Communication: The Biggest Factor in Successful Relationships

I probably am not the most credible person to write this considering that most of the relationships I’ve ever had in my life ended in the other party walking away. However, humans learn from failure, and in terms of inter-personal relationships, failure is my first, middle, and last name. So from all this failure, what did I learn was the one thing that did make successful relationships? Well, if you’re reading this, I’m sure you read the title: Communication.

Not only have I seen my own relationships go drive off a bridge in a burning car into a garbage crusher, but I have also observed and been the ear to people who had the same experiences, oftentimes theirs was intimate. And this factor, communication, goes for both intimate and non-intimate relationships.

The first point that often kills relationships is a problem transpires, that there is an elephant in the room and you’re treating it like a curtain. If there is an elephant in the room, if there is a problem, you have to discuss it weigh the other party(ies) involved. If you don’t that elephant will end up stampeding around and not just destroy the room, but bring the house down. If you do not talk about this elephant, no matter how uncomfortable it may make you, your relationship will explode into a billion bits like a balloon, and that latex will be stuck on your face for awhile.

The next problem, often this is worse, is when rather than an elephant in the room, it’s a fly in the heart—poetic, right? A small gnawing feeling, thought, annoyance, something that you think, “if I ignore it, maybe it’ll be ok.” Well, I’ll be your fortune teller and tell you now that it won’t be ok, and it won’t go away; rather, it will fester like an infection and will either lead to the indirect destruction of your relationship through changes in your actions and demeanor within the relationship, or it’ll come out one day, and after all of that, holding it in will not come out peacefully, like the aforementioned balloon, it will explode out of you, and that will cause another problem on top of the once small apprehension, and once again, your relationship has been consumed by a parasite you thought was a fly and it has ripped your head off and laid eggs inside your body... actually, considering you may take it into later relationships, that’s quite the perfect analogy, and yes, there are parasites that do actually do that.

In general, talk. Talk to the people you care about if you want them to still care about you in the future. No matter how strange it may make you seem, maybe you’ll seem insecure, and yes, at times it will be your problem, not the other person’s, but you still need to bring it up, it’s not always easy, but it is always necessary. And if you are judged or bullied due to the thing you bring up, that simply tells you that you may not want to continue associating with that person.

“People learn from mistakes, but no one said they had to be ours.” - Warren Buffet. This is the biggest thing I have learned from my mess of a social life, I hope that it helps someone out with theirs. And trust me, if you don’t talk about things with the people you love, that balloon called your relationship will pop, and sometimes it’ll pop so hard that the latex will leave a permanent mark on you, it’s not a great look, trust me. That’s all for this week, a longer post, if you made it all the way, hope this can save just one relationship of yours.