It is common knowledge that communication is important in any and every relationship. In fact, it’s the first thing anyone would tell you when giving you relationship advice.
Whether you read books, scroll through blogs, attend seminars that dive into relationships, you will come out knowing for a fact that communication is the key to having a healthy relationship.
One popular quote from Tony Gaskins tells us that Communication in a relationship is like oxygen to life. Without it… it dies.
The dictionary offers a lot of definitions on communication but we are going to pick one which is: the concept or state of exchanging information between two or more parties.
The highlight in that definition is exchanging. That means communication in a relationship is not just about talking to one’s partner. It is also about the ability to listen and comprehend the message the other partner is giving you. Hence the word: exchanging.
What then happens when the communication in a relationship is poor? Cherie Carter Scott, a popular author, and life coach tell us that without good communication, a relationship is merely a hollow vessel carrying you along on a frustrating journey fraught with the perils of confusion, projection, and misunderstanding.
In simpler words, It is pointless having a relationship when you two can’t communicate properly. Instead of being partners, you will become strangers to each other. And we don’t want that, do we?
So if you are struggling to communicate properly in your relationship and you want to know how to improve communication in a relationship, be glad you are here. These seven steps on how to improve communication are for you!
1. How To Improve Communication In A Relationship: Be An Active Listener
One of the sure ways on how to improve communication in a relationship is to actively listen while your partner is talking.
Sometimes, the reason the communication is very poor in a relationship is that there is too much talking and not enough listening. Too much defending of one’s opinion and too little of trying to understand the other person’s point of view.
Some couples activate their strategies for winning a debate each time they have a conversation. This is wrong.
Despite the fact that your opinions may differ, you should work on your listening skill so that a compromise or understanding can be reached.
When you actively listen to your partner, it shows that you have a genuine interest in that person. It shows that you are willing to work together with that person and when your partner gets that vibes from you, he or she will feel encouraged to share more about him or herself with you.
You may ask now how it shows that you are actively listening to someone. Well, Scott Peck tells us that you cannot truly listen to anyone and do anything else at the same time. And it is true.
Thinking of something else like the workload you have or what you will say next when your partner is done talking or cutting in most times during your partner’s speech only shows that you are not really listening to your partner.
And it will make him or her uncomfortable as your partner will feel you just want to wrap the conversation up.
Take my husband and me for example. We are quite busy with work during the week so we only have long stretches of free time during the weekends.
We spend most of our Saturday mornings tending to the garden behind our house. During that time, there is a rule that has been established for years between the both of us: one of us will talk for twenty minutes while the other person listens and does not interrupt.
Only when the talker is done, will the listener ask questions. Then the other person gets to talk for twenty minutes, too.
This technique was a great way to know a lot about the past week that the other person had. It certainly improved the communication in my relationship with my husband.
And it is great knowing that my spouse listens to me while I talk, even about things that sometimes does not make sense.
It’s a technique you could try out too. Let’s see if it gives you the help you need on how to improve communication in a relationship.
2. Ask questions
There are few better ways to get a person to open up to you than to ask questions.
Communication causes you two to know more about each other. And asking questions helps to
achieve this.
Open-ended questions that prompt longer answers are better than questions that can be
answered with yes or no.
For example, asking your spouse, ” how is the work at the office like?” is definitely better than ” I
hope your work is going well.” That’s because the latter can make your partner be comfortable
with answering just yes or no.
“Tell me about your day?” is also more effective than “I hope your day went well”. Mind you, one has to be patient with a partner that naturally cherishes their privacy.
It will take time but they will learn to be comfortable with you and ergo, open up to you more when you ask these questions in a way that seems not intrusive.
3. How To Improve Communication In A Relationship: Read Non-Verbal Signs
Want to know how to how to improve communication in a relationship? Then look out for non-verbal signals. Most times, non-verbal signs speak more than verbal words. This is why you have to be very observant of your partner’s body language and facial expressions.
Study your partner. Know when he or she’s trying to convey the wrong information due to the fact that the body’s mood is contrary.
Your husband, for instance, may tell you that his day was fine but for you to know how to communicate with your husband, check if he’s fidgeting and his eyes seem to rest on everywhere else other than you.
Check if he seems reluctant to tell you details about his day. It will help you to know more about his day than he actually told you. Mastering your partner nonverbal signs is a skill that ought to be learned if you want to
know how to improve communication skills in a relationship.
4. Spend More Time With Your Partner
How else will you be able to know how to improve communication in a relationship if you don’t spend quality time with your partner with the intention of knowing more about him or her? Knowing your partner and vice versa takes a lot of effort, attention, and time.
Imagine if my husband and I, after a busy week, didn’t make time on Saturday for gardening and talking to each other. Our relationship would be dreary, right? So making out time for each other is important.
5. Involve In Activities You Both Enjoy
When looking for how to improve communication in a relationship, know that involving in activities of similar interests usually helps to achieve this.
That’s because it will cause you two to have a tighter bond and connection. And that will make conversation easier because you guys will have a lot of topics that you both have an interest in talking about.
For example, I earlier mentioned my husband and I garden on Saturday mornings. Gardening is something we both enjoy. So we find no problem talking about it.
Sometimes, we usually start our gardening discussions with issues pertaining to gardening. Then from there, we ease gradually to other topics.
So participating in activities you both find pleasure in will make you more comfortable with each other and make talking to each other to be something to enjoy and even, look forward to.
It could be activities like joining a book club or going for a music lesson. It will definitely help with your worries on how to improve communication in a relationship.
6. Avoid Jumping To Conclusions
No matter how close we are to a partner, we can’t know what’s on their mind for sure. Unless you are psychic of course.
So when a partner does something that does not please you, like come late to a date, you should not immediately assume that your partner did it to annoy you or wasn’t totally interested in going out with you. It would only spoil your mood and cause negative thoughts to form in your mind.
Negative thoughts would only result in a tense conversation that might be riddled with misunderstandings and arguments. And that’s not how to communicate better with your spouse or partner.
Shelley Sommerfeldt, a clinical psychologist who specializes in relationships, would say, “If we go into a conversation feeling very angry, upset or too emotional, then the communication tends to become too heated and difficult to find resolution.”
Making assumptions about things because they appear a certain way to you might make you give them the silent treatment, and even though it can be temporarily satisfying, it does not do anyone any good in the long run. Rather, you should steady your thoughts and ask your partner to clarify things for you.
7. How To Improve Communication In A relationship: Practise Honesty
Honesty and openness are required for any relationship to be healthy. That’s because being honest constantly with each other breeds trust and respect. And that makes couples to be comfortable with each other enough to open up to them more.
Being open with each other involves saying your expectations and needs in the relationship. It will make your partner know what you want from them and work towards it.
In a relationship, both of you have equal rights to be heard and both of you should avoid being afraid of utilizing that right just because you want to please the other partner all the time. It will cause growing dissatisfaction in the relationship and communication will be affected.
If your feelings have been hurt by a new attitude your partner has developed, speak immediately. Tell him or her in a constructive way about how their actions hurt you. If you do not, and you let the issue persist, it will become harder for you to talk about it in the future.
It could be something about intimacy. You shouldn’t find it a problem discussing your sensual needs. The reason you guys are partners is because you both have to work together to achieve your satisfaction with your relationship.
This brings to mind a male friend of mine who is naturally an introvert. His reserved nature made him reluctant to discuss issues he had with his spouse.
For instance, he would keep quiet when his wife regularly came home late from work or accumulated dishes in the sink before washing.
All these festered in his mind up to the point that he would flare up at his wife for no tangible reason. His wife became confused because she didn’t know what got him so heated up. And that led to a lot of fights and silent treatments.
Until he talked about it with me during a casual discussion and asked for advice on how to communicate with your spouse.
We realized that the chaos in his home was caused by poor communication that was prompted by his quiet nature.
He learnt to be more open with his wife. And if his wife did something that he didn’t like, he immediately talked to her about it. This made his wife understand him more and caused their bond to tighten.
Like every other skill, communication skill can be honed. Brian Tracy says, “Communication is a skill that you can learn. It’s like riding a bicycle or typing. If you’re willing to work at it, you can rapidly improve the quality of every part of your life.”
Naturally, one sees improvement in anything such as communication in one’s relationship if time and effort are invested in it. Now that you know how to improve communication in a relationship, invest your energy.
I must tell you that most communication problems stem from couples not wanting to listen to and understand each other and reach a compromise.
That’s why for you to be able to fix the problem of how to communicate effectively with your spouse, you both need to have empathy.
You both should endeavor to put yourselves in each other’s shoes when you are having a conversation. It would help you both know how to communicate with your spouse without fighting and make communication easy and natural.
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Melissa Mobley says
My husband and I really think after reading this and applying it to our lives, we will communicate better.