What Happens When You Actually Start Listening to Your Partner

The Illusion of Listening

For the first few years of my marriage, I thought I was a great listener. If there was a pop quiz on the words my wife had just spoken, I would have scored an A. I heard the words.

But there is a vast, uncrossable canyon between hearing words and actually listening to a person.

Listening to Reply vs. Listening to Understand

I realized I was mostly listening to reply. I was analyzing her sentences for logical flaws. I was preparing my counter-arguments. I was waiting for my turn to speak.

One evening, during a particularly frustrating argument about something trivial, she stopped and said, "You're treating me like a deposition. I'm your wife."

That broke me. She was right.

The Shift

I started practicing what therapists call "active listening," but what I just call "shutting up and paying attention."

I stopped trying to fix her problems. I stopped defending my intentions. I just started saying, "Tell me more about that."

What happens when you actually start listening? The walls come down. The defensiveness evaporates. When a person feels truly, deeply heard, they don't have to yell anymore. The volume of the entire relationship turns down, while the intimacy turns up.

Listening is the quietest, most powerful form of love.