How to Tell Your Spouse or Partner That You Are Not Satisfied With Your Relationship

This is your opportunity to create positive communication and a better connection

Don't miss the warning signs

You love your spouse, but your relationship is not the way you want it to be.  How can you tell your spouse without making things worse?  Some people are so afraid of upsetting their spouse that they suffer for years in silence.  Ironically, sometimes both partners suffer in silence over the same problem, only to find out years later when the silence is finally broken.  The time of long-suffering relationships is over and couples are realizing that without open discussion, their partner will leave.

The way you say things makes most of the difference

"A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down," is a line from the movie Mary Poppins that holds good relationship advice for telling people what they may not want to hear.  In the case of telling your husband or wife that you are unhappy with the relationship, you will need to be quick to add that you want the relationship to become better for the both of you.  Something like this, "John/Jill, I'm not satisfied with our relationship, but I want to work on it and make it better." 

Saying both of these things together creates an opening for change, but you still have to deal with your partner's emotional reaction 

What you must remember when you say this is that you prepared yourself before you said it.  Your partner, on the other hand, is hearing this unprepared.  His or her reaction is not going to be well thought out.  Whatever your spouse or partner says at this point, stay calm and don't argue.  Here are three common responses spouses have and how you can handle them.

1. If your spouse or partner agrees with you that there are problems and that he or she has also been thinking about how to make the relationship better, then great!  You have a relationship that is in the minority, but well on the way to becoming a great relationship.  Together, you can explore the way you would like the relationship to be (rather than how the problems started) and make plans for getting the relationship in Olympic shape.  You can work with a relationship coach to make sure things go well without getting derailed.

2. If your spouse immediately starts to blame you, then your relationship is among the majority.  This is still a good position, though, because your spouse is recognizing that there are problems.  Recognition of problems is the first step to making things better.  It is also the basis for starting talking positively.  Promoting good talking will depend on your willingness just to listen at first, without injecting your thinking.  Your spouse will not be focused on your desires anyhow. Agreeing with your spouse wherever possible and don’t argue about even one thing.

3. If your spouse denies that there are any problems, then your job will be to raise his or her awareness.  People in denial need help becoming aware of a problem before they will even consider doing something about it.  Usually, a problem focused approach will just cause more denial.  Instead, suggest some of the ways that your relationship might become better--feeling closer, having more fun, more romance, a budget for each of you to be able to enjoy activities you like, etc. 

There are positive things you can do, that will help your partner to become closer to you

If your spouse or partner is not ready to work with you now (reactions 2 and 3 above), there are still plenty of things that you can do to work on making your relationship better.  You can learn how to respond to your partner’s actions (or inactions) in a new way.  Just doing that will create change for the both of you.  Marriage and family counselors have capitalized on this fact for years.

Many times, people are dissatisfied with their relationships are willing to make changes, but don't know what changes to make or where to begin 

An organized approach is the most helpful one, starting with the one area that most needs improvement.  When you start relationship coaching, you have the opportunity to learn what your relationship needs in this area and how you can start to make things better.  The number one area that people choose to start with is “emotional closeness and sharing,” but you have your choice of 10 different areas.  You can find out today what you could be doing for your relationship.