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On The Couch

Practical psychology for health and happiness. Owned/Edited by clinical psychologist and writer Karen Nimmo.

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It’s Not ‘Communication Problems’ When Your Partner’s Treating You Badly

If your partner genuinely tries to change (and you do too), then you have a spark of hope to rebuild your future on.

4 min readMay 29, 2025

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Photo by Seljan Salimova on Unsplash

We have communication problems.

I’ve said it before, if I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard that line in therapy I’d have a bank balance I could retire on.

When couples are struggling, they frequently name it as “communication problems”.

They’re right, of course they can’t communicate. When there is genuine dysfunction going on, when conflict is boiling beneath every surface, it’s really, really hard to talk about it. Because, at the slightest provocation, the pot will spill over.

“Can you just me some tools so I can talk to my partner?” my clients will say.

Yes, I can. But — the truth is — most of them already know as much as me about communication tools, there is reams of information about it just a click away.

They just haven’t been able to use those tools — and there’s a very good reason for it.

Who’s (really) in your bed

A client recently came to me with this request.

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On The Couch
On The Couch

Published in On The Couch

Practical psychology for health and happiness. Owned/Edited by clinical psychologist and writer Karen Nimmo.

Karen Nimmo
Karen Nimmo

Written by Karen Nimmo

Clinical psychologist, author of 4 books. Editor of On the Couch: Practical psychology for health and happiness. karen@onthecouch.co.nz

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