Relationships can be very rewarding if the good outweighs the bad. The success in an intimate relationship depends highly upon effective communication. There is not only one specific way for couples to communicate, because each relationship is different. It is important to know good forms of communication to improve the quality our relationships. What makes relationships successful? What kind of process do we go through to create an intimate relationship? What are some of the problems we encounter during them and how should we go about solving those issues?
Lack of communication in a relationship can result to severe consequences. Irrespective of the kind of relationship, lack of communication magnifies issues in a relationship undermining the very foundation of the relationship. The root cause of challenges in majority of relationships is the lack of communication. The key foundation in any kind of a healthy relationship is communication. Lack of communication affects the physical health of a relationship. Deprival of communication in a relationship makes it ridiculous and doom. Lack of communication in a relationship makes the involved parties loss interest in the relationship.
A relationship has very rare chances of surviving its prime where there is lack of communication. In a relationship, every partner should be prepared to pay no attention to distractions and focus his attention on the other partner. Sharing challenges with your partner, member of the family, or a friend is the cheapest and most proficient way a healthy and a long-life relationship. Pointing fingers at one another or blaming each other does not help solve the challenges in a relationship. However, blaming one another without knowing the truth in relationships only makes the matter worse and may lead to mistrust between partners. Blame is not healthy in any relationship. Communication is the only element which can help to settle issues in relationships on mutual terms. Communication is above words of speech. Communication is mental, physical, and verbal. Most relationships fail because of lack of communication between the partners.
The world is full of psychos and you might be with one right now. That's a situation more people encounter. There are many factors in a healthy relationship. Being with someone can be a wonderful experience, but it can change into something worse. A friend I talked to said, "me and my boyfriend talk a lot and tell each other how we feel." That's one-way couples can avoid getting into arguments rather than screaming at each other. To make a relationship last there must be a foundation, and that foundation is a good friendship. Couples also need to be honest, which can give couples a bond and develops trust. The elements of a healthy relationship are being able to communicate and being honest with each other.
Relationships start off good in the beginning because each partner is learning about each other. Later, in the relationship they might discover that their partner is different from when they first met. People forget that friendship structures a good relationship, and can't last if there is nothing to base it on. When couples get into fights they either break up or stay together. If there is a strong friendship, then it's worth it to work through the hard times and other problems.
From my own experience, long lasting relationships come from people that were close friends that have similar personalities. The couples that break up most are couples that didn't take the time to form a good friendship and see if they really like each other. According to L.L. Bumpass in "Role of cohabitation in declining rates of marriage," it proves that 40% of couples that lived together before marriage break up. This shows that couples need to see if they are compatible first before they take their friendship to the next step. It is clear to me that the essence of relationships is communication; and yet, even between people who care deeply for each other, communication sometimes becomes blocked. We cannot put our feelings into words. Our partner speaks but we do not hear. We stare helplessly across an abyss of silence, or in frustration we hurl attacks that drive us further apart. In the enthusiasm of the initial courtship, a person who generally has a poor ability to listen may be motivated to change this to attract the partner, but later returns to his or her habitual ways. So, at the start of a relationship it may not be recognized that important communication skills, such as the willingness and ability to ask appropriate questions and to listen effectively, are not part of the person's normal behavior.
If communication lacks in the relationship, it could make the connection weak and could cause it to crumble. It seems that today, most married couples have replaced face to face conversations with the convenience of electronics. This has made hearing words a cloudy issue, especially with the introduction of technology. Instead of sitting down and having a conversation, couples are now relying on texting, emails or Skype to communicate.
Communication instills lots of trust in any relationships. It is difficult to know how someone feels if they refuse to communicate how they feel. Communication is based off four main aspects: considering your partner’s point of view, don’t point blame, taking criticism gracefully and listening. Communication allows us to share our interests, concerns, and support of each other. It helps us to organize our lives and make decisions; and it allows us to work together. Effective communication is based on the way we talk and listen, how we respond as well as our body language. We can all learn how to improve the way we communicate because it takes more than words to create a safe, exciting and secure relationship. All too often the signals we send are not those we intend to send, and when this happens, both the connection and trust are lost in our relationships.
When we communicate, we can say a lot without speaking, through our body, our posture, tone of voice and the expression on our face all display a message. If our feelings don’t fit with our words, it is often the body language that gets heard and believed. Nonverbal communication is a rapidly flowing interactive process. Being aware and understanding the cues you may be sending along with the cues others send and pick up from your body language, may not be showing what you are really trying to communicate to others at that moment.
A communication avoidance or stop will prevent that topic from being shared and gone through. When enough of these areas build up or a couple important ones develop, it behaves as if there were clamps on the lungs of the relationship. The relationship has trouble breathing. Without this exchange of life energy, the relationship cannot grow, it may struggle, and if it is severe enough, then the relationship suffers and dies. The relationship can be a living entity just as each one of us are living. There should be a continuous flow of energy through each and every living entity. The flow is between each partner of the relationship and between the relating partners and the environment. Just as in an individual body, when the energy is blocked or stopped, a disease or illness starts to develop. The key for a healthy and growing relationship is to keep the communications flowing. If both partners avoid the same subject, then it will never arise in conversation. If only one is avoiding the subject, they might just stop the conversation when that topic comes up. This is usually obvious. They might also divert the conversation and depending on their skill, this can be obvious or it can be done without notice. In either case, that aspect of the relationship that reflects that subject will cease to move. However, if the other partner notices the diversion or avoidance, then the interpretations or stories that the person puts on the avoidance can magnify the effect. And some people are good at creating some very negative interpretations for minor events.
Communication is part giving and part receiving. Both parts are necessary by both partners for good communications. Some people are good listeners and some are good talkers, but both partners must do both for complete and effective communication. Communications can be stopped on both sides, by avoidance of the giving or telling, and by avoidance of the receiving. Attention must be given to both sides of communication to ensure that the communication remains completed by both partners and that stops or blocks are addressed and released to allow the relationship to grow in a healthy fashion.
How we communicate with others, can literally make or break a relationship – dictating wholeheartedly the quality of all our relationships. Therefore, communication in my opinion is the cornerstone of all relationships. Without this, it is very difficult to have a good relationship with anyone. To help expand our awareness of how important proper communication is, let’s explore the purpose and elements of good communication between friends, lovers and families. Let us look at how we can improve our communication in each of these areas, to have the best relationships we can with all those who cross our life’s path. Apart from friendship, love plays another important role in our lives. These two areas are closely linked as friendship is normally the basis for building an intimate and long lasting love relationship. Communication in romantic partnerships therefore may be playing an even more important role, especially if two people want to commit to each other on a serious level.
Poor communication habits are later hard to change without hard work and even bruised feelings. Honest, open, and forthright communication right from the beginning of a relationships is critical to making it a good one. Another key element to good communication between lovers is being able to talk freely about anything, without fear or shame. Talking openly and sincerely about sex, passion, commitment, and one’s dreams from the very beginning and throughout the relationship helps it grow into a long-lasting love relationship. This helps the bond between you and your partner grow, evolving the relationship into a true unity.
Good communication in relationships is also based on good conflict resolution. If any kind of problems arise, they should not be avoided but brought out into the open. You and your partner should feel comfortable to share your feelings openly, but always in a respectful way. By keeping negative feelings in, they decrease the level of honesty in a relationship and therefore they start to deteriorate the relationship itself. There are times too when lovers are faced with serious problems which may take many discussions and require great amounts of time to steer the relationship back on track. It is at these crucial points especially that couples should concentrate on acquiring good communication so that they may truly try to resolve the problem, and not just turn their backs on each other and give up.
Communication is a crucial bridge between all people. When communication breaks down, the relationships themselves break down. Communication requires perhaps the most conscious effort of us in our daily lives. Conscious communication also considers your body language, listening skills and the type of language you use. Equally important is the maintaining of and having intimate conversations with the people in your life.
“To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different in the way we perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with others.” ~Tony Robbins
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