If you have begun to feel less comfortable, less free, and less safe in your current relationship, the first thing to do is to try to identify what it is that is causing you discomfort. It could be your partner’s manner of speaking, their behavior, or even the opposite – their passiveness.
You need to talk to your partner about it immediately and discuss the potential reasons for the change. In the long run, you should come up with possible solutions to the problem. This is often enough to bring the situation back under control. Both partners should stimulate interest in each other to have a harmonious relationship that brings pleasure.
I Read also: Is it Always Happiness to be Married to a Foreigner?
What is Emotional Safety?
Before discussing the issue in detail, let’s find out the emotional safety definition. It is the base of every healthy connection where both partners feel enough comfortable and safe. They are open, and can freely express all ideas and thoughts. Emotional safety examples prove that a feeling of total security is crucial in a relationship. This way, partners can go to a deeper level of intimacy at all levels of their connection.
Advantages of creating emotional safety
Luckily, these days experts began to devote enough attention to the latter in the case of psychological safety vs emotional safety. If you still hesitate about whether it is important for the development of your connection, then consider the following benefits:
- Your partner sees, hears, and knows your thoughts and feelings
- You do not have to pretend to be someone else
- You can show your weakness, and do not worry about the consequences
- You can feel your personal value
Simply put, rebuilding emotional safety leads to saving energy between two people. This is an incredible feeling of unity that gives partners confidence, and inspiration.
How to Create Emotional Safety in a Relationship?
Experts admit that a connection without emotional safety is just an attachment. If you want your connection to be deep and happy, then you are recommended to take an effort for building emotional security. At first, it may be rather challenging, but soon, you will see an impressive transformation in your relationship.
1. Become an active listener
Your partner will feel comfortable sharing any information with you if they understand that you really listen to them. Therefore, active listening is what people should practice promoting emotional safety in a relationship. Some ways to do this are:
- Asking questions to understand the issue better
- Sum up or reflect everything that the partner has said
- Smile, nod, and keep eye contact
2. Respect boundaries
You should set your own boundaries and respect your partner’s personal limits as well. It is important not only for you but for the relationship in general. There are various types of boundaries such as financial, emotional, sexual, etc. Once you establish your limits, it’s necessary to ask the partner to keep respecting them all the time. For instance:
- Having your own time
- Respecting things that are crucial for you
- Communicating at the level which is comfortable for you
3. Remember about non-verbal communication
Every time you communicate with your partner, pay attention to your lips, vocal tone, posture, etc. If you approach your significant other with short words, hard eyes, then they may feel unsafe. Simply put, you should care not only about the meaning of your phrases but the way you say them. Focus on developing the right body language is the right way to build emotional safety in families.
A Few Do’s for Emotional Safety in Marriage
If the couple lacks interest in each other – the relationship will sooner or later fall apart or simply worsen. In that case, experts do not recommend seeking solace or advice from relatives or close friends. As a rule – it’s useless.
The easiest way is to have a frank talk with your partner. If the conversation was successful and you have reached a necessary compromise, the next step is to look for new mutual points of interest, as well as opportunities to interest or surprise each other.
This can be anything, as long as it would bring newness and new feelings in your relationship:
- Traveling;
- New mutual interests;
- Joint hobbies;
- Joint selection of a new car;
- Help in choosing clothes in a store;
- Going to the cinema or a restaurant;
- A trip on quad bikes in the mountains.
You can also arrange a joint vacation somewhere by the sea or in the mountains, most importantly away from home and familiar surroundings. One of the effective ways to “add heat” to your relationship is to change sexual habits and diversify your sex life together. For this purpose, you can arrange joint viewing of racy movies or regular visits to appropriate adult stores.
This greatly motivates new sensations and strengthens the mental bond, which will positively affect your relationship, your mental comfort, and, consequently, your emotional safety.
Emotional Safety in Relationships: Final Thoughts
The most important and necessary thing for building emotional safety is a constant dialogue. From the very beginning, partners need to learn how to speak with each other and listen to each other. Without this skill, any relationship is doomed to failure and any emotional safety is out of the question. Why is it important? Each of the partners is a unique personality with their own personal character, habits, and views on life. Relationships cannot be programmed once for life, they need to be constantly nourished with new “fuel”, giving the potential for new feelings and sensations.
Greetings! My name is Grace Mitchell. I am a licensed marriage and family therapist based in LA. While having vast experience in the relationship sphere, I worked with numerous couples, including international ones. I know all the nuances and possible obstacles to happiness that numerous people face when trying to create rapport.
