As an adult, it hasn’t escaped me how nuanced and difficult the conversation around emotionality can be. I’ve been through loss, chronic illness, financial issues, and many more difficulties. Still, some of the most jarring and scarring experiences have to do primarily with heartbreak—even from the abovementioned experiences. I’ve realized that falling in love is just the first step to a relationship. What follows is an ever-evolving journey of being emotionally intelligent in a relationship.
Emotional intelligence (EQ) in a relationship involves being aware of and managing your emotions, as well as being able to understand and respond to the emotions of your partner.
Developing emotional intelligence can improve communication, reduce conflict, and strengthen your connection. It equips you with the understanding of what your relationship needs at any given time or in any given situation.
Like any muscle, emotional intelligence can be developed through repetition, CBT guidance, and reflection.
Here are some key ways to cultivate emotional intelligence in a relationship:
How To Be Emotionally Intelligent In Relationships
1. Practice Self-Awareness
Recognize your emotions: Pay attention to your emotional responses in different situations. Are you angry, frustrated, anxious, or happy? Understanding your emotions is the first step to managing them. Understanding sometimes requires us to examine ourselves from a third person’s perspective and not cast judgment on how we feel in a specific situation.
Understand triggers: Identify situations or behaviors that trigger negative emotions. Being aware of your triggers helps you navigate challenging moments without overreacting. Similarly, knowing what makes you feel happy, loved, passionate, and attracted can help with expressing your needs to your partner.
2. Manage Your Emotions
Pause before reacting: When you feel a strong emotion, take a moment to breathe and process it before responding. This allows you to respond thoughtfully rather than impulsively. Far too many relationships suffer significant blows to trust, love, and respect from spontaneous submission to loud emotions. This can be mitigated by determining whether a particular reaction has the propensity to cause harm and whether you need to remove yourself from a specific situation for some time.
Stay calm in conflict: Managing stress and remaining calm during disagreements can prevent escalation. Practice deep breathing or mindfulness to maintain control over your emotions. Step away from conflict momentarily and gain a neutral outside perspective for issues that linger indefinitely.
3. Be Empathetic
Listen actively: It’s impossible to practice emotional intelligence while being self-absorbed and distracted Give your partner your full attention when they are expressing their feelings. Validate their emotions without jumping to solutions or judgment.
Put yourself in their shoes: Try to understand your partner’s perspective, even if you don’t agree with them. Empathy helps create a safe space where both partners feel understood. In many cases, empathy can encourage you to say and do things that provide support and comfort to your partner during an emotionally difficult time in their life. It may not fix their issues but it will provide a safe and loving relationship for them to lean on. If that isn’t a great way to develop a strong bond, what is?
4. Communicate Clearly and Respectfully
Express emotions constructively: Use “I” statements instead of “you” statements to avoid sounding accusatory. For example, “I feel upset when…” instead of “You always make me upset.” In saying that, you have to be brave enough to be vulnerable by sharing your emotions. Even if they might trigger an uncomfortable conversation, it might just be the separator between cultivating a closer relationship or drifting apart.
Be open about your needs: Communicate your needs and desires without assuming your partner can read your mind. Emotional intelligence means being honest but gentle in expressing yourself. Start with affirming the belief that you have a right to express your needs and the worth of having them met in a relationship. Encourage your partner to do the same, especially if it appears that they struggle to do so.
5. Practice Emotional Support
Be there for your partner: Show support and understanding when your partner is struggling emotionally. Offer comfort, but also ask what they need from you.
Encourage their growth: Be supportive of your partner’s goals and personal development. Healthy relationships thrive when both individuals grow together but growth can be scary. When we are usually afraid, many of us resign to ourselves. Instead, acknowledge it with your partner, but don’t let it rule you.
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6. Be Adaptable
Accept change: Relationships evolve, and emotional intelligence means being flexible and adapting to new circumstances or changes in your partner’s emotional needs. I think one can only truly accept change when one surrenders to the natural and sometimes uncontrollable flow of life. As believers in God, we are taught to rely solely on God, and this is where we derive our sense of stability in times of uncertainty. I believe there’s freedom in not being completely dependent on a relationship because it frees us to love each other without fear and constriction.
Stay open to feedback: Being willing to hear constructive criticism from your partner without becoming defensive is crucial for growth in a relationship.
7. Handle Conflict Healthily
Focus on the issue, not the person: Address the problem at hand rather than attacking your partner’s character. Avoid blame and work together to find solutions. It takes a lot of work to develop good conflict resolution skills but that shouldn’t stop us from doing so. Not only will this benefit you romantically, but these skills will bleed into all other areas of your life, professional and personal.
Apologize when necessary: A sincere apology when you’ve made a mistake demonstrates humility and emotional maturity. Take responsibility for your actions without making excuses. In doing so, you mitigate the risk of underlying and unspoken resentment in your relationship, and it sets a good precedent between the two of you.
8. Practice Patience
Be patient with your partner’s emotional responses: Sometimes your partner may not immediately understand or process their feelings. Give them time to sort through their emotions without pressuring them to respond quickly.
Be patient with yourself: You won’t be perfect at this; nobody is. Be accepting and kind to yourself when you make mistakes or if you struggle to regulate your emotions from time to time.
9. Respect Boundaries
Honor emotional boundaries: Know when to give your partner space when they need it. Respecting boundaries fosters a sense of safety and respect in the relationship.
Set your own boundaries: Clearly define what’s acceptable and what’s not for you emotionally, and communicate these boundaries to your partner with care and clarity. You cannot have a relationship with mutual respect without mutual boundaries. As difficult as it may be for you, express your boundaries and assert them respectfully when needed.
10. Seek Resolution, Not Victory
Compromise when needed: Not every emotional issue can be resolved with logic. Relationships require give and take. Being emotionally intelligent means knowing when to compromise for the sake of harmony without losing sight of your core values. Nobody is a loser when the relationship wins as a whole.
11. Practice Gratitude
Appreciate the positives: Regularly express gratitude for your partner and acknowledge the good things in your relationship. This helps build emotional closeness and counters negativity. I find the act of counting blessings to be a great way to shift perspective and mitigate unhappiness. We live in a time where social media lures us into comparing our relationships with snapshots of romantic imagery online. This isn’t conducive to healthy and satisfactory relationships in real life, but you can avoid the pitfalls by practicing gratitude in your prayers, to your partner, and yourself. Don’t you agree that preserving the happiness of your real life against the attacks of the digital world is a sign of emotional intelligence?