Communication is NOT the Problem in Your Marriage

Why feeling disconnected often has less to do with words—and more to do with how you’re showing up inside the relationship

Summary: Communication in marriage matters—but when things feel strained or disconnected, the issue is often deeper than words. This article explores how your sense of self shapes communication, and why reconnecting with yourself can change the way conversations unfold.

If you’re here because communication feels hard in your marriage, you’re not alone. Communication is an important part of a marriage and a lot of people feel like something’s off in the way they interact with their spouse.

Most people assume that when a relationship feels strained or even just a little disconnected, the solution is better communication: the right words, the right timing, the right technique.

And while communication does matter, it’s often not the place where things actually go wrong. There’s often something happening below the surface, and when we can see and understand what that is, things in the marriage start to feel better.

Communication Problems in Marriage Point to Something More

You need to be able to talk to each other about the challenges that come up (because they will). You want to be able to share good news when it happens. You long to speak intimately about the things that matter most to you.

These things matter and create a good foundation for marriage and intimacy.

But good communication doesn’t come from good technique. Anyone can use an “I statement” and still sound like a jerk: “I feel that you’re an idiot.” I statement used; situation not defused. Am I right?!

And it doesn’t matter how long you talk and try to communicate your thoughts if your spouse isn’t interested in hearing them.

So what does matter then?

Before I explain that, let me pause for just a second, and just point out a few ways that communication issues might be showing up for you.

For you it might look like:

• You rehearse conversations in your head before bringing something up
• You soften or edit what you say so it doesn’t upset your spouse
• You walk away from conversations feeling confused or misunderstood
• You keep having the same conversations over and over but nothing changes
• You just don’t have all that many important conversations because it’s almost easier not to

These things happen to a lot of us.

But these patterns don’t mean you’re bad at communication. They usually mean you care deeply about the relationship.

Many people learn these habits slowly, without realizing it, as a way to keep connection intact.

What’s Really Going On Beneath Communication Struggles

So what’s really happening then? Like I said, there’s often something below the surface that’s impacting the way we communicate with each other.

I like to think of any relationship you are in, in this case, we are talking about marriage, as being like an onion. It has lots and lots of layers. You with me here?

Now communication is one of those layers, and like I said, it matters. But communication tends to be a pretty surface-level layer of the onion. It’s there, it matters, but there’s something underneath it. (Or a lot of things.)

Down lower in the onion are important qualities like love, respect, forgiveness, gratitude, and connection. Those things really matter in a relationship.

But right down there in the very middle of the onion—that’s you.

Everything about your relationship stems from there because there is no relationship without you. (Of course, there’s no relationship without another person either, but that’s their you. We all have a you, or a me, at the center of the onion.)

Now, if you are at the center of that onion, that means that every other layer that stems out from the middle is very much impacted by who you are and how you feel about yourself.

And that includes communication.

How you communicate is going to be impacted by who you are and how you are showing up in the relationship. You don’t feel good that day? In a bad mood? Struggling with your self-worth? It’s going to impact how you communicate. So to work on your communication, or your relationship in general, it can help to work on strengthening yourself.

Why Communication Gets Hard When You’re Losing Touch With Yourself

I was once in a relationship that had its share of complicated dynamics—as many relationships do.

During that time, I was convinced that if I could just communicate well—if the other person could really hear and understand what I was trying to say—everything would feel easier. We’d be able to enjoy the good parts without so much strain.

What I didn’t see at the time was how much I was quietly editing myself to keep things smooth. I was spending more energy managing how I came across than staying connected to what I actually felt or needed. This left me feeling a little less connected to myself.

When you start losing touch with yourself in a relationship, communication often turns into something else without you realizing it.

Instead of sharing from a grounded place, you may find yourself trying to manage how conversations go—choosing words carefully, explaining things thoroughly, or revisiting the same topics in hopes that this time they’ll land differently.

That’s usually about wanting the relationship to feel safer, steadier, or less tense—especially if that connection feels fragile.

And when you start to lose touch with yourself like that, communication gets harder—not easier—because you’re no longer speaking from solid ground.

Why Your Sense of Self Shapes Your Marriage

In that relationship example I just shared, I slowly started orienting myself around how the other person felt about me. When things were calm between us, I felt steady. When they were upset or distant, I felt ungrounded and unsure of myself.

Without realizing it, my sense of self had become closely tied to the relationship—and that shaped how I communicated, what I said, and what I held back.

Down there in the center of the onion, my sense of self wasn’t very steady on its own. It was dependent on how the relationship was going.

Because of that, our communication, the thing that I thought was the golden ticket to success, had little to do with how that relationship went. As long as my sense of self depended on the other person’s approval, communication alone couldn’t fix what felt off between us.

There’s a name for this pattern—the slow, often unintentional way we learn to quiet ourselves and adjust in order to keep relationships steady. It shows up more often than most people realize, especially in people who care deeply about connection.

It’s called self-silencing.

When self-silencing is present, communication starts carrying too much weight. We try to communicate better instead of noticing that we’re no longer showing up as ourselves.

In my case, once I became more aware of what was happening internally and began reconnecting with myself, it became clear that communication alone couldn’t bridge the gap. The issue wasn’t how we talked—it was that I was no longer willing to disappear inside the relationship.

What I needed was to feel like I could be myself in the relationship.

And as I began doing that—even imperfectly—communication started to feel different. It became less about finding the right words and more about speaking from a place that felt real. No special communication techniques required.

So What Do You Do Instead?

When communication feels hard, the instinct is to focus on saying things more clearly or carefully.

This is the shift that so many people miss: the problem isn’t that you’re saying the wrong things or communicating badly.

It’s that you’re trying to communicate from a place that no longer feels like you. And once that’s happening, no amount of technique can really fix it.

When self-silencing is part of the picture, the more helpful place to start is inside.

Strengthening your sense of self doesn’t mean becoming selfish or shutting your partner out. It means staying connected to what you feel and need while still caring deeply about the relationship.

It looks like speaking up without trying to control the outcome.

It looks like taking responsibility for yourself—not for managing your partner’s reactions.

Most relationships have some degree of self-silencing on both sides. Over time, it can quietly erode connection. When you begin addressing it, communication often improves naturally—because you’re no longer speaking from a place of self-silencing.

This kind of change doesn’t happen overnight. Like building strength, it happens gradually—through awareness, small shifts, and practice.

And while it can feel unsettling at first, it doesn’t have to mean blowing up your life or your relationships.

If you’re realizing this isn’t really about communication technique, but about how you’ve learned to show up in relationships, this is exactly the work I do with women—slowly, safely, and with care for what matters to them.

If this resonated and like to explore by listening, I talk more about what it looks like to reconnect with yourself inside relationships on the podcast.

You might start with Episode 13: How Reclaiming Myself Changed My Relationships or Episode 1: The Importance of You in Your Relationships—and listen when it feels helpful.