Dysfunctional Versus Healthy Relating in Relationships

How happy are you in the way you relate to others?

Do you use any of these strategies? If so seek help to change the way you relate to your partner so that you can have a happy and healthy relationship.

The quality of the relationships in our life are very important for our overall general health and well-being. The relationships we have with others can have a major impact on the way we feel, our thoughts, the quality of communication between ourselves and our family, work colleagues, friends and the people we socialise with. The manner in which we relate can either improve or decrease the quality of our relationships. When we spend time engaging in our interests such as sporting activities, exercising in the gym, and picking up and dropping off or attending school if we utilize effective communication strategies we have a better chance of making and keeping friends and harmonious relating with others.

How we communicate with others can have a major affect on our lives and the lives of others.

Extensive research has been carried out to help us identify the best possible techniques of communicating and strategies to improve relationships. Furthermore, extensive research looking at dysfunctional communication strategies has also been undertaken to identify poor strategies of relating. Since our society consists of people that have an array of different past experiences and learning the better we communicate and regulate our own behaviours, thoughts and emotions the better we are able to effectively communicate with the people that we come across in our everyday lives.

Different communication strategies are required in different situations.

It stands to reason that learning effective strategies to communicate should be a high priority in each and everyone of our lives so that we can live more harmoniously within our community, feel more supported and be able to support others within our community especially our family and friends. Some people in our society are effective communicators and some people find communicating very difficult. No matter what end of the scale you find yourself on, it is important to continue to improve the manner in which you communicate with the people in your life.

Research indicates there are many dysfunctional strategies that hinder relationships. Some of these include the following communication strategies:

Mind reading is destructive within relationships.

Mind Reading

Mind Reading is when a person assumes another person’s thoughts or motives by analyzing the person’s thoughts, feelings or behaviours. On many occasions this may lead to biased assessment or cognitive distortions of the person’s thoughts, motives, feelings and or behaviours. These cognitive distortions are inaccurate attributions of another’s behaviour and are not helpful when relating to others. Cognitive distortions may affect the way we feel about the person and unfortunately may decrease the heath of the relationship.

The Demand-Withdrawal pattern in a relationship is so important to make sure you and the other person has their needs met and feels safe.

Demand-Withdraw Pattern

All relationships have different demand and withdraw patterns. Research indicates within a couple relationship a pattern of relating where a female is demanding and a male withdraws in majority of the interactions does not constitute a healthy relating pattern. Additionally, when a female is the pursuer and the male is the distances himself an unhealthy relating pattern also is created.

What are your expectations within relationships? What standards do you accept and reject?

Low Expectations

People who have low expectations within relationships have lower standards of what they are looking for in a relationship, perceive they deserve within relationships, and how they expect to be treated within the relationship. They may unknowingly accept poor treatment from others as a consequence. In turn this may lead to dysfunctional relating, unhappiness within the relationship and discourse.

Many positive strategies of communicating and relating to others have been researched extensively, identified with exercises being developed to help people learn how to improve their own relationships and way of communicating to others. There have been many different strategies identified to reduce conflict, increase positive relating, and enhance the connection between others. Some of the strategies and predictors of positive strategies are listed below:

Increase positive engagement to improve your relationships.

More Positive Engagement than Negative

For a relationship to remain healthy the ratio of positive engagements to negative engagements is important. Research indicates one negative engagement in every five positive engagements is the limit of negative to positive engagements to maintain a healthy relationship with higher numbers of negative engagements to positive engagements resulting in the potential for dysfunctional relating and breakdown of the relationship. Positive affect is critical within relationships, with positive affect being required more during times of conflict to maintain relationship stability or homeostasis of positive engagement and pleasant feelings with another person. Although, small amounts of negativity in a relationship do have important functions, such as reducing patterns of behaviour that are not conducive of improving the relationship on a continual basis however, more negative engagements may result in relationship breakdown.

Emotionally engage on a regular basis with your partner and friends to improve your relationships.

Emotional Engagement

Sharing positive affection, being present and enjoying spending time with your partner, family and or friends is very important. When we share humor, ask questions about the person, listen to what the other person has to say and actively engage with another person we enable the connection between ourselves and the person to increase, we feel listened to and respected as a person. When we actively show positive emotions such as excitement, happiness, joy, and empathise with another person, we are actively emotionally connecting with that person which has the ability to increase our social bonds and improve our relationship with that person no matter what age, gender, or type of relationship.

Eye contact enhances relationships and increases bonding between couples.

Eye Contact

Appropriate positive body language is also very important to improve our relationships. When we look into another person’s eyes we show that we are listening to that person. We can demonstrate our own emotions, how much we care for another person, and our opinions on the topics of conversation.

A friendly smile is welcoming and helps us and others to feel good. Research has found when a person smiles they are perceived as more approachable.

Smiling

When we smile we are showing the other person that we are approachable. That we are friendly and may be a possible friend. We can also change the way another person feels just by smiling at them. When we see a person smile mirror neurons within our brain fire, which results in the same pattern of response to be activated within our system, in this case a smile. Smiling makes us feel good and also increases positive relating within our relationships.

So next time you walk down the street or in another public place why don’t you try smiling at the person walking towards you, look into their eyes and say, ‘hello’. Change their day for the better by using these three different strategies. In turn, you may make them feel better and may cause them to smile as they go about their day. This has the propensity to create a chain reaction making someone else in turn smile and feel better and so forth. You never know whose life you might change for the better that day. You may be changing someone’s day who really needed an emotional lift.

Enjoy improved socialising with these few communication techniques.

Take care and have a wonderful day,

Louise Wakefield