Could This Skill Save Your Relationship?
Get good at this, and it might just strengthen all your most important relationships
What complaint lands couples in therapy most often?
It might be this: “You don’t understand me.”
Psychotherapist Lori Gottlieb, in her book Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, tells the story of a woman who said to her husband, “You know what three words are even more romantic to me than ‘I love you’?”
The husband offered an option or two, but they weren’t the words his wife had in mind.
The most romantic words, she said, are “I understand you.”
Being truly understood by anyone is a gift. When you’re not understood, relationships can fall apart or stagnate, leaving everyone feeling unfulfilled. The ability to seek understanding is a skill that saves hurting relationships and helps stable relationships thrive.
Growing your ability to understand your partner
When you’ve been with the same partner for years, assumptions begin to be made. Maybe you think you know what she likes and dislikes, how he’ll respond to that idea, or what reaction you’ll receive at the end of the day. We take for granted that our partner’s job hasn’t changed, and so you assume she feels the same way about her work as she did before. Often you are right. Sometimes you are wrong.
Thankfully, the ability to truly understand your partner is a skill that can be developed with intentionality. These three steps will help.
Step 1: Ask more questions
The first step toward building your capacity for understanding is to ask more questions. Get curious. The only way to know what your partner is really thinking is to ask.
When I first introduced my then boyfriend (now husband) Cliff to my little brothers, I described them as they were in junior high when I’d left home. They loved The Simpsons and were sometimes loud and often annoying, I told Cliff. After he’d met them, he was surprised to find they were more mature than I’d described. “They’ve grown up, but your idea of them hasn’t,” Cliff told me.
This can happen in any relationship: we lock our understanding of someone in to who they were at a specific point in time, and we fail to see the ways they’ve developed and changed. The only antidote is to get to know the person again, by asking questions with curiosity.
Bonus: research shows that people who ask more questions are more likeable and build stronger, lasting relationships.
Step 2: Ask better questions
The second step is to ask better questions.
Even though we ask hundreds of questions a day, few of us have been taught the skill of asking good questions. Thankfully, you can ask better questions just by keeping two ideas in mind.
Good questions are open. A closed question has a predictable (often one-word) response. That can be useful for making a choice (“Do you want fries with that?”) but is less useful for starting conversation.
Asking your partner open questions gives the conversation room to grow. Imagine your wife comes home from work with a quizzical look on her face. “How was work?” will lead to a predictable answer. “What happened at work today?” offers more opportunity for dialogue.
Good questions ask for feelings rather than facts. Conversations that really produce understanding happen when you stop talking about facts (Did you pick up the dog food? Are we going to your mom’s this weekend? What do you want for dinner?) and ask instead about feelings, values, motivations, ideas, or experiences. (How are you feeling about seeing your aunt? This project seems to energize you—what do you like about it? What do you think about this headline?)
Find more examples of how to ask questions that focus on feelings, values, or ideas (without being weird about it) here.
Step 3: Practice looping
What do crisis negotiators and divorce lawyers have in common? They both use the practice of looping.
Looping is an active listening skill that ensures the other person feels heard and understood. To practice looping, you wait until your conversation partner has said something important. Then you summarize what you heard, and check for understanding. “Did I get that right?”
If you got it, great. If you didn’t, you let your partner restate what you missed, and loop again.
This may sound basic, but it’s also brilliant. This is the single easiest way to make sure your partner feels heard and understood.
The conversation is the relationship
Communication expert and author Susan Scott writes that “the conversation is the relationship.” The strength of your relationship, for the long-term, is directly related to what you’re able to discuss with your partner, and how you’re able to understand each other.
Weak communications signals a weakening relationship.
Growing your ability to understand your partner will save your relationship if it’s struggling, or strengthen it if it’s already strong.
Of course, asking more and better questions and practicing looping are just the first step to understanding. You must also grow your active listening skills, answer with vulnerability, and keep it up over time.
If you do, the understanding you create will almost certainly improve your romantic life. But it might also improve your other relationships as well.
This article was first published at the Good Men Project.
BONUS QUESTION
This is spring break week in Chicago. We had to shovel snow a few days ago, but my tulips and daffodils are starting to push green leaves through the surface, so spring is coming.
What are the signs of spring in your life?
BONUS CONTENT
Earlier this year, I had a great conversation with psychologist and parenting expert Chananya Abraham, about how to build connections between grandparents and grandkids, using questions. Check out the podcast.
Photo by Burçin Altınyay