A boy I mentored at a boarding school found me on Instagram a few years after we worked together. He had finished university and started his first job. His message said the session where I showed him what it means when I glance at the clock, start putting my files away and fold my arms had stayed with him. He can now read when someone is ready to close a conversation.
At the time he looked at me blankly. “I’ve seen you do that every time at the end of a lesson,” he said. I had to spell out what my body was saying, because nobody had ever done it for him. Couples sit in the same blank. Words cross the room, the meaning does not arrive, and neither of you has been shown how to check.
What makes a communication exercise work for couples?
It pulls speaking and receiving apart, so one of you says something and the other takes it in before anyone replies. Most of us listen in order to jump in with our own thing. That is how you can say something clearly and still not feel heard, even though your partner caught every word.
This is one of the biggest eye-openers for the couples I work with. After years together the complaint is almost always the same: my partner never listens. The aim of a good exercise is that you are understood. Your partner does not have to agree. Your partner says thank you once the message has landed.
Two habits shut the other person down completely, so I ask couples to drop them:
- Comparisons, as in “why can’t you be more like…”
- “You never…”
How do you set up a communication exercise with your partner?
You plan it in, the way you would plan a date. Ambushing your partner in the kitchen with “we need to talk” puts both nervous systems on guard before a word is said. Here is the setup I teach:
- Ask first: “Do you have fifteen minutes?” Pick a time that suits you both.
- Put phones on silent or airplane mode and out of reach.
- Make sure the children are elsewhere.
- Agree that you both need to win.
- Keep it to communicating. Nothing gets solved in this window.
I walk through the whole exercise in episode 2 of my podcast. The structure behind it is also laid out in why every conversation ends in silence.
What if your body shuts down before you even start?
Start smaller than a conversation. When one of you is already braced, the words “shall we talk?” will brace you both. I teach that the first step is one small act in the body, with a clear start and a clear end.
That small act is Touch Base®. Press your thumb to your forefinger and feel the ridges. Tell yourself, “I am safe right now.” Hold for two minutes.
Your mind may shout at you to go faster. That is information, so let it shout. If locking yourself in the loo is the only place you get two minutes, that counts. I explain why the body freezes before it acts in this episode. Structured prompts, structured communication and structured touch all lean on that sense of safety, and it is where the closeness starts to feel possible.
Which communication skills for couples exercises help the most?
The ones that train three skills: listening to understand, saying thank you when you have understood, and leaving comparisons out of the room. Whether an exercise comes from a couples therapy workbook or from a deck of cards, that is the test I would put it through.
What works for one person does not necessarily work for another, so keep what lands and drop what does not. Couples who want the structure on the table, ready to use, often start with the Intimacy and Communication Cards.
Can communication exercises help a couple close to divorce?
They have for couples I have worked with. On the podcast I said this method helped three couples from the brink of divorce become intimate again, and two of them went on a honeymoon and renewed their vows.
The couples came to me tired of the same row. What changed was being heard without having to win, and that was enough to make touch feel possible again.
If you want to see where the two of you are stuck, the work at Feel Fully You starts there.
You do not have to find better words. You need fifteen minutes, a phone in another room, and someone who says thank you.