Many couples that I see in my practice have difficulty with expectations and assumptions.  When we start working on improving the skills of communicating clearly, with positive regard and openess, I encourage couples to work on putting their assumptions and expectations about each other into words.  It never fails to surprise me how many different interpretations there can be to one sentence.  I find people are genuinely surprised when they hear their partner reflecting back what they have said with a different interpretation or operating on an assumption of which the other partner is totally unaware.

We all have our own biases and they affect how we interpret what we’re hearing.  It’s often only when we check out our understanding by stating something like, “so what I hear you saying is…,” that we can be sure we’re on the same page.  I often witness interactions where each partner is not hearing what the other is really saying –let alone being able to clearly perceive the need behind the words.