When a young child is learning their native language, he or she eventually intuits the structure of language. Although the child will be taught the structure of language in middle or high school English class, the child intuitively puts the words in the correct order at a young age.

The language of successful couples isn’t always as intuitive. Couples come to marriage counseling with bad habits. They often focus on what their partner is doing wrong and/or tend to defend themselves. It’s not always intuitive how the language between couples is problematic.

Couples sometimes need to be taught how to break these bad habits. Most couples don’t take classes on the appropriate use of language with each other.

An effective framework for couples is to express their complaints by stating the impact of their partner’s words and behaviors on them. Doing so also allows their partner to be more open to their issues and concerns as well. This is the core concept of change for couples.

How to speak a language is eventually intuitive for a young child, but with the above framework, couples can intuitively learn to speak to each other with respect.