It can be really frustrating when you don’t feel heard by your partner. It seems like no matter what you do or how you express yourself they just don’t understand your perspective. They may keep shifting the focus back to their own experience or tell you all the reasons why you shouldn’t feel the way you feel.

So, what do you do?

In many couples that we work with, this leads to a habit of case-building. We view case-building as coming up with every single reason why your position is correct and your partner’s position is wrong with evidence to back those reasons up. (Think: “Exhibit A depicts a text message from last Thursday in which you said…”).

This effort to be heard can feel extremely overwhelming for the partner on the receiving end. They’re likely to feel super unheard, like there’s no space for their perspective, and that you are coming from an expert stance. Remember, criticism from an expert stance = contempt.

Case-building often involves pulling in “facts” from outside of your relationship. For example, “anybody in this situation would think _____” or “I asked my friends and they all agreed the right approach here is _____.” When we back-up our position with “everyone else,” it can feel incredibly critical to our partner. It creates an “us” and “you” dynamic, which can be quite hurtful.

If you’ve been using case-building to get your point across during arguments and aren’t sure what else to do, be sure to listen to this week’s episode. We’re going deeper on this topic and giving you strategies for how to be heard in a more relationship-preserving way.