Build a Healthier Relationship: a Brief Guide to Conflict Resolution and Effective Communication
Relationships can be hard! Do any of these feel familiar?
I don’t feel heard in my relationship.
I don’t feel I can express my honest thoughts, concerns, or true feelings to my partner.
My partner and I feel disconnected, like we’re not on the same page.
My partner and I keep having the same argument over and over again.
You’ve probably heard things like…
communication is the foundation to a healthy relationship
trust and respect are crucial in a lasting partnership
It’s true that communication and trust are key, but it’s harder to implement than it sounds. So let’s chat about how to integrate the skills for handling conflict that are so crucial in maintaining a healthy partnership!
If you’re struggling to communicate with your partner; continually rehashing the same arguments; feeling stuck in a conflict cycle; or becoming increasingly aggressive, passive, and/or passive-aggressive, here are some ways you can break the pattern and engage differently.
Be direct.
Don’t play the blame game.
Really listen - openly, unassumingly.
Take breaks when necessary or helpful.
Stick to one argument at a time.
Brainstorm solutions together.
To get even more specific, here are some additional things to try:
Using “I” statements and describing feelings (not accusations or criticisms) such as “when you don’t share important details of your life with me, I feel shut out and that makes me sad.”
Regardless of intent, feelings are real, and it’s important for each partner to acknowledge and validate the impact they have on one another.
Repeating back what they said as you understand it. This not only shows your partner that you’re actively listening to them but also clarifies their meaning, avoiding any misunderstandings and incorrect assumptions. An example of this is, “What I’m hearing you say is that you don’t like how often I’m going out with my friends because you don’t feel that we are spending enough time together as a couple. Does that sound right to you?”
One generally healthy approach to a partnership is to assume your partner has good intentions. Their words may hurt and their actions may be upsetting, but that doesn’t necessarily mean your partner intended to hurt or upset you. And if you’re unsure of their intent, it may be helpful to ask them.
Take a deep breath or count to 3 before responding to any of your partner’s points.
Not only does this eliminate automatic, knee-jerk reactions to what your partner has to say, but it can help neutralize defensiveness, anger, and blame. Additionally, it helps prevent interruptions before your partner is able to express their complete thought.
Avoid “yes, but-”, ad hominem arguments, and bringing up irrelevant past issues.
If you constantly respond to your partner with “yeah, but…”, you may feel that you are acknowledging their point or partially agreeing with them when in actuality they are likely to feel unheard and invalidated by your continual resistance/qualification. Meeting your partner’s complaint about you with a complaint about them (“the best defense is a good offense” approach) won’t help you reach any common ground and gets you both off-track from resolving the original conflict. Bringing up past issues similarly distracts you from the point at hand and moves you away from your primary goal.
Assert your needs - you may request an agreed upon commitment from your partner and/or yourself as part of the conflict resolution.
One communication tool remembered as DEARMAN can be a helpful tool for this. Its steps are:
Describe the facts (nonjudgmentally)
Express your emotions
Assert your want or need
Reinforce your partner’s efforts or willingness to compromise/work with you
Mindfully focus on your specific goal
Appear confident, calm, and respectful
Negotiate where you are willing to compromise while maintaining your boundaries.
Planning out a DEARMAN in advance can be a helpful process for being direct and assertive in the moment as well as staying on-track with your needs and overall goal, especially if your discussions tend to get emotional.
(Image source: Julie Menanno)
These tools and suggestions can be a great help, but it also takes time to develop them so don’t be too hard on yourself if you find them challenging to implement. Effective communication requires a degree of trust and vulnerability, and as such, requires time, intentionality, and effort.
And if you and your partner feel that additional support is necessary or desired, couples therapy can be a profound source of support.
Couples therapy provides an intentional space for open communication, while also offering the view of an objective third party with a fresh and professional perspective. In combination with continuing to apply tools from therapy outside of sessions, couples therapy can lead to partners having a deeper understanding of one another, strengthened connection, healing, growth, and joy.
Lastly, sometimes personal struggles inhibit conflict resolution between partners. Trauma, depression, addiction, insecurity, trust issues, difficulty asserting boundaries, fear of confrontation, etc. are all individual challenges that could be interfering with a couple’s ability to progress in conflict resolution. If this is the case, couples therapy combined with individual therapy or just individual therapy could be a helpful starting place in order to become unstuck and feel supported enough and given the right tools to move forward.
If you’re interested in individual therapy, explore our therapist profiles or therapy services pages to learn more.
From professional to platonic to familial, in any relationship, conflict resolution and effective communication are key, but that intimate, open connection between partners often feels especially impactful. We hope some of these tools can help!
Look forward to more blog posts on healthy partnerships, couples therapy, and more coming up.