Communication is a major part of the foundation of a strong relationship. When a relationship is in its early stages, we often talk for hours. Over time, this need for intensity in interaction slows down, for some couples it disappears altogether. If you want to increase communication in your relationship follow these steps and suggestions.
Make specific time and space
Talk time often falls short due to the circumstances of everyday life: children need feeding, washing, emails to be answered, etc. To communicate beyond the interactions around everyday tasks, we must agree and organize a specific time and space, especially if it does not happen naturally. You might spend 30 minutes after the kids have gone to bed at night, not turning on the TV or talking over a cup of tea in the morning. Find a solution suitable for your circumstances.
Daily download time
Hopefully communication in your intimate relationship provides you with a healthy outlet to clarify what happened during the day. These may seem like trivial matters, but on a psychological level it is important to be able to unload them and let them go. Let you and your partner just talk about the day, share what happened, what was inspiring or interesting, and what was difficult or upsetting. All you need to do as a listener is be present and actively listen.
getting to know your partner
According to John Gottman, a relationship expert, the foundation of a good relationship is “knowing each other.” Even if you have been together for years, there is always more to know about your partner. You can make this a fun trivia game: Write 10 questions you’d like your partner to answer, each on a separate sheet of paper. Draw one paper at a time and allow both of you to answer the question completely. To increase communication, you should word these questions so that they are open-ended, meaning the answer must be more than ‘yes’ or ‘no’.
If your communication has been limited for a long period of time, you need to take it easy and increase it. Reasons may also be that one of the needs of both partners has not been met over a period of time and disillusionment has set in. In certain cases, it may be a good idea to seek professional help from a marriage or relationship counselor to understand and resolve the underlying reasons before attempting any of the above suggestions.