It’s important to care about your relationship and to make sure that you’re giving your all towards maintaining the love and happiness that you share with your partner. Having great communication is something that involves work, just like anything else that’s important in life. As well, great communication is one of the main foundation pillars for having a healthy, happy, and loving relationship. The following is an article I wrote giving some tips on how to improve the communication in your relationship.
1. Talk, Don’t Yell
There’s no need to raise your voice to get your point across. As well, the tone of your voice matters. When you have poise and speak with love and logic, you’re much more likely to get your point across and to feel heard, than if you were to yell or express your feelings with anger. We should always try to stay calm even when we disagree with our loved ones. Feeling upset or angry is normal, and so are all of the other emotions that we experience in life. But we don’t have to express our unhappiness by screaming. Learn to stay calm. You can count to ten, try some breathing methods, take a Yoga class, pray, meditate, or take a moment to yourself to get ahold of your emotions until you’re feeling calm and in a better state of mind to handle conflict.
2. Reflect
We all want to feel heard and know that our partner cares enough about us to listen, and know how we feel. This doesn’t mean we have to agree with our partner on everything. However, it does mean that we should do something called, reflecting after our partner speaks and before we say our feelings, our opinions, and our side of the story. Reflecting is when we repeat what our partner says so they know we heard them. It makes them feel heard, even if and when we don’t agree with what they’re saying.
For example, if he says, “I’m upset because you don’t call me after you land when traveling. ” She could reflect by saying, “I understand that you get upset when I travel and don’t call when I land.” Then she could continue on about her feelings. This can, and perhaps should include an apology depending on the situation. But the point is to remember to reflect so the other person feels heard, rather than jumping into, “I feel this…” and “I feel that…”
3. Be a Good Listener
Part of being a good conversationalist, as well as being a great partner and a great friend, is to be a good listener. We need to be able to listen to our partners when they speak and express themselves. It’s also important not to be thinking about what you’re going to say the whole time your partner is talking, sharing, and expressing themselves to you. That just means that you’re not listening to what they’re saying to the full extent. Instead, you’re busy thinking about what you’re going to say in response, which you should only do towards the very end of what they’re saying or when they’ve finished speaking.
4. Don’t Implode Your Feelings
Learn how to express yourself and nip things in the bud. When you implode your true feelings or hold back from saying how you really feel when something bothers you, you’re imploding. And as many, if not most of us know, when you implode your feelings and hold things in too much, you’re bound to get an explosion later. Again, try to nip things in the bud when they first happen so they don’t become bigger issues later.
5. Be Your Partner’s Best Friend
One of the best ways of being your partner’s best friend is by treating them as a best friend when you communicate. You can do this by giving your partner the benefit of the doubt. In other words, when in doubt, ask your partner about something that might be bothering you directly rather than assuming the worst. Also, it’s important not to swear or use bad language and say things that you might regret later.
Our words are very powerful, so it’s important to think before we speak. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t say how you really feel and feel close enough to your partner where you can be your authentic self. On the contrary. This means that you care and have enough love and empathy towards your partner that you don’t want to hurt them intentionally or unintentionally by saying things that you might regret later.
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