Communication is one of the most important pieces to a strong, healthy relationship. Love isn’t enough. Effort isn’t enough. You need to feel like you can talk to your partner and encourage them to talk to you. If you shut each other out, it’ll only ruin the relationship. Here are some reasons why you need to work on your communication to keep your relationship strong.
If you aren’t communicating with your partner, you are hiding pieces of yourself from your partner.
Maybe you’re trying to protect your partner by hiding your feelings. Maybe you don’t want to cause them more stress. Maybe you think your problems are silly and aren’t worth bringing up. But your person is supposed to be your teammate. You’re supposed to feel comfortable talking to them about anything. If you start keeping secrets, even small ones, you’re slowly going to grow apart.
The right person will appreciate your honesty.
If you’re with someone who loves and respects you, they’re going to be happy that you trust them enough to tell them what’s on your mind. They aren’t going to hold your problems against you. They aren’t going to run away as soon as things get hard. They will want to know what’s bothering you so they can help. They signed up to be there for you through the good times and bad. So don’t shut them out. Don’t make them wonder why you’re keeping an emotional distance. They’re going to pick up on the fact something is wrong either way, so you might as well let them into your heart.
Even if they’re your best friend, your partner cannot accurately read your mind.
You can’t expect them to know what’s bothering you. Even if they’ve known you forever, even if they can tell that something is wrong, they aren’t going to guess the exact problem. You need to share your thoughts with them. Otherwise, they aren’t going to be able to comfort you or change their behavior to make you happier. If they don’t realize they’ve done something to upset you, it leaves the door open for them to hurt you again. Even though you might be hesitant to cause conflict, it’s better to confront the problem now than wait until it snowballs into a bigger issue.
You need trust to make a relationship last.
If you’re not telling your partner something, there must be a reason why. Is it because you don’t trust them to react the right way? Because you don’t trust them to look at you the same anymore? Because you don’t trust them to listen closely to your concerns and address them properly? Trust is about more than loyalty. If you want a relationship to work, you need to trust that your person wants what is best for you. You need to trust that they’ll support you.
It’s not real love if you’re not showing the real you.
You don’t want someone to fall for a made-up, imaginary version of you. You want someone who loves the real you. Someone who sees your strengths and your flaws and loves you regardless. If you’re not showing every side of yourself, you’re not giving them the opportunity to love you fully.
