implied accusation that the other person isn’t appreciating you. So share what is truly in the depths of your heart.
There are also add-ons such as indicating what you need and making a request.
“When you leave the dirty dishes in the sink, I feel anxious. I need to be able to trust you when you make a promise. Would you please do the dishes now?
This communication technique isn’t unique to Stanford—I-Statements are taught in psychology classes, advocated by therapists, and promoted in pop culture in books such as Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication.
Yet others besides Diaz have questioned the utility of I-Statements. Pennsylvania State psychology professor John A. Johnson wrote in Psychology Today that the typical I-Statement can make the listener feel blamed and defensive.
In an empathetic attempt to prevent any potential misunderstandings, you might add a preface to cover your bases:
“Please don’t take this the wrong way, but when you leave the dirty dishes in the sink, I feel anxious.”
“But” negates everything that is said before it, so none of your preface will be picked up. Besides, Diaz says, “don’t take this the wrong way,” has the opposite effect of setting up your partner to be on the defensive and frame whatever you say after that negatively.
Persuasive Communication
This brings us back to: “When you leave the dirty dishes in the sink, I feel anxious.”
Diaz, the man-whisperer, explained that many men tune out after hearing the disapproval with YOU. You may believe you’re merely expressing yourself, but a male brain is more likely to hear:
“YOU leave the dirty dishes in the sink (= CRITICISM RED ALERT), “wah wah wah wah wah (Charlie Brown’s teacher’s voice).”
Diaz advises using the “I” statement and leaving out the “You” part.
“I feel so light and happy when the sink is clean and empty!”
This was an epiphany for me.
Though Diaz’s example focused on male listeners, this communication style can be used as a pleasant invitation for anyone to listen to you.
Consider yourself lucky if your listeners can muster up the emotional intelligence to manage their initial reaction of defensiveness or shutting down, and then want to work further to decipher your intended meaning.
Better yet, be mindful about delivering your message in a way that doesn’t provoke your listener so your message can be received. Communicate from your heart to connect on a deeper level.
Originally written for publication in P.S. I Love You