One of the most important things in a relationship is communication. However, it is one of the things that people struggle with because they feel like keeping things to themselves or between them and their friends is better than addressing their issues with their partner head on. I, for one, am a huge advocate for having open conversations about anything and everything with your partner. Why? Because it allows you guys to address things head on and not let things fester.

Working on your relationship is like building a house - you have to make sure you create a strong foundation before moving on to the other floors. Thus, learning how to be open with your partner and honest is what will allow your relationship to be successful in the future.

From my experience, you have to establish your intentions for the relationship, to begin with. If both of you are committed to each other, having that open flow of communication is a little easier because you know that you both have the intention of wanting to make the relationship work. However, if you both are not completely serious about your relationship, then having that open communication isn’t as important because neither of you necessarily want to put in that much effort into each other.

Once your relationship status is established, starting the relationship with the understanding that both of you respect each other’s opinion and are willing to listen to each other is key. Even if you don’t do this right at the beginning of the relationship, reinforcing that you guys have trust and understanding allows for this open communication to flourish.

Now, let’s say you are reading this and you are thinking to yourself that you don’t have trust in your relationship or that you guys seem to have a lot of differences and fights. That is all normal and not something to beat yourself up about. In that case, I think the best thing to do is to try to reconnect with your partner on a more emotional level. Go back to what made you want to be with them in the first place - creating a more loving and peaceful environment will allow you to not only address the concerns you have within your relationship but also increase overall communication between you guys.

Overall, your partner cannot read your mind or guess how you are feeling.

The only way for them to know what you are going through is if you tell them; and not with passive aggressive texts, but with open and honest dialogue in a nonjudgmental environment. There are definitely steps you need to take in order to get to a place in your relationship where this is something that comes easily, however, those steps take time to achieve. It is not impossible so don’t give up lovebirds!