6 Steps to Being a Great Listener

It doesn’t matter what the reason is for a couple to seek my services. Infidelity. Fear of commitment. Frequent fights. Parenting. In-laws. Money.

One topic always comes up.

“He doesn’t listen to me.”

“I apologized. What more do you want from me?”

“My feelings don’t matter to him.”

“She doesn’t hear me.”

“As soon as you told me, I fixed it! Why are you still bringing it up?”

How we talk to our partner about a difficult topic for 15 to 20 minutes can set the mood for a full day. A week. A month. Or even, the whole relationship. It can create a series of conversations full of blame and resentment that end up being sprinkled across the span of your relationship.

When hard topics come up, each partner has a role to play. One partner shares their difficult emotion. The other partner listens.

It sounds simple, easy. Anyone could do it! Wrong. We mess it up all the time. Including me. No one is immune to f*cking it up. In this article and next one, we are dedicating space for this topic.

This week, we will focus solely on the role of a listener.

Listening to our partner share something negative can be extremely difficult. When they share with us about a bad thing that happened to them, we want to protect them, offer advice, fix it right away. We want to take away their pain. When they share with us how we hurt them, we automatically want to apologize, defend, or explain ourselves to them to ensure they know we didn’t mean to hurt them on purpose.

STEP 1: SLOW THE F*CK DOWN

The moment your partner shares their feelings with you, you need to stop and listen.

DO NOT:

a.        Protect them.

b.        Fix anything.

c.        Offer advice.

d.        Apologize

e.        Defend/Explain yourself.

Your only job is to listen and to understand their experience. Their experience, from their – not yours – perspective.

Good phrases to use:

“Tell me what happened.”

“I want to hear everything.”

“Start from the beginning.”

STEP 2: IDENTIFY THEIR FEELINGS

Listen beneath the facts of the story for the emotional experience. Pay attention to what might be hurt, fear, disappointment, loneliness, anger, embarrassment, rejection, etc.

Good phrases to use:

“It sounded like you felt really {insert the feeling you think you heard from them}”

“Tell me how it made you feel.”

“This has to be hard.”

STEP 3: REFLECT BACK WHAT YOU HEARD

Let them know you heard them. Reflect back their experience to them in your own words rather than simply repeating their words. This is super important! This is the moment where your partner will feel seen by you.

Examples:

“You were excited to tell me about it, and when I barely responded, it felt like I didn’t care.”

“When I talked over you at the party, I made you feel like your opinion didn’t matter in front of our friends.”

“When {insert a person here} did {insert an action here} it resulted in {insert an outcome here} and it made you feel {insert an emotion you heard from your partner}.”

STEP 4: VALIDATE YOUR PARTNER’S EXPERIENCE

Connect the feeling to their experience. Make sense of it. Let them know you understand.

Good phrases to use:

“I can see why that would have hurt.”

“Given everything you’ve told me, that reaction makes total sense to me.”

“It makes sense to me that you are {insert an emotion(s) here that your partner shared}.”

STEP 5: STAY WITH THEIR FEELING

Don’t immediately fix, explain, apologize or move on after Step 4. Once we validate, we don’t want to rush toward resolution. We actually want to hear them. This is the part where our partners might actually tell us what they want us to do, so we don’t have to come up with our own solution.

Good phrases to use:

“That sounds really painful.”

“What are your thoughts on this?”

Allow some breathing space for them to continue talking and processing their experience with you.

STEP 6: CONFIRM WHAT YOU HEARD

Did you actually understand them? Ask questions for clarification. Summarize what you heard from your partner.

“Am I getting this right?”

“Did I leave anything out?”

This is your quick map to listening to your partner. Validating their experience, their feelings, their truth, without jumping in to fix it, to provide advice, to defend or explain yourself is a key to navigating a discussion about a hard or a difficult topic.

And validation is not agreement. You can validate your partner’s hurt without agreeing with every conclusion they shared with you. You can understand their experience without feeling responsible for them. You can validate their feelings without accepting full responsibility for all of them.

Next week, we will discuss how to share a hard or a difficult topic with your partner.

Until next time, Artur

ps. Did you know that in addition to being a Couples Therapist, I'm a Certified Life Coach? I offer Relationship and Sex Coaching to individuals and couples worldwide. Coaching is not psychotherapy. It's a different modality that allows me to work with people beyond the boundaries of psychotherapy. To learn more, check out my website.