8 Crucial Behaviors for Better Communication

4. Proximity without preoccupation.

Open and vulnerable communication between intimate partners is at the core of a relationship’s capacity to survive and thrive. It is what builds trust, clears the way for authenticity, and opens the gates to true intimacy. If relationship partners do not feel seen, heard, understood, and safe as they express their innermost desires and fears, they will never know the joy of blending souls.

Yet despite the plethora of available guidance, many of the couples I see are still woefully inept in understanding what the other partner means and feels. Despite their attempts to learn successful communication skills, they continue to misunderstand and misinterpret one another.

In practicing relationship therapy for the past four-plus decades, I am continually called upon to act as a translator. I have to teach each partner how to interpret what they hear, how to accurately feed it back to the other, and to make sure that they are heard in return.

Are there behaviors that are not being taught that could help those misunderstandings occur less often? What are the missing pieces that would solve that puzzle? By finding them, can we make what seems so complicated easier to practice and master? And can we do it in a simple and manageable way?

Yes.

Following are the eight behaviors that I teach couples that can immediately and effectively be game changers. They are simple but crucial for communication to actually work.

1. Weaving. All relationships are compilations of the past, the present, and the upcoming future. There is no accurate communication possible if both partners do not acknowledge all three as they attempt to connect. What happened before always affects what is happening now and how that will alter or change the future.

That doesn’t mean the license to rehash the past to try to get a different outcome in the present. But it does mean talking about what precedes the current communication task and where both partners want to end up at the end of sharing something together.

2. Enough time for each partner to speak. Too soon in many communication processes, one partner begins to overtalk the other or share more than the other can take in. The attempt at connection becomes a competition to be heard and neither will be able to listen.

Partners can choose any item that feels meaningful to both of them and only speak when they are holding that item, for a mutually agreed-upon period of time. The person listening must sum up what they have heard and felt before receiving their turn.

3. Watching for trauma triggers. As relationships mature, both partners will experience triggers from each other that activate past traumas. The closer people get to each other, the more unresolved or painful experiences from the past will work their way to the surface.

When that happens, the triggered partner will become more unreasonable, reactive, and defensive, often in a much more dramatic way than the interaction would seem to have caused. It is crucial that the partner seeing that response immediately let go of what was being talked about and help the other understand what they are experiencing.

4. Proximity without preoccupation. Successful communication cannot occur unless the partners are physically close to each other and give their full attention to the process at hand. The farther apart they are physically, I believe, the more likely they will begin to compare the other to someone from their past and begin to project unresolved feelings onto them.

If there is to be a true connection, both partners must put all else aside, focus on only each other, and commit to listening and learning without judgment or defensiveness.

5. Defining terms. Many well-intentioned communication attempts are sabotaged by a lack of clarification of what each partner means by the words and phrases they use. Culture, gender, age, education, relationship history, childhood aphorisms, and meaningful past experiences can all put a different spin when the background is not understood by the other.

Before either partner takes offense, feels defensive, or pushes back in any way, they need to ask the other what the word or phrase means to them, where it came from, and what they are trying to share when they use it.

6. Reading the other's non-verbal cues. In almost all cultures, most intimate communication is not about words but how they are conveyed. Children immediately know when a parent is angry or burdened by their facial expression, body language, voice intonation, and rhythm. The phrase, “Of course I love you,” can communicate irritation, dismissal, or reassurance depending on those non-verbal cues.

Somehow, many people forget that and rely on finding the right words. Using “I” statements to express cooperation, for instance, means nothing if the non-verbal cues are implying blame. It is up to each partner to become more congruent with what they say and what they actually feel behind the words. Hidden agendas are less likely to stay hidden when non-verbal cues are understood.

7. Talking “to” rather than “at” or “about.” There is no faster way to lose a listener than to talk at them, rather than to them or about them. Successful communicators sense immediately when the other partner is no longer able to take more in and acknowledge this.

It may be hard on the ego to realize that what is being said is no longer of interest, but the alternative is to talk to someone who is not there.

8. Attunement. To create a communication process that deepens and becomes richer over time, both partners must live in the minds and hearts of each other in every phrase they share. If you slap a child, you should simultaneously feel the slap on your own face at the same time.

Partners who trust one another know that the other is always tuned in, monitoring how the other is receiving that communication and including that awareness in what they say. No one is perfect, and sometimes hurt and anger block that desire to feel the effect of a behavior on the other, but that absence of mutual experience must be acknowledged.

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