Let’s face it: relationships are tough, but people who figure them out do better in life. Men in long-term marriages live longer, have better health overall, report higher levels of happiness, and tend to be wealthier. Divorce, to say the least, is expensive.
While there are a host of tools that marriage counsellors teach couples who are struggling, ranging from boundary setting to negotiating conflict to expressing needs in a non-threatening manner, the tool that underpins it all is empathy.
But what is empathy?
Empathy is the ability to understand the feelings of others and feel some of the things others do solely by witnessing them. There is much debate about whether empathy is inherited or learned, and like every human feeling and behaviour, I believe it is a bit of both. Some people are born more empathetic than others. But, at the same time, some family systems fail to teach empathy to children. This is especially true with boys, who are often taught that the only acceptable emotions are anger and aggression in athletics.
A teaching moment for empathy might happen when a small child steals from another. Families who teach empathy do fewer time outs and more asking about how the victim might feel and what restitution can be done to help the other child feel better. Punishment alone sends a message that a kid is bad; punishment with an opportunity for understanding and repair gives a child a mastery over social skills. Children who aren’t taught empathy can become callous adults, oblivious of the hurt and pain they create in others.
So let’s assume your family wasn’t so emotionally wired. And, to top it off, you were raised with traditional gender parenting and taught not to express your own feelings. And now you are looking at a crying or angry wife who keeps saying you don’t understand her. What’s a guy to do?
I must interject here that when women leave relationships, they most often say it is because their emotional needs aren’t being met. So if you think that working harder to give her more stuff or buying lingerie to give her more hot sex will fix the problem, think again. Women want to feel seen and heard. Don’t you?
There are four strategies to master empathy skills:
Self-Awareness: It’s really hard to imagine an emotion that you don’t have. The first place to search for your spouse’s feelings is inside your own head. Famed psychologist Robert Plutchik identified eight basic human emotions. From there, spin many layers of human feelings. Learning self-awareness means checking your stomach, breathing and muscle tension for signs of the following emotions in yourself.
Basic emotions: joy, trust, fear, surprise
Basic opposite: sadness, disgust, anger, anticipation
Non-Judgment: Empathetic people tend not to judge another person but to instead attempt to understand them. Rather than responding to your spouse with defensiveness, instead take some time to examine her intention. Is her nagging you about your gaming “addiction” aimed at taking away a pleasure from you, or is her intention to create more time to enjoy you? Is her criticism of your favourite torn clothes intended to reduce embarrassment for her or to nurture you into being the best you can be? Taking the time to ask her in a calm way about why she seems to be attacking you can help you have empathy for her situation.
Listening Skills: Men have a spectacular skill of being able to tune out certain sounds and practise selective listening. You may have even heard her words, but did you really understand the feelings behind them? The best way to increase empathy skills is to become an active listener and rephrase what you thought you heard and then feed it back to her. For example, she might say, “That guest bathroom toilet seat drives me crazy.” And you say, “You hate it when I leave the toilet seat up.” And then she clarifies, “No, I just hate it with the guest bathroom because that’s the one our guests use, and I like to make things really comfortable for people who come to our home.”
Self-Confidence: When learning to be empathetic, you have to like yourself first. It’s really hard to love and respect another person (especially their faults) if there is a self-loathing jerk ready to pounce. Empathy is about being patient, kind and ready to not always be right. Working on accepting your own foibles will prepare you for understanding others.