Emotional attunement in relationships sounds like a complicated idea, but it boils down to a relatively simple concept – seeing, understanding, and accepting your partner’s feelings.
Think back to a time where an argument over something small turned into a big fight between you and your partner. You both argue until you forget how the fight started in the first place.
Many times, arguments end up getting out of control because one or both partners are out of sync with how their partner is feeling. Instead of trying to see and understand their partner and what they’re trying to communicate, they get defensive or attack their partner. One partner is left feeling unheard and the other is left feeling attacked.
What’s a possible solution to this scenario? Becoming more emotionally attuned to your partner. With practice and the right mindset, you can increase your emotional attunement in relationships and create more positive habits with your partner.
What is Emotional Attunement?
As we mentioned earlier, the short and easy version of emotional attunement is the ability to see, understand, and accept another person’s feelings.
It we wanted to take it one step further, emotional attunement also involves the ability to validate another person’s feelings and accept that their feelings are separate from your own. You can take in someone’s emotions without reacting to them in a defensive manner.
How Do We Learn Emotional Attunement?
We learn emotional attunement in our early childhood. It depends largely on our relationship with our primary caregiver.
When we’re babies, we can’t regulate our own emotions. We rely on our caregiver to notice and respond to our needs. If our caretaker responded to our needs, we developed a sense of security in recognizing and communicating our needs. Over time, we would get better at expressing our feelings and eventually learn how to self-regulate our emotions.
For children whose caretakers didn’t respond to their needs, they may have learned to turn away from their emotions, shut them down, or bury them. They may be easily overwhelmed by their emotions and have trouble self-regulating their feelings.
Emotional Attunement in Relationships
So, how does our early childhood experience impact our relationships in adulthood? For starters, children with caregivers who displayed emotionally attunement learn how to recognize their own needs and express them.
This, in turn, makes it much easier to recognize and accept how other people, such as your partner, are feeling – without getting defensive or feeling responsible for their feelings.
When we don’t have a model of emotional attunement as a child, we might find it harder to recognize someone else’s emotions and respond, rather than react, to their needs.
Examples of Emotional Mis-attunement and Attunement
Let’s take the following scenario as an example:
Jenn and Matt have been married for 4 years and have 2 children. After dinner, Jenn is clearing off the table while Matt opens up his laptop and starts responding to work emails. Jenn tells Matt that she would like him to help out more and that she feels frustrated when he doesn’t offer to help clean-up. Matt immediately points out that he cooked dinner tonight, so he thought she could do the clean-up. He says that she never appreciates what he does around the house and that he’s tired of her criticisms.
In this situation, Matt is not emotionally attuned to Jenn’s needs. He’s not responding to what she’s communicating (that she’s frustrated and would like some help). He’s reacting to what she’s saying based on his perception of events. He gets defensive and tries to ‘win’ the conversation by using logic (he cooked dinner, he shouldn’t have to clean). He finally digs his heels in even more and projects his feelings onto Jenn (he doesn’t feel appreciated).
Let’s see how emotional attunement can help Matt and Jenn resolve this issue:
After Jenn communicates her needs to Matt, Matt takes a second to pause. He notices that Jenn looks tired and overwhelmed. He sees that she’s juggling many tasks at once. Her voice sounded anxious. He tells Jenn that he can see she’s having a hard time and that she doesn’t have to do everything alone. He reaches out to put a hand on her shoulder, and he says he can clear the table after he finishes up a few more work emails.
It seems fairly obvious how to spot the difference in these scenarios. In the second scenario, Matt is able to pause and use visual clues to see how Jenn is feeling, understand where she’s coming from, and accept her feelings.
In this case, Matt offered to help clean up. But it’s not always necessary to offer a solution. Sometimes just listening and showing that you see and hear someone’s feelings is enough.
Emotional Attunement Exercises You Can Do With Your Partner
Just because we learn emotional attunement in our early childhood doesn’t mean it’s too late to start now. Our brains have the incredible capacity to create new neural connections and rewire our habits. The more we practice these responses, the more natural they’ll become to us.
- Listen before you speak – It’s easy to get swept up in the emotions of an argument, which is why it’s always best to listen – and really digest – what your partner is saying before speaking.
- Always seek to understand first – People generally speak to be understood. Even if you don’t agree with what your partner is saying, try to put yourself in their shoes and see it from their perspective. Do your best not to get defensive.
- Ask questions – If you aren’t sure what your partner is trying to communicate, ask! Get specific so you can be sure you’re both on the same page.
- Use validating statements – I hear you. I’m here for you. That sounds really hard, I’m sorry you’re going through that. How can I support you?
- Notice your partner’s non-verbal cues – Oftentimes you can get a better picture of their emotional state by considering their non-verbal cues as well. Is their body tense? Are their eyes misting up?
What Are Things I Can Do To Become More Emotionally Attuned?
- Identify your triggers – Knowing your triggers will help you separate when you’re upset about something from the past versus what is happening in the present. It will also allow you to recognize when you need to take a breath before continuing.
- Feel your feelings – When you identify and accept your own feelings, it’ll be easier to do the same for your partner. Don’t run away from uncomfortable feelings. Give yourself permission to feel your feelings and not be ashamed of them.
- Own your feelings – It’s easy to blame your partner for your feelings – if only he did the dishes, I wouldn’t be upset with him. But it’s important to recognize that your feelings are your own and take responsibility for self-regulating them.
The Takeaway
When couples are not emotionally attuned to each other, it can lead to fights that feel repetitive and unproductive. That’s because one or both partners are reacting to their own perception of events and defending themselves rather than seeking to understand their partner.
It’s only through understanding our partners that we can start to break the cycle. Our emotions don’t have to derail a difficult conversation. We can observe and respond to their emotions – without feeling responsible for them or trying to ‘fix’ the situation.
If you’re having difficulties getting in sync with your partner or you want to work on becoming more emotionally attuned to each other, therapy can help. There’s no shame in seeking help. Get your relationship back on track with the help of a licensed counselor.
We have convenient locations in the Georgetown and Liberty Hill area. Give us a call, and we’ll match you. It’s that easy. At Central Texas Child and Family Counseling, we can’t wait to help.
In your corner,
-Jenna
