Listening to Your Partner’s Feelings: 5 Ways to Show Empathy

Highlights:

• Empathy means seeing things from another person’s perspective and understanding their feelings.
• Empathy begins with truly listening to your partner.
• People who experience empathy from their partner feel more supported and satisfied in their relationship.
• Empathy is a skill you can practice and develop. It’s not a trait that you have or don’t have.

Healthy relationships are built on back-and-forth communication that sometimes involves doing the talking and sometimes doing the listening.

When both partners speak honestly (and are truly heard), it builds a bond of emotional closeness. 

Listening intently to your partner allows them to feel heard and can help you put yourself in their shoes. Understanding how another person feels is the crux of empathy — and in romantic relationships, empathy has many benefits. 

Here’s how to better listen to your partner’s feelings and shower them with some all-important empathy.

What does empathy mean? 

Empathy sometimes gets confused with sympathy, but the two aren’t the same. 

Sympathy typically refers to feeling compassion or pity for another person, while empathy refers to seeing the world through another’s eyes. 

According to the American Psychological Association, empathy involves “understanding a person from his or her frame of reference rather than one’s own, or vicariously experiencing that person’s feelings, perceptions, and thoughts.” 

In romantic relationships, empathy can have some far-reaching effects. 

Older research found that the more empathetic spouses were toward each other, the more likely they were to report higher levels of marital satisfaction.

What’s more, women in empathetic relationships had reduced levels of major depression. 

Another small study involving 50 married or cohabitating couples revealed that empathy created a greater sense of support between partners. 

Looking at life through your partner’s eyes can help bring the two of you closer.  

How do you show empathy? 4 ways 

Empathy is like a muscle you can strengthen. Here’s how to practice it with your partner.

1. Actively listen

Expressing empathy toward your loved one begins with active listening.

Start by setting aside distractions (ahem, put down your phone) and giving them your full attention. Then, let them speak as long as they need to about whatever is on their mind. Try not to interrupt.

Remember, too, that active listening involves comprehending what another person is saying and offering signs that you’ve heard.

As your partner speaks, make consistent or frequent eye contact, nod, or speak short phrases to show you’re with them.

Consider bringing a notepad and jotting down notes while you’re listening. This can help if you know you tend to interrupt or find it challenging to remember details.

2. Put yourself in their place

This is the heart of empathy: listening to your partner’s feelings so you can see things from their perspective.

Once you’ve gotten a sense of what they’ve expressed, try visualizing what it would be like if you were in their position. What emotions might you feel? Name them to yourself. 

This may take time and practice — and it’s always hardest when your actions have caused hurt or offense to your partner — but it’s worth the effort. 

3. Don’t judge

Often, it’s easy to see what your partner could do differently in a situation — and all too tempting to tell them exactly how to fix it. But it’s best to withhold judgment and hold your tongue to show empathy

If asked for advice, you can always give it, but in the moment, it may not be what your partner needs to hear.

4. Affirm and validate

Rather than rattle off ways your partner could spring into action, simply offer affirmation and validation.

Statements like “I can see how that would be upsetting” or “I’d be frustrated by that, too,” show that you understand their feelings. 

You can check out this article for more examples of what affirming and validating can look like.

5. Offer loving gestures of support

Whether your partner is sad, angry, frustrated, or joyful, you can offer real-world signs of supporting them in their emotions. To determine what would feel good to your mate, consider what they appreciate most. 

If they’re the physical touch type, offer a hug when they’re feeling down. 

Or if quality time makes them feel loved, plan a celebratory date night when they’re excited about a promotion or a job well done.

If you’re truly lost, it never hurts to ask them, “What would support look like for you right now?”

With each act of love, you’ll show you’re with them through it all. 

How to listen better in a relationship 

Becoming a better listener to your partner builds trust and empathy, ultimately strengthening the health of your relationship. You can listen better in the following ways:

Make eye contact 

When your partner is speaking, demonstrate active signs of hearing them. Maintaining eye contact indicates they have your undivided attention.

Practice active listening

In addition to using body language to show you’re listening, try repeating your partner’s statements back to them. Start with phrases like “I hear you saying…” and paraphrase what you’ve heard. 

Don’t offer advice

We don’t always want an immediate call to action when sharing our deepest thoughts and feelings.

Honor your partner’s emotions by withholding advice in the moment. There may be another appropriate time to offer helpful tips.

If you find it really challenging to hold back from giving advice, consider asking for consent before you do, suggests couples therapist Erin Davidson. You can ask your partner something as simple as, “Would you like solutions or support?”

Empathy dos and don’ts

• Do: Mentally put yourself in your partner’s shoes.
• Don’t: Judge them based on what you would do in their situation.
• Do: Verbally express affirmation.
• Don’t: Jump to giving advice or “fixing” things. 
• Do: Consider concrete actions to show support.
• Don’t: Rush the process. Give your partner plenty of time to sort through their emotions.

The final word 

Active listening, non-judgment, and affirmation are all pathways to cultivating greater empathy toward your partner. 

The more empathy you develop for your loved one, the more you may receive it when you have strong emotions yourself.