In my capacity as a relationship therapist based in Esher, I have been reflecting recently on how partners in couple relationships give and demonstrate care to each other and for each other.
I am struck by how often one partner tries to be more attentive, caring and loving and makes huge efforts to change, but their new stance doesn’t seem to land quite right with their partner. This can lead to deep frustration and a feeling that they are stuck, and a sense in the partner trying to offer love that nothing is enough or ever will be.
In these situations, the challenge can often come down to the difference between empathy (what your partner needs) versus ‘decency’ (what you are inadvertently offering).
While this is not gender-specific, more often than not in heterosexual relationships it’s the female partner who needs empathy, and instead the male partner offers decency. In the rest of this piece I’ll therefore assume this kind of relationship.
Decency can be thought of as being kind and respectful, generous especially with tasks and activities such as childcare, keeping the partner informed about schedules, spending more time in the home, being true to your word, solving practical problems in the household etc. The (male) partner feels he is doing the right thing and has changed. He’s behaving in exactly the way he would wish to be on the receiving end of.
So what, you may ask, is the problem with this? All of these actions and behaviours of course may be welcomed, and may make a couple relationship feel better. However what is missing is feelings and emotions. The male partner may be failing to recognise what his partner actually needs and is craving, which can be summed up as empathy.
Empathy starts from a very different place from decency. Decency is about offering the ‘right’ thing. It tends to be practical and solutions focused. Empathy however is about understanding your partner’s experience and feelings, and responding to that in a much more personalised way.
Decency is about offering things that apparently ‘anyone’ would want and therefore might be obvious to the partner, while empathy needs to be explored in a much softer way.
In my consulting room in Esher, in couple situations like this, it’s often something of a revelation to the male partner when his wife says that she’s not looking for solutions and practical action, but that she simply wants to listened to, understood and to hear that her feelings are valid, reasonable and natural. This takes time, attention and a gentle, generous conversation.
Here are two short examples to illustrate this. First, ‘Mark’ recognised his wife’s frustration with him, most obviously in the cold reception she received when he came home from work. He assumed his behaviour was at fault, and made great efforts to be a decent husband hoping for a warmer reception. He made sure he was reliable and thoughtful about domestic tasks, and offered cups of tea all the time – even these were refused. What she needed was none of this, it wasn’t even directly about him – she needed to have conversation about how alone she felt in her thoughts, about her life, her work, her abilities as a mum, and her future (and therefore theirs). A cup of tea might have been the start of a conversation about feelings, but in this case it wasn’t.
Keith’s wife, Angela, has difficulties with anxiety in her everyday life, and can come home upset with what she feels is behaviour of others against her. Keith tries to reply in the ‘right’, decent way, by saying things like ‘I’m sorry you feel like that’. This is a little like a ‘politician’s apology – ‘I’m sorry if my words have offended you’ – the implication being the problem is your sensitivity to the issue, not the issue itself. And while this may be part of Angela’s difficulty, it is absolutely not what Angela needs from Keith – she needs space and time to talk about her feelings, to say what it was like for her, and to hear that while her feelings may not be rational (because feelings aren’t rational), her feelings are ok to feel, even if Keith wouldn’t respond like that.
A final thought – often, empathy is talked about as being an innate intuitive ability, that you either have it or you don’t.
While there may be some truth in this – that some find it easier than others to be empathetic, it can be learnt, and the idea that it’s a fixed thing is I think unhelpful as it can stand in the way of development. It can certainly be worked on in couples therapy, with both partners working together on change.
If any of this resonates with you and you would like to explore the issues further either as a couple or individual, do get in touch.