Empathy is defined as the ability to understand another person’s or your
own partner’s feelings, thoughts and attitudes by understanding him or her very
deeply.
According to Marriage Counsellor Shivani Misri Sadhoo, being empathetic
means you're aware of someone's emotions from their perspective; you feel what
they feel. Although it's important to be empathetic in every personal
connection you have, but when it’s the matter of your marriage, enhancing your
empathic ability is very important to maintain a long-lasting romantic
bond. When we look at the world from our partner’s point of view, we
begin to bridge the gap of understanding between us.
Counsellor Shivani also warns that in most
relationships with time, partners tend to stop practicing empathy and that
silently kills the bond, joy and happiness that two partner potentially can
enjoy even after decades of staying together and bringing up children.
The major reasons, why partners stop being empathic in relationship are
mainly due to two factors:-
a. Lot of people have the tendency to
take their marriage and their partner for granted over the period of time and
they stop putting the additional effort to understand their partner and make
them happy.
b. However in most cases, partners stop
becoming empathic without their self-noticing. When people get
emotionally activated by tension, fear, and anger, it becomes
extremely difficult for them to empathize with and understand the other
person’s perspective—they get too wrapped up in our own thoughts to be
able to think clearly.
Here are some important tips to become and remain empathetic towards
your partner:-
1. Put yourself in your partner’s shoes
Showing empathy in a relationship can strengthen
you and your partner's bond. That's why one of the best ways to be more
empathetic is by simply imagining yourself in their position. People who lack
empathy tend to also lack an understanding of how they themselves feel in
various situations.
Therefore, a good starting point is to remind self
to consider how your partner feels as they endure life’s mixed bag of good, bad
and neutral experiences. This exercise will put you down to pathways that
allows you to understand other’s experience as well.
2. Communicate Your Emotions
Happy couples often show their empathy by communicating verbally that
they are taking the time to imagine what their partners are experiencing. In
addition to listening, expressing to your partner that you understand what
they're going through can show them that you're being more empathetic to their
emotions instead of just dismissing them.
3. Be Active by asking the right questions
When you start asking questions about your partner’s
emotional state, it will communicate that you're concerned about your partner’s
problem, and about his/her happiness and about the relationship.
Being more attuned with your partner's emotions can allow you to notice
when they're down before they even mention anything.
4. Listen to your partner without Judgement
When people listen to others with a judgemental
mind, they never let the other person complete their sentence by interrupting
them by reacting prior, slowly this tendency stops the the partner to share
his/her thoughts and emotions. Hence when you listen to your partner, listen
without judgements and with an open mind, take time to react and revert to your
partner if you feel something that is troubling them.
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