Romantic Relationships: Communication Theories and Personal Experience

This essay delves into the crucial role of communication in shaping romantic relationships, drawing from personal experiences and established theories. It highlights the significance of active listening, where undivided attention and empathy foster a sense of importance and care. Effective feedback exchange, characterized by empathy and constructiveness, is presented as vital for nurturing positive feelings and mutual respect, while avoiding blame or discouragement. Non-verbal cues, such as proper eye contact and affectionate gestures, are also emphasized for their impact on mutual understanding and respect. The essay further underscores the importance of open-mindedness, respecting individual choices, and cultural sensitivity in fostering trust and long-term relationship success. By integrating these communication strategies, the author illustrates how relationships can flourish through mutual understanding, respect, and genuine care. Desklib offers students access to a wealth of resources, including essays and solved assignments, to support their academic pursuits.

Running head: COMMUNICATION IN ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIP
COMMUNICATION IN ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIP
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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COMMUNICATION IN ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIP
Introduction:
Communication is an important aspect of relationships as it acts as the guiding factor for
the development of the deterioration of the relationships. Different aspects of communication can
help people develop feelings towards each other or can make others move away from each other.
Miscommunication can become one of the largest challenges that affect health relationship
development and hence affect people mentally and emotionally (Solomon et al., 2016). This
assignment would mainly cover an experience of one of the own romantic relationship that I
developed with my partner that was based on good attributes of communication and successfully
reached the zenith.
Discussion:
One of the most important theories of effective communication is active listening skills.
Active listening skills mainly helps in developing detailed knowledge about the opposite person
and makes the person feel important. The opposite person feels that he is cared for and gradually
developing empathetic relationship with the opposite (Ruppel, 2015). The feeling of developing
importance is considered to be one of the best method of expressing love in the relationship
(Honeycutt et al., 2014). I used to listen to my partner without interrupting him at all. Even when
he was in flow and was expressing his excitement, i used to make him finish what he need to say.
Moreover, as well, when he was upset r disappointed and annoyed over a thing, I never blamed
him and listened carefully, about what he wanted to say. This make him felt calm and composed
after he had completed his statements and cleared out his frustrations. This had positive impacts
on his health and hence made him believe that I cared about what he wanted to say.

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COMMUNICATION IN ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIP
One of the most important theories of effective communication that I followed while
communicating with my partner was effective feedback exchange attributes. Studies are of the
opinion that effective communication exchange makes person feel that the listener is interested
in their wellbeing and that they are taking extra initiative for their betterment (Billedo et al.,
2015). Moreover sharing concern when a person is himself very tensed helps the person feel
received and overcome his stress to some extent as he believes that there are people who cares
for the, this feeling is extremely important in our relationships (fox et al., 2014). In our present
day, it has been found that people who engage in effective feedback exchange session are often
tend to develop better feelings and can show their care. However, one important aspect needs to
be kept in mind while engaging in effective feedback sessions. Often, feedbacks need to be such
that they are either empathetic and a compassionate or that they are constructive in nature. This
only will help in development of better relationship full of romance, emotion and respect for
each other. Studies have been found that feedbacks should never be such that it blames or
discourages a person. This can result in development of negative feelings for the person and
results in creation of barriers. I always engaged myself in relationships that helped me both
express my feelings and also engage the other person in engaging in feedback sessions. I always
took care that both our feelings never created conflicts and therefore , feedback exchange about
our actions and likings were always considered important for our relationship.
One of the most important theories of effective communication that also is highly
important for the development of proper relationship is the proper body gestures and also
effective definite body languages. Although they are non-verbal communication skills, but they
place much importance on the development of respect and mutual understanding between the
two partners in the relationship (Luo, 2015). Proper eye contact, touch, pats and companionship

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COMMUNICATION IN ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIP
are some of the gestures that speak lot in romantic relationships (Reese‐Weber, 2015). It could
be explained with the help of an example. I have seen one of my friends had gone on a date but
was constantly chatting with others on the Facebook as well as on Instagram. His partner
suggested him to keep the phone but he still continued. Their date was completely unsuccessfully
as his partner stated that she felt neglected and humiliated. She stated that she was disrespected
and her presence was uncared for. Therefore, in this relationship with my partners, I remain very
careful about the kind of gestures and actions that I conduct while interacting with her. I also
believe that being with the partner in the time by completely preventing myself to be careless in
different communication aspects with him might take them feel him feel disrespected. Therefore,
I believe that proper gestures and body language are extremely important for the development of
the successful relationship.
Another very important aspect of development of effective relationships is being open-
minded towards the choices of his partner and allowing him freedom in the relationship.
Communication should be such that one person constantly respect and encourage him to pursue
her dreams even when the choices of the other person are not liked (Korchmaros et al., 2015).
This helps in enjoying freedom and rights of an individual to pursue her own well-being, choices
and wishes. Communication that respects and encouraged other’s choices and feelings help in
developing trust and bond within the relationship and accordingly help in development of
effective long-term relationship. Being with person through empathetic interaction in time of
loneliness and sadness of the opposite person ensure best development of feelings and hence it
can ensure trustworthiness (Rosenberg et al., 2017).
One of the most important theories of effective communication is to ensure allowing the
person to enjoy his own cultural traditions as well as cultural perceptions. I was not aware of the

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COMMUNICATION IN ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIP
communication style of the Hindu traditions and culture. Therefore, I took an extra initiative in
learning about their culture and he ways they behave and communicate. Accordingly, I
communicated with him. Indian Hindu traditions do not allow juniors to talk to senior in the
house with eye contacts. Moreover, the elders in the house needs to show certain forms of
gestures to show them respect like folding hands and bowing our heads on first meets. Although
my partner never asked me to follow the customs, but i always did so whenever I met his mother
and father at his house. This helped in strengthening our relationships and had good impact on
our healthy affairs (Malouff et al., 2014).
From the above discussion, it can be seen that active listening skills, proper feedback
exchange, proper gestures and body language, being open minded and transparent and also
sensitive to cultural traditions are important for maintaining effective relationships.

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References:
Billedo, C. J., Kerkhof, P., & Finkenauer, C. (2015). The use of social networking sites for
relationship maintenance in long-distance and geographically close romantic
relationships. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 18(3), 152-157.
Fox, J., Osborn, J. L., & Warber, K. M. (2014). Relational dialectics and social networking sites:
The role of Facebook in romantic relationship escalation, maintenance, conflict, and
dissolution. Computers in Human Behavior, 35, 527-534.
Honeycutt, J. M., & Cantrill, J. G. (2014). Cognition, communication, and romantic
relationships. Routledge.
Korchmaros, J. D., Ybarra, M. L., & Mitchell, K. J. (2015). Adolescent online romantic
relationship initiation: Differences by sexual and gender identification. Journal of
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Luo, S. (2014). Effects of texting on satisfaction in romantic relationships: The role of
attachment. Computers in Human Behavior, 33, 145-152.
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Reese‐Weber, M. A. R. L. A. (2015). Intimacy, communication, and aggressive behaviors:
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Rosenberg, A. R., Bona, K., Ketterl, T., Wharton, C. M., Wolfe, J., & Baker, K. S. (2017).
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