Well, I have to say, I love honest vulnerable conversations. They make me feel nice, but I don’t particularly enjoy the miscommunications that leads up to it. But I do love the resolution. As you can probably guess, the topic of today’s post is communication. Especially in romantic relationships. This one is quite personal, so I won’t give too much detail, but let’s just say that my significant other had a miscommunication about something major, and it left me with a pretty severe anxiety attack.
Fortunately enough, I was able to have a private moment aside with her where we could discuss this and clear up any miscommunications about it. However, it wasn’t always this way. Not at all. In reality, for a long time, we had very little dedicated time for this. If anything, I would say that making time for this is the one thing that has saved my relationship. And I would go so far as to say the reason why it was failing was because of the lack of communication.
I don’t think many couples understand the importance of communication in (romantic) relationships. The human brain, by design, functions to fill in gaps in information. Many moons ago, in the hunter gatherer days, gaps in information were dangerous. Uncertainty was dangerous. It threatened the survival of the species. However, in the current day, society has evolved significantly, designed to attempt to work cohesively to ensure the survival of all humans. Gaps in information no longer pose the threat to survival that it once did, but that doesn’t stop our brains from attempting to fill them in.
Often, our brains do so quite inaccurately. I personally struggle with this. My brain will come up with some crazy stuff. But overcoming that fear, sitting down, and having an actual conversation about it is essential. It can clear up a lot of things. Unfortunately for me, I need these conversations more frequently than I’d like. My brain can often get off track and need a little recalibrating.
The key is to find a partner who understands the importance of this. Easier said than done. But it is important. I am fortunate enough to have a beautiful woman in my life who understands the value of communication but can be a little ADHD sometimes. Being able to sit down with her and really talk about this stuff has done wonders for me. It doesn’t fix the anxiety by any means, but it does help me understand a bit more.
And that is really the key. It is all about understanding.