How To Build A Trusting Dialogue?

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

How to build a trusting dialogue with your partner, so that your relationship only becomes better, stronger and closer, so that real closeness and true trust arise between you?

Below are the main 7 rules that you should adhere to during a trusting contact.

1. You must hear your partner, and he must feel it. Sooner or later, he will start to hear you.
2. Don't judge your loved one.
3. Be open and ready to touch your vulnerability - even if it hurts, keep your feelings to yourself and don't punish your partner for them. Over time, the person will open up to you.

4. Don't try to make excuses, give up trying. When you feel guilty or feel somehow wrong, bad, you start injecting it into the relationship and dialogue ("Now I am so tormented, I feel so bad …"), you thus expect a response from your partner and in some the least you provoke him to say something ("Don't worry! It's okay, you're okay!") to appease your guilt. Why are you drawing attention to yourself? In order not to work with guilt, do nothing with this tension, not translate it into a constructive channel. Leave your self-flagellation to yourself, bring it to personal therapy and work it out. Do not expect consolation from your partner, if the fault is yours - work on yourself!
5. It is very important that there is honesty, openness, truth between partners. A prerequisite for a relationship is to protect each other's feelings. If you see that your partner is already unpleasant, pause, pause in the dialogue, discuss the situation later.

6. Make it clear to your partner that you accept the information as it is. You can clarify what he means if something is really not clear. It is important to clearly hear everything from your partner's lips (specify “Do I understand you correctly?”, Pronounce it in words, and then repeat it with your own). Relatively speaking, in order to understand what exactly was meant, your two worlds must touch. Do not be offended, do not inject your partner afterwards because he opened up, gave some information about himself, and then, in a fit of anger or a quarrel, you return to the person everything you said and experienced (“Well, yes, of course, your mother offended you, so you now you offend me too! ). A partner can say such traumatic things only in the process of confidential communication - leave it to yourself forever, never again tell a loved one, at least with anger. Treat each other's feelings with care and respect. There is no need to draw a parallel between your partner's unfair treatment of you and their past.
7. Don't take the other as an enemy. He does not attack you, this person is not your enemy, does not want to hurt, but only wants to protect something in himself, wants not to be attacked, he cannot deal with his aggression, so he says so. Remember, the partner is not against you, does not want to hurt, offend, destroy - throw this belief out of your head forever. The more you believe that the other loves and respects you as much as you do, the more this love and respect you will have in your relationship!

What is a trusting dialogue for? For example, you approached your partner and asked him: “What do you think is with our relationship? I can't understand your mood - maybe I did something wrong? " (or - "I told you something wrong yesterday? Why are you upset after our conversation?"). How does your interlocutor feel at this moment? People are interested in his opinion, he is important and needed, he is not afraid to entrust something to you, to open up, to say something deep about himself, to show his real self.

It is very important that partners treat each other with respect. If you respect yourself, your partner will respect your courageous deed to start such a dialogue - it really takes a lot of strength, resources and energy, courage and practice. With experience, it will be easier for you to start a sincere conversation, sometimes dangerous due to the fact that you can hook something deep in the psyche of your partner. Of course, professional experience plays an important role when it comes to psychologists. If you try to build a trusting dialogue at least once a month, it will become easier over time (you make contact only once and then you do not need to return to this question). Sometimes situations arise when you quarreled with your partner, brought up an important topic and shared your feelings, but the partner did not understand, and you felt hurt - in other words, the confidential dialogue went astray. It's OK! It may also be the case that when practicing a trusting dialogue in your relationship, something too painful will open up - this means that the pain has already been, and the breakup of the abscess was just a matter of time.

Try to move in small steps as far as your senses can handle. If you suddenly feel unbearable during the dialogue, pause. For example, the words of your partner begin to offend you greatly, you are in pain, you are ready to scourge him for your feelings. In this case, it is better to stop and say: “Listen, everyone, now I cannot continue our dialogue, let's talk tomorrow or in a while. I need to think about your words. This reaction is normal, beautiful and correct.

Why do we often exclude trusting dialogues from our lives? From childhood, we are taught to be silent and restrain our feelings. Moreover, many of us have witnessed family conflicts that did not lead to anything (parents only swore, someone even had alcohol in the family). As a result, we chose the “better to be quiet” behavior model. Often there is a fear of offending another person (you were offended, in childhood or in other relationships, you did not choose words in a conversation). Accordingly, this irritation and discontent turns into aggression, then into anger, then shoots out with affect, turns into rage - and the events that you witnessed in your families take place (once! - and the parents had a fight out of the blue). So that such situations do not arise, there are no violent scandals, irrational clarifications of relations, unconstructive accusations and criticism, it is better to pause the affect and go to another room. There will be no constructiveness in such a dialogue. If you have the strength to stop at some point ("Oh, God! What am I doing ?! I'm screaming!"), It is better to go to another room, leave the apartment, take a walk, bring yourself to your senses. When emotions subside, then say - trusting contact should always be conducted in a calm state (beforehand before the conflict or much later after it).

So what to do? Practice these kinds of dialogues regularly! If you've never done something like this at all, start discussing something spiritual once a month, then you can increase the frequency (once every two weeks). You can ask your partner single questions ("Listen, it seems to me that you have not been in a very good mood in recent days. What's going on? Do you want to share? It is important for me to understand how you are").

If you want to talk to your partner about your relationship, you can ask him how he rates it (for a start, you can focus on a scale from 1 to 10, where 1 is the worst and 10 is the highest). If your partner's score is below 10, ask him: “What would you like to improve in our relationship? What is missing? What actions do you want to see from my side? " And here it is very important to talk about actions, because we take it as a postulate that partners do not try to change each other's personality - this is not our task! We need to adjust to each other. For example, a guy asks you to help him in cleaning, although he knows that you do not like cleaning, but he motivates his request by saying that it will cheer him up. As a result, you are ready to invest in it. This approach does not mean at all that he wants to change you as a person, no - it is about behavior. And that's quite normal! Accept what your partner says about you. Maybe it will not be very pleasant, the person will not be able to immediately find the right words, something will hurt you. Try to approach the situation constructively - evaluate everything with a "cold mind" and try to understand what he meant. Remember the rule of constructive dialogue and do not perceive the person as an enemy. If your partner tells you that you sometimes behave selfishly, in the “right language” it will sound like this: “My words are not that I want to offend you. I miss something from you! " Ask why you are being called selfish, what could improve your relationship, what is lacking, what does not suit you. Ask your partner about his mood, interests, affairs at work, but you should not arrange an interrogation with addiction - it is important to show a sincere interest in the feelings of the person, in his life, his and your joint experiences. If there is no such interest, there is no need to start a conversation, the situation will only worsen, and the person will feel manipulation on your part.

Learn to give feedback through the self-message. You do not need to tell your partner that he is an egoist, say otherwise: "I sometimes do not have enough attention, care, support from you." No need to accuse him of being irresponsible, say that you do not have enough help from your partner with children, in paying utility bills, taking care of the house (“Come on, you take on these and these responsibilities!”). Instead of accusing you of insensitivity, turn to your partner with the words: "I miss your attention, your involvement in my life, empathy, emotional involvement." Do not label your loved one with the label “you are greedy”, try to explain why it is important for you to receive gifts (“I do not have enough gifts from you as a sign of attention. For me, this is an important language of love!”). Choose words in the dialogue - it is not his fault, but you are missing something. This is the basic principle! Another important point is to tune in to a trusting dialogue with your man / woman, especially if you feel that you are missing something in the relationship, you need to figure out how your partner can fix the situation, what his behavior will help improve your relationship, and in general - what kind of need you have. Flowers and money are not at all related to money as such, it is about love. For you, love takes on this form. Of course, partners may differ in their opinions and vision of the very concept of "love" and its manifestation, but there are couples in which, after several explanations, the partners understood everything (if this is easy to do, then why not?). Negotiate is the most important rule of any intimacy.

In family psychotherapy there is a special exercise when a couple prescribes all the duties of each in everyday life (the wife and husband make lists separately, then they are compared and added). After that, the spouses indicate what they are doing now, what would be easier for someone to complete, evaluating the task, for example, on a 10-point scale (“I take out the garbage and it's difficult for me, 10 out of 10 points” - “But I could take out the trash, but for some reason I don’t do it, my score is 3 out of 10”-“Let's change!”). Thus, partners agree, hang lists with new everyday tasks on the refrigerator, and each has its own area of responsibility in everyday life).

How is a merging relationship different from a true intimacy relationship? In the second case, there is always a constructive and trusting dialogue, there is the will of everyone, my and your desire, boundaries, respect, lack of perception of the partner as an enemy, but at the same time the lack of perception of each other as a whole. If you have a trusting dialogue, you have every chance of a sincere intimacy.

If you find it difficult to independently build a trusting dialogue in a couple, try a personal consultation with a therapist. In general, it is possible to establish communication between partners in 2-3 sessions.

There are also cases when it is already difficult to build a trusting dialogue, trust has been destroyed for years, partners simply do not have it in relation to each other, personal information was often used against each other, there is some kind of hatred, there is no respect and the feeling that you will be heard ("No, most likely he will make fun of me!"). If you still want to make a difference, take responsibility. Be prepared - at first, all responsibility will be solely on you. Write for yourself a plan for every day - today I will ask such a small question, in three days I will take this step, in a week I will do this, etc. Watch yourself so as not to make fun of your partner, do not hurt him for the fact that he opened up. Yes, you will have to work hard and for a long time, but anything is possible - over time, you will begin to notice that your partner trusts you more. However, it is important here not to perceive him as an enemy, to love yourself, to be tolerant of your vulnerability. If a person expresses his aggression to you (in such a relationship, as a rule, aggressive behavior will manifest itself for some time), it is worth developing the ability to endure, you can reflect and say: “I hear that you are angry with me! I understand that we have been like this for many years, but I want everything to change! " It is best to start this long journey with a dialogue: “I would like / would like our relationship to level out and sooner or later become trusting. Let's try it on the sly! " This does not mean at all that the partner will not express aggression back, but it is likely that he will try not to hurt you.

Practice, don't despair - and you will succeed! Over time, the skill of confidential dialogue is pumped like a muscle, and in the future it will be useful everywhere and always.