Three Communication Tips to Improve your Relationship

Communication is the number one reason that couples seek relationship counseling. Often, couples find themselves “stuck” in a cycle of talking over one another, trying to prove their point(s) as “right”, and leaving conversations not feeling heard or understood. What if I told you that that three simple tips could save your relationship? Let’s start now, read the tips below!

Use validation and empathy to help your partner feel heard and understood. Communication 101 is that your partner cannot hear or understand anything you have to say until they also feel heard and understood. If you find yourself in a tennis match of going back and forth with your partner, it is likely that neither of you feel heard or understood. Instead, you have been responding to your partners expressions with defensiveness or simply trying to prove your point correct.

• Try validating your partners experience using words such as “I hear you saying that I hurt you”.
• Validation should be followed by empathy. Examples of empathy include “I understand and hear you” “I acknowledge that I let you down during that moment”, “I can see how that made you feel uncared for”. After validating empathizing with your partner, their ears are now open to hear your point your of view.

*Empathy means that you are expressing understanding, or that you are attempting to understand.

Use emotions to increase understanding with your partner. Don’t let society fool you, we all have emotions. A great tool for improving communication revolves around expression of emotions.

• For example, “when you said that, it really disappointed me. I felt uncared for in that moment.” Doesn’t that sound better than “that was horrible for you to say, considering that you do the same thing”?.

Use request rather than complaints. Effective communication involves using requests rather than complaints. Doing so removes blames and reduces the chance for accusations and mind reading.

• For example “I feel like a maid, I clean up after everyone in this home” may or may result in the change you are willing to see. There is too much room for interpretation, the chances of an argument are increased, and you partner might feel the need to defend themselves because it feels like a targeted “blow”.
• Rather, try using requests. For example “I am feeling overwhelmed, can you clean the kitchen while I feed the baby? That would be really helpful”.

Mastering these three tips can help improve your relationship. Are you ready to change? Sometimes let becomes never, let’s do it now! Book a session below with one our relational experts.

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