Hi I’m Bex - a therapist and coach who loves helping others build their emotional, social and relational intelligence.
I write a weekly newsletter all about emotional well-being.
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Psychoeducation Tips
Relational Skills - What are they?
No one really teaches how to show up in relationships. We learn from our parents, the TV, our environment. We absorb the lessons almost unconsciously. It’s no wonder that we then discover we have completely different vies of the “work”that’s required to build and sustained a secure relationship.
I speak to a lot of people about their relationships; we tend to know our love languages, attachment styles as well as how to constructively communicate. And yet something can still feel off.
It’s at this point I like to introduce to concept of relational skills. They’re a great way to explore relationship strain and where the imbalance lies in a relationship.
Relational skills are the qualities, behaviours and the effort required to build and maintain secure relationships. They’re a form of work that both parties need to undertake to have an equal partnership.
Often one person in a relationship will do these behaviours more than another. For example, one person monitors the emotional climate, initiates conversations, and tracks what is unresolved. The other responds. Over time, this becomes a form of inequality, even in relationships that contain care and good intentions.
Here are some very practical ways you can talk about how the emotional labour is carried in your relationships.
Mutuality: Both people experience their inner world as legitimate inside the relationship. Not one person whose feelings reliably take centre stage and not one person who consistently adapts. When mutuality is missing, one party often finds themselves softening, timing, and editing their needs so the relationship can continue smoothly. This is often described as compromise, but over time it looks more like accommodation.
Attunement: Noticing tone, body language, withdrawal, and shifts in energy without needing to be instructed. When attunement is missing, one person frequently becomes the designated emotional broadcaster. They have to announce that something is wrong, explain what it is, and justify why it matters. This often happens when one partner says “if you don’t tell me, I don’t know,” but the deeper issue is often that they have not learned to look. Noticing is a skill. It takes effort. When only one person is doing it, labour becomes uneven.
Repair: This is about taking responsibility for impact rather than focusing on intention. When repair is missing, conversations about actions that hurt our partner an often slide into defensiveness, minimisation, or emotional collapse. We can then find ourselves managing our partner’s reaction rather than having our original hurt addressed. The person who was impacted becomes the person doing the work. Over time, people stop raising things, not because they are fine, but because nothing truly changes.
Care initiation: Checking in without being prompted. Reaching out because you care, not only because it has escalated or because you were asked. In many relationships, women initiate most emotional contact while men respond. Responding is not the same as initiating. When only one person initiates, intimacy starts to feel managed rather than mutual.
Holding space: means staying present with emotion without fixing, reframing, or minimising it. Many of us are socialised into problem-solving as a default response. Presence can feel unfamiliar but is a core relational skill. When holding space is missing, people often feel unheard even when their partner is trying to help.
These qualities do not grow through insight alone. Knowing about communication techniques, attachment styles, or childhood wounds can be useful, but change requires behavioural accountability. Learning relational skills we were not taught, noticing where we have been over-functioning. Both people being willing to tolerate discomfort as patterns change. This is a central part of the work I do in therapy. Making invisible dynamics visible, naming where labour is uneven, and supporting people to build practical relational skills so relationships can become fairer, safer, and more mutual.
If you’re reading this and recognising yourself or your relationship or if you’ve been circling the same themes over and over again, or if you’re feeling stuck in your relationship and want to explore what you could do differently reply to this email or book in for a call.