A healthy relationship means you get to express your feelings to your partner and vice versa. In this article, we’re going to give you some tips on how to express your feelings clearly and efficiently so that you avoid conflict with your partner.
You may ask yourself, “why is it important to express your feelings in a relationship?” Well, the answer is that miscommunication may be the number one cause for the ending of relationships, mostly due to how important it is to express your feelings.
When you can’t express your feelings in a relationship, your relationship doesn’t have many chances to succeed. Of course, we want you to be nothing but happy, so we have compiled a series of tips that will help you express your feelings in words and communicate effectively with your partner.
Don’t be afraid to talk about yourself
When we want to complain about a certain attitude our partner has, we tend to say, “you always do x or y”. This tends to be counterproductive. You don’t want your partner to feel accused, so try to express your emotions and feelings by saying things like, “when you do x, I feel like y.”
This way, you avoid unnecessary friction between you two and switch the conversation to be more about your feelings and less about their mistake.
Suggested reading Emotionally Damaged? Cure It With Love And Friendship
Be clear in your statements
When you express your feelings to someone you love, it is essential to make sure that you are getting your message across clearly. To this end, it’s a good idea to keep your statements short and simple, so that there can be no misunderstandings as to what you are trying to say.
This is not necessarily an easy thing to do, as feelings can often be more complicated, but you need to try, at least a small argument can become an unnecessary fight.
Listen to each other attentively
When you express your feelings, it is natural for your partner to respond with their own, either explaining or defending themselves, which is not a dismissal of how you feel. It’s essential to give your partner this time to respond and listen intently, as it gives you an insight into their perspective on the subject.
By comprehending things from each other’s point of view, reaching a compromise will become much easier, and you may see things improve from thereon.
Expressing yourself is not a single actor play; it takes a speaker and a listener, which continuously change roles; you only stand to gain by enabling this natural flow.
This is especially important when you are looking at how to express your feelings in a long-distance relationship. Listening to each other is the most crucial part of your communication to avoid arguments and misunderstandings.
Don’t be aggressive
Not all feelings you are about to express will be positive. You can be sad, or even angry, yet being aggressive in your expression is a bad idea. So, how to express your feelings without getting angry? The Stoic philosopher Seneca offers a solution: “The deferring of anger is the best antidote to anger.”
Therefore, don’t speak to your loved one when you are amidst the fog of anger, delay your encounter, calm down, then explain why you are angry. Please, don’t mistake this for repressing your feelings; sometimes you can’t express your feelings the way you want.
By stepping back, you are only giving yourself the proper time to process them before they can be expressed.
Use your body language
You may not realize it, but there are ways you can express your feelings in a relationship without words. The rest of your body is as talkative as your mouth, and though the latter may lie, the former rarely does.
So, when the moment comes to express your feelings to the one you love, be sure to keep your body language open and relaxed. Keeping your arms or legs crossed, for instance, can send the message that you are closed to outside interaction, which is not the best way to conduct a conversation.
Keep emotions as a topic
It’s easy to believe that the only moments you will express your feelings are angry or sad by reading our previous tips. In reality, however, it’s a beautiful idea to keep your partner in touch with your emotions by inserting them into a day-to-day conversation.
It doesn’t need to be anything significant. A mere “I’m feeling chipper today” is often enough. Letting your partner in on your state of mind enables them to react accordingly.
This, in turn, will help both of you to better support each other and increase your intimacy in other ways than physical.
Avoid being passive aggressive
Passive aggressiveness may just be the absolute worst way to express your feeling to a partner; it sends them into a guessing game that only breeds resentment.
Instead, please get to the point of what you are trying to say; people can’t read minds, so hopelessly expecting your partner to catch on without telling them anything is counterproductive.
For example, instead of saying, “Wow, you must like ignoring me for your phone,” go for something like this: “Honey, I feel a little abandoned with you being on the phone for so long.”
Take a timeout in a difficult moment
Sometimes when you express your feelings, even if you’re calm at first, things can quickly get a little heated. At such times, you need to walk away. Okay, that was a bit dramatic. By “walk away,” we mean it’s perfectly acceptable to say, “look, I’m very upset right now, maybe we should do this later.”
It’s unwise to make any decision when you’re angry, and words are easily twisted by emotion, so tackling problems with a cool head is the best thing you can do. The least you give in to resentment and anger in how you express your feelings, the better it will be.
Conclusion
People are born good at different things; some run fast, some assemble computers, and others are good at self-expression. You may not be one of such people, facing difficulties expressing how you feel, either due to fear, insecurity, or simply not finding the words.
It can become incredibly complicated when you are trying to express them to that special someone, given the importance they hold in your life. If you don´t have a partner and think of joining a dating network you can visit the Dating Reviewer for more information.
Author’s bio:
Rachael Sullivan is a family lawyer for many years with a sole practice in family law. She met her husband on Dating Ranking and now she enjoys sharing healthy tips for relationships so that it can be as easy and happy as possible because words are powerful and can change everything.
This profile represents various guest writers who have submitted their content for publication on Dufnet.com and prefer to remain anonymous. You can submit your article here.
