DBT Interpersonal effectiveness is a good place to start.....learning those skills is important because they not only help us in our marriage relationship, but all other relationships that we have on the outside, in business & dealing with everything in our life where communication is necessary.

Interpersonal Effectiveness

The DBT group I went to have a lot better explanation of it than this.....but you might want to just google (any internet search) on DBT interpersonal effectiveness & read through all of them....pulling all the pieces out that are helpful to you & what you can seriously learn from.

Everyone needs to be heard & our emotions validated.

I had the problem growing up...not just for NOT expressing what I felt but even knowing what it was that I was feeling.....It was just about a year ago after going through 2 years of group DBT.....that I was having a horrible time trying to figure out what I was feeling.....got a list of emotions & look through & talked through each one writing down the ones that applies....ended up with a whole page full.

I left my H 6 years ago....actually ended up driving 2100 miles in my truck with me to give things a try at my new farm.....I kicked him out within 3 weeks.....& so glad that I did.....we had some interesting things that were said during that truck ride.....but in reality.....I never knew him even after being married for 33 years........& was getting to know him less & less as the years went by. He would never communicate to me about anything & his belief seemed to be....if I don't tell her then I'm not lying....what he didn't get is that it's lying whether you withhold the information or whether you blatently tell a lie & I could no longer go on living like that....things like NOT telling me he got a letter from the IRS about back taxes...or not telling me that he quit paying the property taxes or the payment on the house my name was still on......he was good at sticking his head in the sand & pretending that nothing was happening around him.....then wondered why he kept getting kicked in the rear by everyone he was ignoring when they finally got fed up with him.

Actually the interpersonal effectiveness has helped me in dealing with him even though I have finally limited it to only emails...& honestly he's the last person in the world I ever want to have to interface with.....but knowing how really helps......it is a skill that has to be learned.....& not learning it growing up has made it difficult. My parents had no concept of how to communicate. My mother was nothing but emotions & my father was nothing but stupid opinions......growing up I observed those kids around me who seemed to know how to best communicate...but that wasn't easy to learn from.....I just knew there were a lot of things I wasn't going to tolerate in my life & had become nothing much more than a constant fighter until I finally left....only then I would actually get out of the forest & truly see all that had been going on for so many years. I don't think that the interpersonal effectiveness would have really helped me much with my H.....but it might have helped me from getting so angry at him that I continually saw red. It's just plane impossible to talk with someone who doesn't want to talk or really doesn't know how & doesn't care to learn.

I understand what you are going through.......I really feel bad for you...marriage relationships are difficult at best when there are problems from the beginning.

If you read through the DBT interpersonal effectiveness & have any questions....feel free to PM....I will get out my actual group DBT notes to try & help clarify if you need