Solving Communication Challenges Starts with Emotional Regulation
As a marriage and family therapist, one of the most common reasons couples come into my office is concern about communication.
“I just don’t feel heard.”
“We keep having the same argument over and over.”
“They shut down every time I try to talk about something important.”
These are familiar themes I hear in my work with couples—and they tend to point to something beyond communication. One significant factor, comes down to how each partner experiences, responds to, and expresses their emotions. When emotions run high, they affect how we express ourselves and understand each other, shaping the connection between partners.
Emotions: The Engine Behind Our Communication
Emotions are not just reactions; they are our primary motivation system. They influence how we perceive situations, what we focus on, and how we react to the world around us. Understanding this, it’s not surprising that our ability to regulate our emotions directly affects how we communicate with our partner.
When emotions become intense or feel overwhelming, we may interpret neutral comments as criticisms, get stuck in defensiveness, or completely shut down. In contrast, when we’re more emotionally grounded, we’re able to express ourselves more effectively, more open to hearing our partner’s perspective, and better able to respond with empathy.
The Stress Response: Why We Sometimes Can't Hear Each Other
When conflict arises in a relationship, it can activate the nervous system’s stress response. This isn’t typically a conscious choice—it’s an automatic, involuntary reaction shaped by the limbic system and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA), our brain’s emotional alarm system. When this system is triggered, it can momentarily override our ability to think clearly, listen openly, or assume positive intention. These stress responses typically show up as fight, flight, freeze, or fawn:
Fight: We become defensive or critical, focused more on protecting ourselves than on understanding our partner.
Flight: We may walk away, hang up the phone, or emotionally check out, which can leave our partner feeling abandoned or rejected.
Freeze: We shut down completely, unable to take in new information or engage in the conversation at all.
Fawn: We try to appease or please, quickly agreeing or smoothing things over to avoid conflict, often at the expense of our own needs and possibly resulting in resentment.
Relationship experts Doctors John and Julie Gottman refer to this experience as "flooding"—a physiological state of being overwhelmed by emotional input. The Gottmans’ research has shown that once “flooded”, our heart rate rises above 100 bpm, our ability to process information drops, and we lose access to the parts of the brain responsible for empathy and reasoning.
Emotional Regulation: A Dance Between Partners
Emotional regulation is the ability to identify, navigate, and respond to our emotional experience. Dr. Sue Johnson, creator of Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFT), illuminates how interactions between partners are like a dynamic dance– each partner’s feelings and reactions naturally influence the other. Our nervous systems are always in communication with one another; When one partner reacts quickly to perceived criticism, the other may respond by escalating, each feeding off the other’s stress without intending to. If one partner withdraws during a difficult conversation, the other may feel rejected and increase their efforts to be noticed, which can unintentionally raise the emotional temperature. Understanding these patterns is the first step toward shifting them. The second step is learning to regulate ourselves, and co-regulate with our partner.
So, what does emotional regulation look like? It starts with building self-awareness through noticing our emotional cues.
Noticing when your heart rate rises.
Feeling tension in your chest or jaw.
Recognizing the urge to interrupt, defend, or withdraw.
From here, we can build the practice of pausing, breathing, and working to respond rather than react.
Practical Tips to Exercise Emotional Regulation in Communication
Track your physical cues: Pay attention to signs like a racing heart or muscle tension. These are gentle signals to pause or slow down.
Take a break—intentionally: Use a signal like, “How you feel is important to me, but I need a few minutes to calm down so I show up in the way I want to here. Can we come back to this in 20 minutes?”
Doctors John and Julie Gottman recommend at least 20 minutes to allow the body to return to baseline, though suggest coming back together within 24 hours.
Reflect instead of react: Ask yourself, “What’s happening inside me right now? Am I making any assumptions about my partner? What story am I telling myself here?”
Get curious, not critical: Wonder about your partner’s internal state.
“You always shut down when I try to talk to you!” → “You seem distant, are you okay? What’s coming up for you?”
Use calming strategies: Breath work, grounding techniques, a fidget, taking a walk.
How Therapy Can Help
It’s easy to lose our sense of connection when we’re caught in emotional patterns we don’t fully understand. Couples therapy offers a supportive space to slow down, notice these patterns together, and explore what’s happening beneath the surface. It can help partners better regulate emotions in the moment, express themselves more clearly, and feel more connected to each other.
Individual therapy can also play an important role. It gives us the chance to better understand our own emotional triggers in the context of past life experiences, work through those experiences, and build tools to support ourselves when those triggers show up. Individual work can also help clarify what we want to say and how we want to say it—so we’re able to express ourselves more effectively, and feel more understood in the process.
Whether working individually or as a couple, therapy can provide support in regulating our emotions, improving communication, and strengthening connection.
Final Thoughts: Communication Is Emotional
At its core, communication isn’t just about words—it’s about connection. And emotional regulation is the foundation of that connection. When we take responsibility for our emotional regulation, we move from defending our position to understanding each other’s experience. We create space for safer, more effective dialogue, and meaningful connection.
It’s not about being perfect—it’s about being present. Emotional regulation is not a one-time skill we master, but an ongoing practice that we return to, moment by moment. Some days it may feel easier than others, and that’s okay. What matters most is the intention to keep showing up—with awareness, curiosity, and care—for ourselves and for each other.
Disclaimer: The content and resources provided on this blog are intended solely for educational and informational purposes. They are not a substitute for professional psychotherapy or mental health treatment. Nothing presented here should be construed as personalized therapeutic advice. The information shared may or may not be applicable to your individual circumstances.
