Suggestion #3: Radical Curiosity…

It can be a real joy to lose ourselves in the experience of another person. It can also feel strange at first, if you’re not used to it, and it might take some effort. Curiosity—real, deep curiosity about what others are experiencing—goes a long way in important relationships. It opens up avenues of conversation and knowledge that we never knew were there. It helps others feel understood and appreciated. It’s important even in less significant relationships, where it can set a precedent of caring and increase the strength of new, fragile bonds…

The crucial point is that being curious helps us connect to others, and this connection makes us more engaged with life. Genuine curiosity invites people to share more of themselves with us, and this in turn helps us understand them. This process enlivens everyone involved. The “strangers on a train” experiment points to these cascading benefits, which we’ll discuss much more in Chapter Ten. Even a small interest in another person, a brief word, can create new excitements, new avenues of connection, and new pathways for life to flow.

Like generosity, curiosity is an upward spiral.

We specifically asked research assistants who did not have extensive training in psychology to rate the emotions in these videos. Would these untrained observers’ natural human ability to recognize how others are feeling be useful in predicting stability in relationships?

Five years later, we checked back with the couples to see how they were doing. Some were still together, some were not. When we set their relationship status beside our research assistants’ ratings of emotions in their earlier interactions, we found that the ratings predicted with close to 85 percent accuracy which couples had stayed together. This is consistent with many other studies showing that emotions between partners are a critical indicator of whether intimate relationships thrive or fail. The fact that raters with no special knowledge of psychology could accurately predict relationship strength was significant because it showed that most adults have a facility to accurately read emotions. Most of the raters had not yet experienced deep, longer-term relationships, yet when they looked closely, they could sense important, sometimes subtle emotions and behaviors in the couples. Emotions drive relationships, and noticing them matters.

These findings, along with our findings about the importance of empathic effort (discussed in Chapter 5), point to an important idea about intimate relationships: if a couple can cultivate a bedrock of affection and empathy (meaning curiosity and the willingness to listen), their bond will be more stable and enduring.

So when you bump up against something about your partner that bothers you, before reacting, pause to watch, and take note of your reactions and what you are thinking.

Then interpret your feelings and try to make sense of what’s going on.

Ask: Why is this issue important to me? What exactly is my view? Where does it come from? Is this something I learned from my family growing up? Something I learned from previous relationships? Something that was emphasized in my religious training?

Then, the harder part: try to step into your partner’s shoes. Why is my partner having such a strong reaction, behaving in this particular way, thinking this particular thing? Why might it be important to my partner and where might my partner have learned this? Where is it coming from?

First, listen without commenting.

Then, try to communicate what you’ve heard your partner say without judgment (this is the hard part). You might begin with something like: What I’m hearing you say is ___. Is that right?

A second technique that is helpful in its own right and can make reflective listening even more valuable is to offer some understanding of your partner’s reasons for a feeling or behavior. The goal is not to point out your brilliance and ability to see things your partner cannot, but to let your partner know that you see them. You want to communicate that it makes sense that she feels this way or that he is behaving in that way, and to nurture that bedrock of empathy and affection that research has shown to be valuable. For example, you might say, It makes sense that you feel so strongly about this... and then continue with something like: since you care so much about being kind. Or: ... since this was the way you’ve described things happening in your family growing up.

A third useful practice is to try to step back a bit from the conversation, a practice that psychologists call “self-distancing,” and look at your experience as if you are watching someone else. You might notice the thoughts that this person (i.e., you) is having, and recognize them as fleeting thoughts that may shift. This is a technique that shares much in common with mindfulness approaches, and the psychologists Ethan Kross and Ozlem Ayduk have done a lot of research showing its utility. Together these practices may help you to get started with challenging conversations and hang in there emotionally when things get tough, to slow down, and to show your partner that you’re trying to understand.