Why Good Communication Is So Important In Relationships
When it comes to love and romantic relationships, most of us know that open and honest communication is important. Yet at the same time, we often struggle to be vulnerable and openly share our thoughts, emotions and feelings for fear of rejection from our partners.
Despite being difficult for almost everyone, it is nearly impossible to overstate the importance of effective communication for the health of our relationships. It is exactly this tender back and forth between two partners that plays a crucial role in keeping relationships happy and healthy in the long-run.
So if good communication is something you have been struggling with in your relationship, then here are six good reasons why you should be paying more attention!
1. Good communication will help determine if you’re compatible.
This seems like somewhat of a no-brainer but you can’t get to know someone on a deeper level without being able to communicate with them. When choosing our partners, we often let ourselves be guided by attraction and chemistry but we overlook how well we are able to communicate about the things that matter most to us.
The reality is that in order to determine whether you are compatible with someone, we have to be able to communicate effectively. Relationships built solely on an initial spark or attraction will eventually fizzle out because there is no deeper connection or real common ground to sustain them.
So if we want to make a relationship work long-term, we need to get to know the other person and allow them to get to know us as well. This process will require genuine communication that allows us to share our likes, dislikes, morals, values, past experiences and hopes/dreams for the future.
2. Good communication builds trust and respect.
At their core, relationships are about vulnerability. We are joining together with another human and letting them take up space in our lives (and in our heart). For many of us, being able to trust someone with such a crucial position in our lives can be incredibly difficult. So that’s where good communication comes in!
Being able to communicate properly can help both partners bridge the gap between each other. It can help fend off some of the uncertainty we feel about now knowing where the other person stands and make us feel more secure in knowing exactly how they are feeling.
Another crucial element of a healthy relationship is respect for each other. By definition respect means “a due regard for the feelings, wishes, or rights of others”. And we can’t have respect for someone else's feelings and wishes (nor can they have respect for ours) if we aren’t able to share those effectively. If someone doesn’t know our boundaries because we can’t communicate with them, then it will make it infinitely more difficult for them to respect our boundaries.
3. Good communication will help avoid guesswork and misunderstandings
Similarly, good communication will play a huge role in how well we will be able to meet each other's needs and desires. Let’s face it - it is nearly impossible to know exactly what our partners want and need all the time. Relationships are tricky in that sense because we all have individual needs that can change from moment to moment depending on so many different factors. And communication is the most reliable tool we have to share those needs with our partners.
Expecting our partners to be able to guess what we need will most likely lead to misunderstandings and disappointments down the road. Not to mention that it puts an unfair amount of expectations and pressure onto them that no one should have to deal with. With this in mind, it is crucial that we learn how to become aware of our emotional, physical and mental needs and consequently, how to communicate them with our partners.
4. Good communication can help set clear expectations for the shared road ahead.
A large part of any relationship is embarking on journeys into the unknown together - committing to each other, moving in together, marriage, having children, new jobs, new cities, new challenges etc. No matter how we decide to live our lives together - what remains consistent throughout any relationship is that we all have slightly different expectations for what we want out of the different aspects of our lives.
In order to sustain a healthy relationship throughout all of these changes, it is important that we are able to make our expectations clear from the very beginning. Relationships are all about compromise but we have to be able to openly share what our expectations are so that we can find a way to align them with those of our partner and avoid any misalignment for the future.
5. Good communication can help us support each other when things get difficult.
As much as we want both our relationships and our lives to be sunshine and blue skies at all times, the reality is that we will face difficulties and hardships together. One of the most beautiful things about being in a long-term relationship is that it allows us to have a shoulder to lean on in those moments when things get really difficult. We have someone there with us who can support us in the moments we can’t carry the weight on our own.
But we can’t expect our partner to always be there to support us if they don’t really understand what’s going on. And in the same way, we won’t be able to support our partners in the best way possible if we don’t actually know what is going on with them either. So in order to both support our partners and be supported in return - we have to be able to communicate that we are struggling.
6. Good communication affects your mood - tremendously!
And last but not least - humans are social creatures! We are made to be in relationship to others, share our emotions, thoughts and experiences and communicate with each other on a regular basis.
Even though the vulnerability and fear of rejection associated with honest communication is difficult for many of us to deal with - once we work through those things we often find that openly communicating with someone we love gives us an incredible mood booster. It can increase our sense of closeness and connectedness with the other person which in turn releases a whole bunch of positive emotions in our brains.
And we all know that when we feel positive and connected, it is much easier to keep a relationship happy and stable than when we don’t!
How to improve your communication skills in a relationship
If you’re looking for a simple way to start improving your communication skills with your partner, then we highly recommend checking out the book “Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life” by Marshall Rosenberg. In the book, he covers life-changing communication tools for healthy relationships that serve our desire for three things:
To increase our ability to live with choice, meaning, and connection
To connect empathically with self and others to have more satisfying relationships
To share our resources with those around us so everyone is able to benefit
If instead you’re looking for more supported guidance on how to improve your relationships then The Self Care Space offers a wide variety of resources for you. We have a program specifically designed for healthy relationships that is made up of expertly designed topics and content to help you heal your relationships with others, improve your communication skills, learn to set boundaries, and ultimately align with the ideal types of relationships that you desire for your life. We also have live events and past event recordings with therapists on this topic as well!
Whether you want to work on romantic relationships, friendships, family dynamics, or any other connections in your life, the tools you will learn here will be incredibly valuable. If you want to learn more about it, you can check out our website here.
xoxo,
The Self Care Space
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