Good communication is one of the most important pillars of a healthy relationship. Without it, you risk resentment, trust issues, isolation, and emotional distance. It’s super important to feel like you can express your thoughts and feelings in your relationship and for your partner to feel the same. Effective communication helps create understanding and respect, and leads to a healthy resolution of conflict. It’s essential to a happy, healthy partnership where you both feel comfortable expressing yourselves honestly. If you feel like your communication could use some work, take a look at how to improve communication in relationships.
The Importance of Communication in Relationships
- Allows you to freely and honestly express yourself in the relationship
- Deepens the bond between the two of you
- Resolves miscommunication/misunderstandings
- Builds trust
- Allows you to share your feelings and needs
- Creates a healthy connection between the two of you
- Strengthens your emotional connection
- Creates understanding and respect
- Helps resolve conflict
How to Improve Communication in Relationships
1. Find The Right Timing
Timing is super important when it comes to having important conversations. It’s best to talk when you understand how you’re feeling and both can be fully focused on the conversation. Make sure to process your own feelings first so that you can go into the conversation calm and clear. If you’re too upset or emotional, communication can become heated and it’s tough to find a resolution. On the other hand, you also don’t want to put it off indefinitely waiting for the “right” time. Once you’ve processed how you’re feeling, approach your partner and try saying something like, “there’s something that’s been on my mind. Is now a good time to talk?”
2. Practice Active Listening
Communication isn’t just about talking. One of the main issues when it comes to communication is failing to listen to each other properly. If your partner is talking to you and you’re daydreaming or thinking about what to say next, you’re not fully listening to them. When someone feels ignored, they may not be comfortable bringing up their feelings or concerns, which can lead to relationship struggles down the road. It’s really important that you genuinely listen to your partner when they’re telling you about their day or bringing up a concern they have. Active listening can lead to more intimate and meaningful conversations, and a healthier relationship overall.
3. Clear Communication
It’s really important to be clear and honest about what you’re feeling when you’re communicating with your partner. Misunderstandings often happen due to vague or indirect communication, such as passive aggressive digs, brushing things under the rug, or giving your partner the silent treatment. If there’s an issue that’s upsetting you, it’s important to process your feelings and bring it up to them in a clear and concise way. This way you’ll be more in control of your emotions and better able to clearly communicate what you want to say.
4. Validate Your Partner’s Feelings
If your partner says something you disagree with or tells you you make them feel a certain way, you may get defensive or have negative feelings toward them. Instead of arguing and disagreeing with them from the jump, try to respect and validate your partner’s feelings. Even if you disagree with them, there’s a way to say that without discounting and hurting their feelings. You don’t have to agree on everything, but you don’t have to shut down their feelings either.
5. Don’t Avoid Conflict
It’s not healthy to constantly ignore issues just to avoid conflict. Conflict isn’t fun, but when you don’t deal with things properly, smaller things can build up into major sources of conflict down the road. Plus, holding things in can lead to stress, anxiety, and emotional blow ups. Address problems, big and small, as they come up and work to resolve them with your partner. This can take practice, especially if you don’t like talking about tough issues, but the more you do it, the easier it will become.
6. Match Verbal and Non Verbal Communication
Non verbal communication includes things like your posture, eye contact, proximity from your partner, and the tone of your voice. If what you’re saying doesn’t match your body language and tone of voice, it can lead to mistrust and confusion. For example, if you tell your partner you’re “fine” in an annoyed, tense voice while also looking away from them, it can leave you both feeling upset, confused and anxious. If you recognize that you typically communicate in a way in which your verbal and non verbal communication don’t match, next time try saying something like “I’m not sure how I’m feeling right now and I’m not ready to talk about it yet. I’ll let you know when I am”. This lets them know something is going on with you, but gives you the time to process your feelings and figure out how you want to talk to them about it.
7. Don’t Play the Blame Game
When you’re upset, it can be the easy way out to blame your partner, but it’s important to take responsibility for your own thoughts and feelings. You can do this by using “I” statements to express how you feel. These statements put you at the forefront, so they’re less likely to cause defensiveness in your partner. Instead of saying “you never clean up around the house”, try something like “I feel disrespected when I have to pick up after you, I’d appreciate it if you’d help more around the house”. Or instead of “you always come home late for dinner”, you can say “I work hard to prepare dinner on time so it’s hot when we eat it. It upsets me when you come home late and I would love for you to make an effort to be on time”.
8. Watch Your Reaction
If you’re typically on the receiving end of confusing non verbal communication, this one’s for you. For example, let’s say you and your partner are having a conversation and all the sudden they shut down. You can tell something’s wrong (and may even know what it is based on your conversation), but they all the sudden go quiet. Give it some time as they’re likely trying to process their feelings. If they don’t come to you to talk about it, approach them calmly and ask what’s bothering them. Don’t be accusatory and get mad at them for shutting down. Say something like “I can tell something’s bothering you, do you want to talk about it?” Try not to be defensive if they bring up something you did and work together to figure out how to get past it.
If you feel like communication could be better in your relationship, try these tips to help!
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