How beautiful the time of love is, with its sleepless nights, bouquets of flowers, oaths of devotion, and a feeling of unlimited happiness! But a day passes, a month, and suddenly you begin to notice that your loved one has changed. Any action makes you feel irritation, and ordinary household trifles begin to outgrow into scandals more and more often. Don’t be surprised, you had just faced a time of miscommunication, or more simply, a crisis of relationships.
In fact, relationships can be happy but only in the case when both partners are ready to work on it, making efforts to create harmony. The main problem that prevents people from being happy together lies in the fact that men and women don’t want to talk and discuss what bothers them. And this is fundamentally wrong because we are DIFFERENT. We are so different that we perceive the same things in a completely different way. That is why we often have gender miscommunication.
The Root Causes of Miscommunication in Relationships
What is miscommunication? It means the inability to understand the meaning of something, the meaning of someone’s words, actions. Psychologically, any person needs to be understood by other people, as well as a person has a need to understand the actions of others. Miscommunication is a universal problem in personal life. Miscommunication in a relationship causes inadequate communication. People believe that they have already thoroughly explained the essence, but in fact, one of the partners didn’t understand something. Each couple has relationship problems due to the fact that they partially or completely lack understanding. Those who have learned to find a golden mean and sit down at the negotiating table live happily together until old age. The solution to any conflict with the “two winners” is a wise decision, in which each of the partners will be good.
But if you still didn’t learn how to explain your thought correctly, then maybe you just don’t know what the reasons for miscommunication in relationships are. Look, “I’m sure my partner understands what I am talking about,” “I thought it was important for my partner how I felt.” Did you have something similar in your head? Most, likely, you did. One of the most common causes of miscommunication in any relationship is that people simply don’t understand how little they actually communicate. In other words, they think they said a lot more than they actually did.
Researches show that a lot of people think that their behavior is much more emotional than it actually is, and this happens in different situations. For example, here is one of the types of miscommunication: when people lie, they often think that it can be seen because their discomfort due to deception is obvious while the interlocutor doesn’t even suspect about the lie. Also, people often assume that everyone knows their goals and what they are trying to achieve, although no one has the slightest idea about it. Most of what people say and do every day can be interpreted in different ways when someone tries to understand what he/she really means.
People are more inclined to think that “this is obvious” when it comes to loved ones. They assume that their thoughts and behaviors are partly “transparent,” although this is not so. Therefore, ironically, the risk of misunderstanding with your significant other is greater than with someone you don’t know.
When people suppose that others know what they think and expect, they act unfairly. After all, then they blame everyone that things didn’t go as they expected or that their interests were not taken into account. In addition, the belief that love and care for close and dear people “should be taken for granted” leads to the fact that the closest people feel unloved and deprived of care. .jpg "miscommunication in relationships")
The next time you think, “I didn’t say that, but it’s obvious ...,” stop in time! Nothing is obvious until you say it. Remove the phrase “It is obvious” from your thoughts – this is nonsense. If you consider something really important, you need to talk about it. And it is much more serious when it comes to texting. We all know how it can be difficult to understand each other via messages. So, if you want to avoid texting miscommunication, try to explain your thoughts as clear as possible while chatting.
How to Avoid Miscommunication in a Relationship?
Let’s imagine: one of you is noticeably upset, and the other says, “Calm down.” Two small words uttered in the midst of a heated discussion are the same as lighting a match and throwing it into a puddle of gasoline. Usually, the situation becomes aggravated rather quickly, and it is difficult for person A to understand why person B is upset because he or she can’t express what the essence of a problem is.
If you are person A and find that you usually can’t understand something, it is usually because you see the frustration your partner is experiencing but don’t know what to do with this. To avoid miscommunication from your part, do the following:
1. Wait a minute
To get started, take control of your emotions. Express your thoughts calmly, carefully, don’t offend your partner. One of the simplest (and at the same time effective) psychological advice is to conduct some breathing exercises. Take a deep breath and count mentally to thirty.
2. Describe your position calmly when solving a problem
How to avoid miscommunication? Try to say something like, “I see that you are upset, but I didn’t want it. I want to explain how I see this situation.”
3. Take a pause
You can postpone the conversation to increase the likelihood of a more useful conversation. You can say something like, “I think it is not the best time for such a dialogue. I don’t want to get upset or start a scandal. Let’s talk about this later.” The most important thing here is that you have to determine a specific time.
If you are person B and feel that you are almost crazy about the situation that your soulmate doesn’t understand you, then you should do the following:
1. Breathe deeply to calm down
Breathing usually gets out of your control along with emotions, resulting in anxiety and tension. You can break the circle and calm down with the help of deep breaths.
2. Show empathy
If you can’t understand what really offends your loved one, then ask him/her about it. Let your soulmate understand that your anger is not always intended for him or her personally. Help take a look at the situation from the outside and try to show that you are not indifferent to his or her feelings.
3. Ask yourself why you think about it
There are many things in the world that help people become better and develop. So, do you still think it is necessary to waste your time on various unimportant little trifles? You need to know for yourself what the most important thing in life is and whether it is worth your nerves.
4. Help your partner understand your point of view
Put yourself in your partner’s shoes and try to understand how he/she perceives the situation. Even if you think that your soulmate has already understood your point, you can still talk about it. Be ready to listen to your significant other. Pay attention not only to the words but also to the hidden meaning, emotional background, facial expressions, and gestures. Sometimes body language expresses the exact opposite of what a person says.
Examples of Miscommunication
We can say with full responsibility that miscommunication between a man and a woman arises from a misunderstanding of the difference between a man and a woman. It may seem strange but the majority of modern men and women, in relations with the opposite sex, think that there is no difference between a man and a woman (except for gender, of course). Like, they are the same in their feelings, in their attitudes towards things and people, in their life manifestations, in sex, in their thinking, and so on. Anyway, there is often miscommunication between them. Why is it so? Here is one of the examples of miscommunication in everyday life: one woman said that she could understand that communication is the key to a strong relationship. If partners can’t talk openly about their troubles, then there is no need to stay in such a relationship. Communication is the only thing that can help you with what your partners need. But if you can’t communicate effectively, do you think you are in healthy relationships? She was used to doing whatever she wanted without thinking about her partner because she never had a parental figure or some close person who could be affected by her activity.
So, at the time when she fell in love for the first time and relationships required consistency and openness, she felt confused. She realized that she couldn’t cope with her partner’s emotions (as well as her own), she didn’t understand how something she did could affect her boyfriend, and she honestly didn’t understand how to behave in such situations. The woman couldn’t open up because it was unusual for her, and she didn’t want it at all.
She understood she ruined her couple because she looked selfish. It means she was thinking only about herself and didn’t want to try to get closer to her man. But, unfortunately (or fortunately), a one-sided relationship can never work. This one of the best miscommunication examples shows that to fully commit yourself to a relationship, you must compromise and negotiate. And she failed in this because she didn’t feel nice in such conditions. Anyway, she didn’t try to change something either.
One of the most important things is that you have to discuss what you like and don’t like about the relationship, but you also have to explain your points of view. So, talk about the problem, discuss your feelings, and come to the conclusion that both of you agree on. And if you can’t come to a consensus, then it means that something much deeper is in the essence of your problem. When you have an obvious problem, there is no need to just ignore it (as well as each other) because this is the last thing you can do. So, if you want to make your relationships work, you need to learn to make sacrifices and forget about your pride and stubbornness. Your healthy relationships should consist of trust, support, talk, and love.
In case you can’t discuss everything openly, it will cause more damage if you stay in such relationships. Be open, become vulnerable (even if you still didn’t learn to be such a person), so that you can become a real team with your soulmate.