Romantic relationships, past or present, teach us essential things that can allow us to improve our friendly, professional and family relationships.
Communicate better, forgive, make compromises … Love brings us a lot of lessons that will allow the relationship to flourish sustainably. But these achievements can then be usefully applied to other areas of our life, as psychologists at the Bustle site explain.
1- Know how to establish effective communication
They say that communication is the cement of the couple. And indeed, being able to exchange pleasant things with your partner but also to know how to discuss more sensitive subjects and to try to resolve possible misunderstandings or disagreements: this is one of the main keys to a united relationship and welded. “This is the moment when you will be able to test your communication skills and improve them by doing work on yourself,” says psychologist Nikki Martinez. The knowledge that you will then use to better communicate in life in general. At work, with your colleague who tends to cut off speech and never listen to you too much, with your parents, followers of the unsaid, with your friends also with whom you had taken the decision to never contradict for fear of hurting them. In short, love will make you a better communicator!
2- Know how to compromise
You are probably in osmosis with your lover, but that does not prevent you from being two distinct individuals with desires and points of view which sometimes diverge. However, if it is useful to know how to negotiate to succeed in making your voice heard within the couple, it is not up to the other to make all the concessions either. Everyone has to make sacrifices to find common ground. He let you choose the restaurant? Let him choose the movies! By doing so, you will show him that you care about him and that his happiness matters to you. However, sacrifices and compromises, we are also led to making in everyday life. But thanks to your couple, you will have learned to lend yourself to the game, to argue when you feel that you are in your right, but also to capitulate from time to time and to hear the needs of others, as the psychologist points out.
3- Know how to forgive
In love, you have to learn to trust, to lower your guard in order to hope to shape a common future. But that means accepting to sometimes “feel vulnerable or risk hurting the other,” reveals Marni Feuerman, couples therapist. “We have to learn to take risks and trust someone. Except that in reality, partners often hurt each other. For small things and often involuntarily. We must, therefore, be able to talk about what we hurt and give our partner the opportunity to make amends. ” And being able to forgive and not to be (too) resentful can also prove useful in our relationships with others, whether professional, friendly or family.
4- Knowing how to be selfless
Listening to the needs of others and putting their desires before ours is a quality that love teaches us. And finally, we realize that we can experience more satisfaction in making the other happy than in seeking to fulfill our own desires. “Letting someone else’s happiness make our own happiness is proof of altruism,” concludes psychologist Nikki Martinez. We can then broaden this notion of generosity around us in general.
