Maintaining a relationship is hard work. In today’s times where people are either unemployed or “very employed” communication suffers. Having said that couples in relationship and who have spoken of a future together are most judgemental about how his or her partner is communicating. Listening to understand your partner is communicating a important message that “you care”. It is rightly said that listening is the biggest gift you can give to a friend, partner, parent, team member. However, this is the most difficult skill especially in today’s times where young people lack discipline, patience, and balance of mind. Most employed people have very little time on them from taking care of themselves to travelling to work, work itself, self-management if they lack efficiency and time management skills, they also lack the emotion/purpose to listen to others.
Now if they are in a relationship then their partner either the girl or boy who is either more disciplined or more attention seeking will start complaining and objecting to such a behaviour.
They label such poor communicators, emotionally unavailable and relationship starts deteriorating. This is a highly used term in today’s young generation where in one of them has higher emotional needs and expectations from the partner. They start nagging and criticising not out concern for the health of the relationship but for the ego satisfaction and of course futuristic anxiety. Sometimes the other person reacts defensively whether at other times goes into a shell.
In my practise as a counsellor, I have those who have all the charm to win people sometimes lack the ability to sustain relationships because of their low self-esteem. They are not able to communicate with a balance of and emotion and logic which is called as assertive communication.
So those people who are always in a hurry, cut calls, get angry when some additional work is told to them are those who are also poor at assertive or win-win communication. Proactive assertive communication can be the best way to prevent misunderstandings in relationship.
Example A couple who has a long-distance communication will decide on a mutually agreeable time to communicate and any change or modification will be communicated. This increases trust and paves the path to a well-tuned and reliable partnership.
The mindscript for such a partnership will always be of respect and love for him/her for a responsible and caring behaviour of the partners and the commitment to the relationship increases.