By F..Diane Barth L.C.S.W<\/p>\n
Are you having trouble talking about your feelings with someone you love? Does your partner run the other way any time you bring up your feelings? If so, this may be good news for you: According to recent research, talking about your feelings is not the only\u2014or even necessarily the best\u2014way for couples to maintain healthy, happy and successful\u00a0relationships.<\/p>\n
I have written a lot about how hard it can be to talk about feelings. As I wrote in\u00a0my last post, if you have difficulty communicating your feelings, you’re not alone. Even if you are great at it, you may still feel like you\u2019re not getting them across to the people who matter to you. Or you may be with someone who simply doesn\u2019t like \u201ctouchy feely\u201d conversations. But a number of studies have concluded that words aren\u2019t actually necessary for meaningful and intimate interactions.<\/p>\n
Here are 6 ways to improve emotional communication and deepen your relationship, without ever even mentioning “the F Word” (feelings<\/em>):<\/p>\n 1. Make small talk.<\/strong>\u00a0You may think talking about a TV show or even the weather is far from connecting emotionally, but these supposedly insignificant details are actually\u00a0more<\/em>\u00a0likely to improve your close emotional ties to your partner than a so-called “deep” discussion of your feelings. American\u00a0psychoanalyst\u00a0Harry Stack Sullivan developed an approach that he called \u201cdetailed inquiry,\u201d in which he suggested that therapists gather information about\u00a0all\u00a0<\/em>parts of a client\u2019s life. In those tiny details, Sullivan believed, could be found clues to who a person is. More recently, John\u00a0Gottman\u00a0and Janice Driver researched this idea with a group of married couples and found\u00a0<\/em>that \u201cthe mundane and often fleeting moments\u201d that are part of a couple\u2019s daily life have a greater impact on the\u00a0health\u00a0of the relationship than do apparently emotionally meaningful and serious conversations. (I wrote about this in an\u00a0earlier post, and in my book,\u00a0Daydreaming: Unlock the Creative Power of Your Mind.)<\/em><\/p>\n Bored when your partner recounts the details of a plumbing problem or the movie he or she watched last night? You may think you know all of the details of your partner\u2019s life. Maybe it really feels like too much information. But it\u2019s a way of getting closer,<\/em>\u00a0according to Gottman and Driver. Even making a grocery list together can be a way of sharing space and time, and can become a way of showing love\u2014for instance, when you add your partner\u2019s favorite cookies to the list without being asked.<\/p>\n You may feel like asking for tiny details will seem rude, intrusive, or critical. But keep in mind that you\u2019re not asking for details to catch your partner doing something wrong. You\u2019re letting them know that you care about them and are interested in what interests them. Maybe you won\u2019t learn anything new\u2014but you will communicate a genuine interest in the small details that make up your partner\u2019s day. And it\u2019s those insignificant moments that make up the reality of our lives.<\/p>\n 2. Don\u2019t just ask about small insignificant experiences. Share them.<\/strong>\u00a0A recent study published in\u00a0Psychological Science<\/em>\u00a0found that\u00a0we feel closer to others when we can talk about experiences we have in common.<\/em>\u00a0I have found, for example, that couples having relationship difficulties can take a first step to repairing a rupture by talking about their children, especially if they can be encouraged to speak of pleasant moments or cute incidents. Of course, since many conflicts occur around the rearing of families, you will have to be careful not to bring up moments that will trigger further discord. But even if something you say\u00a0does<\/em>\u00a0start a conflict, you can find a shared moment by recognizing that you were both trying to figure out the best solution for a child that you love.<\/p>\n These shared experiences do not have to be in words. A second study reported in\u00a0Psychological Science<\/em>\u00a0showed\u00a0that words are not necessary for the shared feelings to improve a relationship.<\/em>\u00a0Just doing something at the same time\u2014riding bikes, watching a movie, or eating dessert, intensifies both pleasant and unpleasant experiences. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a tiny action can be worth even more. Reach out and take your partner\u2019s hand. Or if one or both of you are not the hand-holding type, simply stand so that some small part of your body makes contact, even if only for a few seconds. These are times when talking about the experience can actually destroy the moment of intimacy. Just share it in silence.<\/p>\n 3. Listen carefully.<\/strong>\u00a0Knowing that you are being\u00a0heard<\/em>\u00a0is one of the experiences most likely to cement a feeling of connection to another. One way to improve your listening skills is to use a technique called \u201cactive listening.\u201d This is a form of listening in which you acknowledge not only that you are listening\u2014as with a nod of the head or saying \u201cuh-huh”\u2014 but also that you understand what is being said. Understanding can be communicated with a smile, a word or a phrase that captures what they\u2019re saying, or even with a simple \u201cI understand\u201d\u2014if you really do understand. Interestingly, active listening can also involve interruptions for clarification or even disagreements. If you interrupt, be sure to ask permission. \u201cSorry, can I ask you a question?\u201d is a reasonable way to do it. Then ask something that is clearly related to clarifying what your partner is telling you. If you disagree with the overall concept or with their handling of a situation, wait until they have finished talking before you express disagreement. But if you are not sure that they have accurately described something, you can ask for more clarification\u2014without accusing them of\u00a0lying, of course.<\/p>\n 4. Ask questions, and don\u2019t assume that you know the answers.<\/strong><\/p>\n 5. Talk about yourself, but don\u2019t take all of the air.<\/strong>\u00a0Finding a healthy balance between talking and listening is difficult in most relationships, but even harder as you get to know each other, so it\u2019s important that you both get a chance to talk and listen.<\/p>\n 6. Once you\u2019ve become aware of some of the hidden shared moments you\u2019re having with your partner, see if you can find ways to increase your daily amount of insignificant experiences together.<\/strong>\u00a0If one\u2014or both\u2014of you are not so good at putting your feelings into words, or even describing the mundane details of your day, don\u2019t worry. Go back to numbers 1 and 2 on this list.\u00a0Simply spending time together doing unimportant and supposedly meaningless activities\u2014reading the paper, listening to music, watching TV, or doing laundry\u2014is far more important to the health of a relationship than talking about feelings.<\/em>\u00a0It may even be more important than talking at all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By F..Diane Barth L.C.S.W Are you having trouble talking about your feelings with someone you love? Does your partner run the other way any time you bring up your feelings? If so, this may be good news for you: According to recent research, talking about your feelings is not the only\u2014or even necessarily the best\u2014way […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2282,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1120,322,321],"tags":[1150,1149,1152,1151],"class_list":["post-2234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-healthy-relationships","category-for-married","category-for-singles","tag-dating-apps-for-muslims","tag-dating-muslims","tag-muslim-website-for-marriage","tag-online-dating-service-for-muslims"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beyondchai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beyondchai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beyondchai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beyondchai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beyondchai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2234"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/beyondchai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2234\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2237,"href":"https:\/\/beyondchai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2234\/revisions\/2237"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beyondchai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beyondchai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beyondchai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beyondchai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}