Oh, I hear this one a lot. “We just have different communication styles.” And I want to say something that might surprise you: that framing, while totally understandable, might actually be getting in your way.
Here’s what I see in my office, over and over again. Two people sitting across from each other, genuinely convinced they are fundamentally incompatible because one of them goes quiet during conflict and the other one comes in hot, pursuing, pushing for connection. And they have decided this means they are just wired differently. Too different. Maybe even wrong for each other.
You speak louder because you feel them pulling away.
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But here’s what I actually see when I look at that dynamic: two people who are both in pain about the same thing. Disconnection.
The person who goes quiet, the one we’d call a Withdrawer, is not cold. They’re not uncaring. They’re shutting down because being disconnected from their partner genuinely hurts. That silence is a protest. It’s their nervous system saying “this is too much and I don’t know how to get back to you right now.”
And the person who comes in louder, more urgent, more pursuing? They’re not being dramatic or aggressive. They’re scared. Being disconnected from their partner hurts so much that they turn up the volume trying to close that gap.
So what looks like two different communication styles is actually two people doing the exact same thing: protesting how much they miss each other. Just in opposite directions.
You speak louder because you feel them pulling away.
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Ask anything about your own situation and get an answer immediately. Keep asking, think it through, work out what to do next.
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What I love about this, and yes I’m going to use the word love here, is that the tension between these two styles is not the enemy of your relationship. It’s evidence of how much the relationship matters to both of you. Locked inside what looks like a mismatch is actually a highly attuned system where you both hold the key to the other’s comfort.
The work is not to become the same. The work is to start reading each other’s behavior differently. When your partner goes quiet, can you learn to see that as “they’re hurting and don’t know how to come back to me” rather than “they don’t care”? When your partner gets louder and more urgent, can you learn to see that as “they’re scared of losing me” rather than “they’re attacking me”?
That shift in reading each other? You can take that one to the bank. It changes everything.
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Figs is a licensed marriage and family therapist with 16+ years of experience working with couples. He’s the co-founder of Empathi, host of the “Come Here to Me” podcast, and author of an upcoming book on relationships and the systems that shape how we love.
Read more: How to Stop Fighting and Start Communicating in Your Relationship
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