Communication Skills For Better Relationships
Love is never enough. With reparative exercises from Couples Therapy
Come home to yourself and feel less alone, with enriching tools and insights from therapy.🤍 The Heal Your Past series starts monthly soon!
Hi friends,
I was recently asked by one of my members to write about improving relationships, which I have been meaning to do for a long time.
When I worked as a couples therapist, one interesting thing I was taught was that we have three clients in the room. Both partners, and the ‘couple.’ Giving the couple-ness of a couple a seperate ‘identity’ gives both parties the responsibility to strengthen and nourish it.
Working on communication skills is paramount to healthy relationships.
Love is never enough.
Healthy communication gives space to the third member of your relationship, preventing unhelpful patterns, and ensuring past experiences are not dictating current events.
Even when we are intelligent, self-aware, accomplished, understanding etc, we can fall in to difficult dynamics with our partners, patterns get ingrained, we become blind to the obvious, and stuck in our ways. Life changes happen, circumstances change, families change. The most healthy, loving relationships benefit from this work.
At the start of relationships, couples often talk for hours, fascinated by each other’s thoughts, histories, and dreams. You know the feeling of elation just because you are seeing your loved one, or that you cannot bear the pain of being apart. I've always felt like this in my relationships.
With life, work stress, personal admin, parenting, money worries, and the mental load of running a household, as well as what we each bring to the relationship, well, we can just get so lost, ingrained, stuck, transactional.
“Did you pay the gas bill?”
“What time are you home?”
Even when something deeper needs to be said, we can become critical, defensive, or familiar arguments arise, that never get resolved.
“You always…”
We can shut down, hide what we need to say, sometimes even from ourselves, and our relationship is weakened.
As relationships develop over time, we do also tend to feel more vulnerable. No-one knows us as well as our partner, which includes all our flaws, weaknesses, and fears.
When one person tries to express themselves; the other hears criticism. A minor concern turns into a fight about housework.
Both parties are unheard, unseen, and tired.
Couples often drift apart, not because a dramatic betrayal, but a thousand small moments of misunderstanding, talking past each other, or just giving up.
I have seen transformation come in relationships when couples learn to communicate differently.
When both feel truly heard, conflict reduces. Differences are met with curiosity not criticism, defensiveness trails away, and space returns for intimacy and connection again.
Good communication is foundational in relationships. It’s how trust is built, how repair happens after hurt. Even if your relationship is near the end of the line, communication is key for a healthy break up and future relationship, particularly important when you have children.
Principles for Good Communication:
Speak from feelings and needs, not criticism.
Instead of “You never help around the house,” try “When the kitchen is left messy, I feel xyz, eg overwhelmed.”So the structure is:
“When you [specific behaviour], I feel [emotion],extra part: and I need [need].”
Drop “always” and “never”.
They trigger defensiveness and are rarely accurate. “You always leave your stuff everywhere” becomes “I’ve noticed your things in the living room and it’s stressing me out, I’d appreciate it if you could move them.”Take responsibility for your part.
Even a small acknowledgment: “I know I’ve been snappy” or “I should have raised this sooner” shifts a fraught dynamic, it is authentic, and is better than defensiveness.Own it! No one’s perfect.
Stay curious.
Questions like “Can you help me understand what’s going on for you?” or “What do you need from me right now?” open the connection, rather than making assumptions.Repair is more important than being right.
Maybe you will interrupt. Or you will get defensive. But do say “I’m sorry, let me try it again” or “Can we reset?” This takes humility, but repair builds trust.Choose the right moment.
Deep conversations don’t land well when one of you is exhausted, hungry, or already overwhelmed. It is often good to plan these conversations: “Can we find a moment to talk about xyx” if it is hard or you are in a busy household/life.Sabotage.
If either one of you is sabotaging the relationship, for whatever reason, call it out, in a curious rather than judgemental way. I’ll write about common problematic dynamics in relationships soon too, coming soon!
3 Exercises from the Therapy Room to Improve your Relationship
Try these exercises below to learn how to listen and hear, speak without blame, and cultivate curiosity rather than defensiveness. These skills lead to greater understanding and intimacy over time, and are cornerstones of couples work.
Paid members invest in inner work with therapy insights, therapeutic journalling, and exercises like these. If you’re drawn to go deeper, upgrade for all the Bloom Sessions on Sundays, to deepen your growth and come home to yourself. The Heal Your Past series starts monthly soon! There'll be more on improving relationships next month. Your support makes my writing possible. Thank you! Kx