5 Ways to Strengthen Your Relationships with Friends, Family and Romantic Partners 5 Ways to Strengthen Your Relationships with Friends, Family and Romantic Partners 5 Ways to Strengthen Your Relationships with Friends, Family and Romantic Partners Michele Hart Law

Date: December 31, 2022 | Author: Michele Hart

Relationships matter.  In fact, they are essential to our very survival.  Scientific research reveals that social connection and relationships are essential human needs that improve our physical health and mental and emotional well-being.

As a family lawyer and conflict resolution strategist, I have a regular front row seat to what appears to be hopeless disconnection – and I help people gain a greater understanding of each other’s perspectives and a sense of cooperation when they ultimately reach agreements about their children and financial futures.

Close personal connection makes a dramatic difference in our lives.  Personal and social connection is when we experience feeling close to and a sense of belonging with others.  It is when we have shared experiences, relatable feelings, or similar beliefs or opinions.

According to the Harvard Study of Adult Development, one of the world’s longest-running studies of adult life, social connection may be our single greatest need after food and shelter.

The Harvard Study started in 1938 during the Great Depression and shows that close relationships are what make us live long and happy lives.

According to psychiatrist Robert Waldinger, director of the Harvard Study in his viral TED talk, the research revealed three lessons:

  • Having social connections is better for our health and well-being; and conversely, loneliness kills; lack of social connection over time affects our health more than smoking, obesity, and high blood pressure; prolonged loneliness can have the same effect on our health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.
  • Having higher-quality close connections is more important for our well-being than the number of connections.
  • Having good relationships is not only good for our bodies, but also for our brains.

New York Times bestselling author and research professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work, Brené Brown, Ph.D., LMSW agrees that a sense of social connection is one of our fundamental human needs.  According to Dr. Brown, connection is the energy that is created between people when they feel seen, heard, and valued; when they can give and receive without judgment.

Building close friendships and romantic relationships can be difficult, particularly as we get older.  It is ironic that close relationships are essential to our mental, emotional, and physical health, even for our very survival, yet where and how can we learn to build and maintain them?

Such essential life skills are not taught in schools and there are no how-to manuals.  So what can we do?  Below are 5 ways to strengthen your relationships with friends, family and romantic partners:

1.      Be open and curious about our emotional experiences.

It starts with us.  We might open up to the belief that we all deserve and are capable of close personal relationships.  It’s important to pay attention to the parts of us that might be holding us back from connection.  For  example, if you tend to harshly judge and easily distrust people, where does that come from?  We can only change what we acknowledge.

According to Brené Brown in her New York Times Bestseller Rising Strong, we can start by getting curious about our own emotions, thoughts, and behaviors.   Dr. Brown points out that emotions like hurt don’t go away simply because we don’t acknowledge them.  In fact, if left unchecked, it festers, grows, and leads to behaviors that are completely out of line with whom we want to be, and thinking that can sabotage our relationships and careers.   She suggests we can commit to blaming others less and holding ourselves more accountable for asking for what we need and want; we can parent by telling our kids that it’s ok to be sad or hurt- it’s normal and we just need to talk about it.

The irony, Brown says, “is that at the exact same time that we are creating distance between ourselves and the people around us by off-loading onto others, we are craving deeper emotional connection and richer emotional lives.”  As difficult and uncomfortable as it is to talk about emotions, not talking about them ultimately causes greater disconnection and damage to relationships than feeling our way through them and committing to learning an empowering vocabulary to have tough conversations.

Likewise, medical resources show that when we try to hide or ignore emotions, they go deep within and can cause ulcers, back pain, and any number of illnesses.

2.     Use the language of connection.

When we acknowledge what’s going on for us, we can learn to pull out of our automatic knee-jerk emotional reactions and settle into choosing the response in that moment that’s going to build that connection for the benefit of the relationship.  Check out this post for examples.

3.     Mindset matters.

When approaching new friendships and relationships, assume that people will like you.  According to Marisa Franco, a psychologist who studies friendship and authored “Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make — and Keep — Friends,” people you meet are more apt to like you than you presume.

4.      Reach out.

Sending even a brief text message to check in, just to say “Hi”, that you are thinking of them, and ask how they’re doing can be appreciated more than people think, according to a 2022 research study.

5.      Try these 36 Questions for Increasing Closeness

The Greater Good Science Center based at UC Berkeley, which provides a bridge between the research community and the general public, designed 36 questions to overcome barriers to closeness with “reciprocal self-disclosure.”

According to Greater Good, while this exercise has a reputation for making people fall in love, it can be useful for anyone you want to feel close to, including family members, friends, and acquaintances.

The idea is to reveal increasingly personal information about yourself to another person, as they do the same to you.  Research shows that spending just 45 minutes engaging in this type of self-disclosure can dramatically increase feelings of closeness.

The challenge can be that we need to be willing to open up, which isn’t always easy.  The 36 questions are designed to encourage both people to open up at the same time and at a similar pace and reduce the likelihood that the sharing will feel one-sided with an opportunity for the other person to respond positively to our self-disclosure.

The questions are also designed to mirror the gradual getting-to-know-you process but at a more accelerated pace.  You can check out the questions with instructions here.

Just as we might do to stay healthy with diet and exercise, it’s equally, if not more, important to develop and nurture our personal relationships so essential for our well-being.

Like this post?  Sign up for our newsletter and receive more tips, updates, advice, and inspiration right to your inbox.

Tagged with: , , ,
Share on: