Some of my previous articles have examined how relationship partners speak to each other and the challenges associated with anxiety, avoidance, or dominance in conversation. Most research on couples’ communication focuses on these aspects of verbal exchange between the partners in the couple.

A recent paper that my co-authors and I published in AIDS Education and Prevention (Starks et al., 2025) examines a different aspect of couples’ communication: how the partners in a relationship speak together to a third person. Although the primary purpose of this paper was to provide guidance to counselors who deliver HIV testing services to couples—known as couples HIV testing and counseling, or CHTC (Grabbe et al., 2014)—several points can be applied broadly to social situations where a couple is interacting with others.

Consider the following exchange.

FRIEND: You two just got back from vacation right?

PARTNER 1: Yes! Nothing fancy. We were away for a whole week camping.

PARTNER 2: My first time! Can you believe?

PARTNER 1: He was convinced we’d be eaten by bears.

PARTNER 2: Legitimate concern.

PARTNER 1: How many bears did we see?

PARTNER 2: Fine, none. But the potential was there.

FRIEND: Wait, bears? Where did you go?

PARTNER 1: Colorado. I used to go there a lot hiking. So I knew some places.

PARTNER 2: It was amazing. Once I got over the elevation.

PARTNER 1: And the bears.

The partners in this couple interrupt one another fairly frequently, and yet neither of them seems bothered by that. This is an example of co-speaking. The partners are working together to tell a shared story. Their interruptions add detail or extend the idea they are collaboratively expressing.

Now consider an alternative exchange.

FRIEND: You two just got back from vacation right?

PARTNER 1: Yes! Nothing fancy. We went to Chicago to visit some friends.

PARTNER 2: Stayed in a hotel though. I had never been and wanted to play tourist.

PARTNER 1: It was nice to see our friends too. They moved a couple years ago and it’s been hard to stay in touch.

PARTNER 2: The place was fun.

PARTNER 1: It was. But mostly we hung out with our friends a lot and got to see how things were going for them.

The interruptions in this second exchange seem more disruptive than the first. Here the partners are speaking in parallel. Each is telling their individual story about this time they spent together. When they interrupt one another, they shift the topic of conversation back to their own personal focus. As a consequence, their interruptions disrupt the flow of one another’s ideas.

How Disruptive is an Interruption? It’s All About Style

Whether an interruption propels or disrupts a conversation may depend upon the speaking style the couple has adopted. When a couple is co-speaking, interruptions may feel like a natural and energizing aspect of their conversational style. When partners are speaking in parallel, each interruption can feel like an attempt to pull focus. Successfully talking together (as a couple) with a third person requires slightly different skills depending upon the style you and your partner have adopted.

Co-speaking requires a degree of familiarity with one another’s perspective. In order to tell a story together, you and your partner need to know enough to speak on one another’s behalf with reasonable confidence. Co-speaking can sometimes go poorly in situations where partners lack enough accurate information about one another’s perspectives. They can end up spending a lot of time correcting or amending one another’s contributions to the story.

Parallel speaking requires give and take. Because you and your partner are each sharing your individual perspective on an experience, taking turns—and allowing one another to finish a thought—is important. Interruptions are much more likely to cause conflict because they shift focus away from what one of you was trying to say about yourself.

Although this might require some additional effort and restraint, parallel speaking can be an important way for you and your partner to share how each of you feels. It may even present an opportunity for the two of you to learn important things about one another as you take turns sharing your own points of view.

A Thought for Friends Speaking to a Couple

This awareness of a couple’s speaking style can also be helpful if you happen to find yourself in the position of the friend talking to the couple in these example exchanges. If your couple is co-speaking, you are likely to learn a lot about their shared experiences and perspectives. One interesting way to keep the conversation going (if it starts to lag) could be to ask each of the partners about their individual experiences as well.

In contrast, if your couple is speaking in parallel—the partners are taking turns telling you their individual stories—it might be meaningful to paraphrase the common ground in what they are saying. Summarizing the shared story implied in their personal narratives might take the conversation in an interesting direction.

Final Thoughts

Interruptions may be welcome in co-speaking and disruptive in parallel speaking. Neither style is inherently good or bad. Each serves a useful purpose. The former relays a shared story; the latter allows each partner to explain their personal perspective.

Learning to recognize when you and your partner have adopted a particular style can help you anticipate how an interjection will be experienced. Successfully gauging how much time to allow your partner to speak before you jump in—and noticing when you two are telling a shared story or focused on separate personal ones—can make a social moment more enjoyable (and potentially more informative) for everyone involved.