How to Improve Communication in a Relationship: Practical Steps

Being in a relationship with someone often means one thing more than anything else – being able to communicate with one another. Loving one another is also up there, but if you can’t communicate effectively, you may not love each other as well as you could or should. It’s common to have a couple that is deeply in love, but equally deeply frustrated with each other because they cannot communicate effectively. The lifeblood of a healthy relationship is good communication. There are good reasons for this, and there are ways to improve communication.

The Value of Good Communication in a Relationship

If you pause long enough to think about it, you’ll recognize how important communication is in a relationship. Your mind, feelings, intentions, plans, hopes, fears, and dreams are things that aren’t immediately apparent to someone else. For another person to know these things about you, including your loves and pet peeves, you need to communicate them. We don’t come with a manual for how we function, so we need to express ourselves.

You can learn about a person when you spend time with them and see who they are as time passes. You can see their reactions in particular situations, note where they spend time and expend care, and gradually come to learn about them. However, if you’re in a close relationship with them, you may have had many arguments due to unmet expectations or violated boundaries.

The value of good communication lies in taking the guesswork out of the equation. Telling someone what you want and need as clearly as you possibly can helps them to know how best to love you, what your pressure points are, where they can support you, where you’re hurting, and so much more. Our non-verbal communication can express a lot, but it can also get lost in translation, causing further frustration.

An example might help. If you’re annoyed at something your partner said or did when you had guests over, one way to respond would be to give them the cold shoulder the rest of the evening as well as the following morning. However, it isn’t going to be clear to your partner exactly why you’re acting this way, or the specific behavior you’re reacting to. If they don’t correct themselves and end up doing it again, you’ll only find yourself more frustrated.

Good communication cuts through all that, allowing you to state exactly how you feel and why. It also allows your partner to respond, because perhaps you’re being unreasonable and need to be more understanding, and so on. The important thing is that once you’re communicating, you can get to the heart of the matter, address the emotions and expectations fueling your behavior, and amicably resolve the situation.

Practical Steps to Improve Communication

It is possible to improve communication in a relationship. Recognizing the need is a helpful first step. You can recognize the signs of poor communication in constant frustration with one another, not feeling heard, needs going unmet, conflict that never quite gets resolved, and having fights over the same things again and again. Some ways to improve your communication include the following.

Be aware of how you short-circuit communication, whether by getting angry, walking away, shutting down, or changing the subject. Effective communication can be undermined in these and other ways. If you find yourself resorting to these behaviors, check yourself, and allow your partner to check you and keep you accountable.

Some ways to improve communication in your relationship include learning to verbalize what you want and need. Being assertive in your communication with your partner doesn’t mean raising your voice or stamping your authority. It means you should be clear in articulating what you want and need. That clarity involves outlining the specific outcomes you desire, and your expectations to avoid confusion or frustration.

You can also improve communication by giving yourself space to do more of it. Life can get busy, and couples find themselves drifting past each other because they aren’t prioritizing time to catch up and hear each other’s hearts. Without being intentional, communication can easily slip into doing the bare minimum, which can result in missing vital connections with each other.

Good communication also requires that you be vulnerable to each other. Vulnerability is not just about sharing deep emotions; it’s primarily about being honest about who you are, and what you think and feel. Being vulnerable is about putting yourself out there, warts and all. It’s risky being that honest about yourself, but it’s necessary for good communication and a healthy relationship.

Good communication skills can be learned, and unhealthy patterns of communicating can be unlearned. With help from a professional such as a counselor, you can discern any unhealthy patterns in how you communicate, including using anger or other emotions to deflect or stonewall your partner. Your counselor can teach you how to communicate effectively to handle conflict better and have a healthier relationship.