How to Increase Connection in Your Relationship: Bridging the gap

Ineffective communication in relationships is both a cause and a symptom of relationship problems. Poor conflict resolution can cause a deepening hurt, a hostile environment, and issues that are never understood or resolved. An inability to connect through words can cause or perpetuate emotional distance in the relationship. Incompatible attachment styles can manifest as avoidance of communicating about important issues. Personality differences can lead to misunderstandings and arguments about important and unimportant aspects of the relationship. Increasing connection in your relationship is an ongoing process that can pay huge dividends.

Fixing communication in a relationship requires effort and commitment from both parties; it requires bridging the gap between you and your partner. Too many people come to couples therapy with a belief that one person is mostly to blame for the problems in the relationship. However, very few couples have found success by just one person adjusting or making changes in the relationship. Bridging a gap is rarely accomplished by bringing one side of a crevice to the other. Rather, it requires building a bridge that meets in the middle and allows movement to both sides. The ability to see the view from both sides is crucial in being able to see eye to eye.

Lost connection: Why can’t my partner and I see eye to eye?

Individual differences can result in disagreements and difficulty seeing eye to eye. While couples are formed when two individuals join, this joining does not remove individuality and necessitates effective communication to build an effective partnership.  An effective partnership can result in a synergy where the strengths of both can be utilized to create a strong team. Likewise, inevitable individual weaknesses can be bolstered by the strengths your partner.

Disagreements usually do not mean that one person is wrong. Often, both people’s perspectives have merit. The view from one side of the crevice is different than the view from the other. Effective communication involves learning to build a bridge so that both views can be seen/understood. Seeing both sides of the issue is often required before effective solutions might come to light.

How to begin building a bridge of connection through communication

Bridging the gap requires movement from both partners. Sometimes the movement is learning and practicing new communication skills. Sometimes the movement is toward developing a greater sense of empathy. Sometimes the movement is simply shifting one’s mindset toward a willingness to see things from the other person’s viewpoint, not necessarily to achieve agreement but rather to achieve understanding. Specific strategies for listening to understand can be found in my four-part blog about effective listening.

Often, bridging the gap means new communication skills need to be learned, especially skills related to the effective expression of emotion. Many people grew up in environments where emotion was not effectively expressed or even honored. Perhaps emotion was thought of as a weakness to be disregarded. Perhaps expression of emotion was explosive, volatile, or blaming. Perhaps expressions of emotion were met with invalidation and shaming. Because emotion is such a vital facet of close relationships, bridging the gap can be facilitated by learning how to identify, label, and accurately express the feelings experienced by one or both people. Of course, effective listening, as mentioned above, is also important to bridge the gap.

Effective expressions of emotion can require nuance and skill. For example, many people sound as though they are expressing emotion when they say, “I feel like ___________.” However, such a statement is more often an expression of a thought rather than a feeling. Furthermore, the thought being expressed is often an interpretation of the other person’s behavior. If the other person does not agree with this interpretation, a defensive response is likely to result. As a simple example, consider the example of saying, “I feel like you are not listening to me.” A typical response might be, “Not true, I AM listening to you.” Now the discussion has turned into an argument of an interpretation of whether one person is listening to the other or not, which derails the conversation away from the original goal. A more effective way of expressing the feeling might be to say, “I am feeling unheard.” This is a way of owning the feeling rather than pointing fingers, which will hopefully lead to an opportunity for understanding of emotion rather than argumentation about interpretation of behavior.

Bridging the gap by learning to offer comfort

One of the roles of a romantic or marital partner is to offer comfort to our partner. Different people are comforted in different ways, and we do not necessarily enter the relationship inherently knowing how to comfort our partner. Thus, one of the ways to bridge a gap in our relationship is to help each other learn how we like to be comforted. Most couples I’ve worked with struggle to tolerate bad moods and negative emotions that their partner experiences. Some partners find dealing with emotion so foreign that they shut down when emotion shows up. Some partners perceive expression of emotion as some sort of relationship manipulation. Of course, none of us typically wake up looking for ways to feel bad.

When someone is upset and their partner ignores, shuts down, or gets angry about it, this contributes to a gap in the relationship. Learning how to tolerate and offer comfort in such instances can not only help to bridge the gap, but it can also potentially help the person upset through the moment more quickly (although this should not be the goal of offering comfort). So, learning and practicing ways of offering comfort to your partner can be crucial to relationship success.

Many times, people are not immediately aware of what is comforting to them. One way to explore what might be comfortable is by asking about times in their lives they have felt comforted (e.g., when they were a child or by a friend). Perhaps they feel comforted by hugs or having their back scratched. Perhaps they feel comforted by hearing “It will be okay.” Perhaps they feel comforted by having someone simply sit with them without pushing them to feel better or do anything specific. When some possible comfort measures have been identified, look for opportunities to practice offering such comfort and check in with your partner to see how it went. Remember, offering comfort will not mean that the person immediately feels better…that’s not the goal. This might mean engaging in metacommunication (communicating about communication…look for a future blog that will explain the concept in much more detail) to hone the strategies you use to comfort each other over time.

Bridging the gap by attending to all the roles

Early in a romantic relationship, we have a few roles in relation to our partner – friend, romantic partner, sexual partner. As the relationship progresses, we typically take on more roles such as roommate, financial partner, marital partner, parenting partner, and life partner. These additional roles often demand more attention, energy, or interaction and our original roles (i.e., friend, romantic partner, sexual partner) can start to be neglected. If this happens, the original connections that brought us together in the first place can erode and negative sentiments about our partner can begin to creep in.

Attending to all of our roles with intention and sufficient frequency is another way we can bridge the gap in our relationship. Creating time to spend together as friends can help remind us that we like spending time together. For example, my wife and I have always enjoyed music and look for as many opportunities as we can find (or afford) to go to concerts together or play music together (I play guitar and sing, she plays the drums). This helps us feel connected and maintain positive feelings about each other. Spending time together as romantic partners is also important. One target might be to do something romantic once a week, go on a date once a month, and take a romantic trip together once a year. This can help keep the spark alive and the flame burning in your relationship.

Of course, each of the roles we have in relation to our partner need attention. Scheduling time to talk about finances is important so that too large a gap does not form there. Developing effective communication and decision-making skills about parenting might be important in your relationship. Identifying and maintaining mutually acceptable division of labor in the home can prevent or reduce conflict as roommates. And learning effective communication around sex can be crucial. For example, agreeing on ways to initiate sex, ways to decline sex, and ways to talk about how to help your sex life feel more fulfilling can reduce the chances that a gap will form in that aspect of your relationship.

Summary and action steps to increase connection

Bridging the gap(s) in your relationship will not happen without intention and effort. The summary and action steps below are a general outline of how you can begin to bridge the gaps in your relationship. Of course, each relationship will have different gaps and different needs. In addition, assessing your efforts to bridge the gaps and making necessary adaptations to those efforts can be useful as you go.

Step 1: Get a lay of the land and make a plan.

• Identify where you think gaps in your relationship are. Ask your partner where they see gaps.
• Figure out if the gaps are due to simply having never considered some aspect of your relationship, due to ineffective communication, or due to differences in values, preferences, or personality.
  • Gaps attributed to differences in values or personality might require a slightly different approach involving recognizing perpetual conflicts and learning how to engage in ongoing dialogue rather than becoming gridlocked.
• Create a plan to address bridge the gaps.

Step 2: Learn and practice effective communication skills.

• Improve emotional intelligence so that you can identify, label, and verbalize your feelings effectively and, in reciprocity, hear and understand your partner’s feelings.
• Remember that the initial goal of communication in close relationships should be to develop understanding between the two of you. Resolutions that both of you find acceptable can only be identified by mutual understanding of differing perspectives.
• Take turns setting aside your own feelings and perspectives to focus exclusively on understanding your partner’s feelings and perspectives.
• Be thoughtful about not just what you say, but also how you say it. Remember, you are talking with a friend and someone you care tremendously about. While any intense emotions you experience in the moment will eventually dissipate, hurtful words can have a longer lasting impact.
• Remember, learning new skills takes time and practice to achieve mastery; be gracious with yourself and your partner as you work to make positive changes in the relationship.

Step 3: Learn how to offer comfort to each other.

• Maintain an empathic perspective toward your partner and teach each other how to offer comfort in moments of distress.
• Check in with each other about attempts to offer comfort and improve these efforts across time.

Step 4: Recognize and attend to the varied and numerous roles you have in relation to each other.

• If you find yourself frustrated with your roommate, for example, look for ways to bridge the gap to reduce the frustration in that facet of your relationship so it does not begin to spoil the other facets of your relationship.
• Each role/facet in your relationship deserves attention. Neglecting any of the roles can create a gap that might eventually lead to distance in the relationship as a whole.

If you find that you are having trouble bridging the gap, do not hesitate to seek out professional support. An effective therapist can help you understand some of the deeper roots of relationship gaps and identify targeted strategies to help you bridge the gap more effectively. I would always be honored to explore the opportunity to help you and your partner bridge the gaps in your relationship or would even be willing to consult with you about how to find a therapist that might meet all your needs better than I (e.g., location, cost, etc.). Visit my homepage (https://inctherapy.org) to schedule a free telephone consultation to see how I can help.  

If you are a podcast listener and are looking for more info on creating closeness in your relationship, this podcast by the Freeman’s might be up your alley. 

Dr. Mike Ghali, owner of Individual and Couples Therapy, has been practicing therapy for over 20 years. While physically located in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where he holds in-person sessions, you can also schedule virtual sessions with Dr. Mike from any state that has enacted PSYPACT legislation. Learn more in the FAQs.

If you’d like to schedule a free 15-minute consultation call INC Therapy, please click Schedule Free Phone Consultation at the top of the page. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact Dr. Mike at info@inctherapy.org. Please do not include sensitive clinical information in emails.

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