Me and my partner have been together many years, about 15 in total. We have a young son who is hard work. I am 35 year old male. She is 33 year old female. Our relationship is 15 years long.
She come to a head the other day and she says she has had enough of the way we communicate and it’s not healthy the way we go about things.
We are both quite highly stressed people which doesn’t help matters. We want the same things out of the relationship but we are constantly at each others throats and are both stubborn.
My issue is that if something bothers me, I sit and stew for days and I’m off with her and barely speak to her (I know this is bad, I think it’s the way I’ve been brought up, not much sharing of emotions or honesty in my childhood, never felt like I was truly loved).
Her issue is that she can be quite aggressive and opinionated about things, and is very honest but can be quite brutal and stubborn about it if I disagree.
So her aggressive style and my struggling to communicate my feelings style (as I don’t feel I’m ever heard of my opinion is considered), and she never feels like I listen to her opinion but the way it goes about means I’m instantly defensive.
She has said we need to do something drastic because we just keep brushing things under the carpet. She has suggested:
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Spending a couple of nights at her mam’s during the week for a few weeks to give each other a bit of space.
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Going to relationship counselling.
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Just ending it.
Are any of these likely to help? I feel a bit lost, could relationship counselling help us? Or are we better adopting another way of communicating/working through issues?
TLDR: We have a breakdown in communication style. Would relationship counselling help us save our relationship? Is there any other ways to help us communicate more effectively?