Romantic Relationships: Communication and Conflict Resolution

As with any human relationship, there are many things beyond your control. Nevertheless, there are also several aspects in your relationship that you can maintain, shape, and even recreate. With the proper approach to interpersonal communication, good things are bound to come your way. Let me stress the interpersonal communication part. I see it as a crucial point above all else as regards to keeping a healthy relationship. Although communication is a vital component in almost all human relationships, there are other internal and external factors that do not necessitate immediate interaction especially during conflict.

Communication is almost always favorable to a relationship. In many cases, if couples start ignoring one another, there will be negative repercussions. One partner will no longer be able to keep track of the other partner’s life in general. Working couples will have very little opportunity to share experiences at the office, for instance, thereby reducing the chance to relieve one’s self of work-related stress by finding comfort in the consoling gestures and words of the partner. The tendency is to find other sources of comfort, including peers and other acquaintances.

Although friends may be the right people to turn to when advice is to be solicited, the fiancée or fiancé should not be left out. To foster a healthy romantic relationship, couples need to understand that a partner is akin to a stakeholder in the personal welfare of the other partner. If, for instance, the man prefers to isolate his self from the woman, the latter’s ability to help the former is severely diminished. If the man suffers a great deal of anxiety from his problems, the relationship becomes affected. You should bear in mind that your relationship is about the two of you. It is not only about John. Neither is it only about Mary. The key is communication.

Another fundamental principle that both of you should remember is this: trust is built through sharing personal information. There are other ways to build trust, but allow me to focus on this equally important facet of relationships. Building trust through sharing personal information presupposes communication first and foremost. Without communication, it is almost impossible to share anything. In the end, trust can hardly be established. Without trust, everything that you do becomes open to suspicion. Even the smallest of things can become a source of confrontations — confrontations that could have been easily swept aside had both of you trusted one another in the first place. The test of how far you can trust each other is the very limit of how much both of you are willing to share personal information down to the most private ones. This may not be easy at first. Of course, there is still such a thing as privacy even among couples. Willingness to share personal information is vital.

Although communication is certainly important in your relationship, there are dangers involved if you misconstrue its function. For one, not all conflicts require immediate communication for the sake of reconciliation. I must admit that couples may have the tendency to seek the side of the partner after a conflict. The reason is basic: couples in conflict may be overrun by the urge to settle their differences as soon as they can. Indeed, problems left unsettled for a protracted period can spur more differences, if not complete or partial alienation of feelings. Nevertheless, there is no real hard-and-fast rule that covers such cases. There are times when couples are better-off let alone for a certain period. The purpose is to allow couples to let their emotions such as anger, hatred or agitation to subside before they try to approach one another. Otherwise, things might only get worse.