When A Relationship Contract Goes Unfulfilled

Learning Effective Communication Skills Can Help Repair The Damage

When people decide to enter into a relationship, they make an implicit contract with one another, even though it may never be formally articulated. In a good-faith relationship, the contract goes along these lines: I will respect, love, be loyal, seek to understand you and not judge you. I will support you emotionally and pull my weight until I die.

It is understood that this pledge is reciprocal because humans are creatures of fairness.

The Pitfalls of the Unfulfilled Contract

When a relationship runs into trouble, it may mean that the terms of the contract have not been met by one of the parties. However, it often turns out that both parties have not upheld their part of the bargain, not because they are bad people, but because they simply don’t have the skills to do so. 

The broken contract can manifest in numerous ways. Things like abuse, addictions, affairs or something as seemingly innocuous as unequal distribution of workload are just some of the behaviours that can break a relationship contract.

By the time people typically seek relationship counselling, the terms of their implicit contract have been broken to the point where the couple may have thoughts of separation. At this point they have usually bumped up against an inability to talk to one another in a constructive manner. But that does not mean the contract cannot be repaired. Learning to communicate with one another effectively can be a powerful tool in regenerating a wounded relationship. 

Learning to Communicate Is About Developing New Skills

After all, as with most agreements between people, a relationship requires good communication to sustain it and make it stronger. Most of us understand that effective communication is something that is important to keep a relationship healthy. It seems easy enough on the face of it, since all of us are naturally communicating every day. But few of us are born with the ability to understand how effective communication works or how to do it well. Very few of us ever gets to take a course in Relationship Communication 101. It’s certainly not a course they teach in high school!

Communication Is an Action

Communication is the act of letting someone know with honesty when you are satisfied or dissatisfied with his or her participation in the relationship. This sharing of information is as vital to maintaining the contract of a partnership as it would be to the smooth running of an organization.

It takes skill and perception to ensure that we’re constructively and effectively transmitting the information our partners need in order to gauge our satisfaction or displeasure within the relationship. We also need to learn to deliver our messages with goodwill and to recognize whether our partner has received the message as intended. 

It’s as Much About Listening as It Is About Talking

Letting someone know how we feel about their behaviour by naming our emotion, describing specifically their behaviour that is pleasing or causing us distress, and addressing the person in a non-offensive way are all skills that can be learned which will help us strengthen our relationships.

Crucially, the other key skill needed is listeningto what is being said without interrupting or becoming defensive, asking for clarification if required and being introspective enough to faithfully understand the behaviour the other person is talking about. 

The Subtle Art of Perception

Perception is perhaps the most difficult skill to grasp but it is an equally important one to add to our communication arsenal. My use of the term “perception” here is about the way we view reality, ourselves, our partner and, importantly, our assumptions about how the relationship contract is meant to work. 

Perception is unique to each of us since it is formed through childhood experiences and reinforced by wider society. That is why we need to learn how to recognize and articulate those very things that seem blatantly obvious to us. For example: if someone was constantly told to be quiet as a child they may not have developed the ability to deliver crucial messages to their partner effectively. They may not know how to be heard or may even be extremely uncomfortable speaking up.

On the other hand, if a person came from a home where there was a lot of yelling, they may express themselves in such an aggressive manner that their partner becomes immobilized because they are too frightened to hear the aggressive partner’s message. Meanwhile, someone who was criticized a lot as a child may hear their partner’s request for help with something as a put down. Or if someone was controlled as a child they may hear an expression of hurt about certain behaviour as an order rather than an appeal for understanding. In these cases people may become defensive and then all communication efforts go into lockdown.

Speaking Each Other’s Language to Genuinely Fulfill the Contract 

Learning to recognize how our perceptions inform what we hear from our partners, then, is a crucial piece for restoring our relationship contracts. In order to maintain a relationship contract with all its conditions and keep strengthening it, people must communicate effectively.

Taking the time to learn each other’s communication styles and the assumptions we’re each bringing to our implicit contract can enable a couple to reach across divides. That means acquiring competency in key listening and expressive skills while becoming aware how our personal perceptions are working within the relationship. We may need to address some of these assumptions so that they don’t interfere with our ability to resolve our differences.

The process of building a relationship that is mature, healthy and happy seems complex but it actually follows fairly logical steps. Of course it takes time and effort to learn these skills. It can be a long process to learn something brand new, but the reward of putting in the effort to develop a proficiency in communicating can lead you and your partner to a satisfying and fulfilling relationship