Will Feelings, Emotions or Thoughts Change a Loving Relationship, or Do Loving Relationships Require Advanced Communication Skills?
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Many people believe that if their feelings, emotions or thinking is strong enough - love, passion, or longing - or that by expressing themselves, that their loving relationship will naturally improve, or repair itself, or that they will resolve their differences this way.
While feelings, emotions or thoughts can be a powerful part of human connection, feelings, emotions or thoughts about your loving relationship alone, and expressing these - won’t sustain or transform your loving relationship. Long-term loving relationship success depends far more on advanced communication skills and abilities to build connection and respect, than on feelings, emotions or thoughts.
Couples need to learn to adapt to the needs of the loving relationship with advanced skills and abilities - to Succeed with Love.
The Role of Feelings & Emotions in Loving Relationships
Feelings and emotions are internal biological signals. They arise automatically from the nervous system in response to experiences, memories, and perceptions. Love, attraction, frustration, disappointment, wants, needs and fear all provide valuable information about what matters to us.
However, feelings and emotions are mostly reactive, not skill-based. They fluctuate based on stress levels, sleep, hormones, biochemistry, context and past experiences. Because feelings and emotions change, they cannot serve as a stable foundation for your loving relationship. A couple may love each deeply, yet still struggle with conflict, misunderstandings, emotions, emotional distance or unresolved issues, if communication skills and abilities are limited. Furthermore, how emotional experiences are expressed is highly complex, and utilizes autobiographical memory, which is not accurate, so debating your partner’s reality as right or wrong will create constant misunderstandings and lacks the skill of metacognition.
The Role of Thoughts, Thinking & Perception or Reality in Loving Relationships
Thoughts, thinking, your perception, and your reality are yours alone, so expecting to be understood, or expecting them to be the same as your partners is unrealistic. Couples struggling with communication are often sharing their own thoughts, thinking, perception and reality, and expecting to be understood.
Your thoughts, thinking, perception are your own, and often not relevant to building your loving relationship, which requires interaction-based communication with your loving partner, to learn about their experience - not yours.
Why Feelings and Emotions Do Not Create Positive Changes in Loving Relationships
Feelings and emotions do not explain needs clearly, or resolve misunderstandings. When partners rely on feelings or emotions in communication they often use explanations or analysis, or express emotions or themselves continually in a desperate need to try to be understood. Statements such as “I just feel disconnected” or “I feel unappreciated” or “You hurt my feelings” express distress, but do not provide any direction at all, required for positive change.
Without skillful communication, feelings and emotions escalate into blame, arguments, upset, defensiveness or withdrawal. Communication like this creates emotional reactivity - rather than any mutual collaboration.
The Importance of Advanced Communication Skills
Loving relationships require advanced communication skills and abilities to build the relationship, including metacognition, emotional and mental regulatory abilities, reflective listening, perspective-taking, abilities to resolve emotional misunderstandings and more. Communication skills and abilities allow partners to translate feelings and emotions into constructive dialogue.
Some basic, but advanced communication for some people in loving relationship are:
Listening to understand and discover, not to be right
Expressing needs without explaining or lecturing
Managing emotions rather than letting oneself emotionally escalate
Clarifying conversations rather than reacting to them
Repairing misunderstandings quickly and respectfully
An advanced communication skill that all couples should develop - is the ability to be CLEAR and PRECISE in communication.
These abilities do not come naturally to some people; they must be learned and practiced. When partners learn to communicate skillfully, feelings and emotions become easier to share and regulate.
Final Thoughts
Feelings and emotions do not change relationships. Loving relationships thrive when feelings or emotions are supported by advanced communication skills that promote clarity, and mutual understanding. Love is not sustained by how deeply people feel, or by what emotions they express, but by how skillfully they communicate.