We move now from Action Plans that look inward to those that look outward toward our interaction with others, in particular with our spouse. We want to learn more about our spouse and grow in our appreciation of them. To improve our ability to do so, we will look at our capacity to experience empathy in several different situations. For example, you and your spouse may go sit in a mall and watch people’s body language as they walk by, thereby becoming more aware of the need and the ability to read the emotions of your spouse. Or you may work on becoming a better listener by focusing in as a co-worker complains to you about some job situation, or as your spouse explains something they are concerned about.
As you work on developing the ability to be empathic, you will continue to work on being more aware of your own emotions and improve how you are managing your emotions. Hopefully, you will also be enjoying the other couples you are spending more time with. These are the foundation blocks for being more empathic with those you care for most. Being comfortable with your own emotions sets the stage for being able to experience someone else’s emotions.
You can have a lot of fun with the ten Action Plans that follow. You will find that some of them will be on your mind as you shop, work, or even stand in line at the grocery store. You are going to become a skilled people watcher. Enjoy it as you grow!
Action Plan #R1—Spend Time People Watching
Take some time to people watch. Find someplace comfortable and watch the world go by. While sitting in a mall or a coffee shop, notice things like what people do with their eyes. Do they look at you, or do they avoid looking at you? What does their face reveal about their mood or their emotion? How fast are they walking? This is the introduction to the next Action Plan, which looks more specifically at body language. In this Action Plan, all you are doing is getting comfortable watching other people.
As you and your spouse do this together, talk about what you observe. When you go out to eat, watch the other people and talk about what you see. The goal is to become more observant of other people as a fun introduction into more advanced people watching.
Action Plan #R2—Pay Attention to Body Language
We talked earlier about how our faces speak the universal language of the emotions. So begin with showing each other what the basic emotions look like on your faces. Show your spouse an angry face, a fearful face, a sad face, and a shameful face. Include the positive emotions and show each other a joyful face and a surprised face.
In understanding body language, you always begin with the face. Look at the eyebrows. Are they raised or lowered? What about the mouth? Is it relaxed, or does it look tense? Look especially at the eyes. Are they looking away? Are they shifting? Is there too much blinking? Can the person look you in the eye? Are they relaxed? Then look at the head. Is it tilted? Where is the person looking? Are they saying yes but shaking their head no? Are they looking down? All of these are the primary “words” of body language.
To better hone our skills, it helps to compare notes. Reading body language is a complex art, and you both are probably beginners in how to interpret the different expressions. You also need to listen to your intuition, for it is usually in tune with body language.
We also have what are called “micro expressions.” When someone wants to hide an emotion, they will try to prevent it from showing on their face and body. But they can’t hide it completely, so there will be a micro expression that gives it away. Let’s say someone is angry but doesn’t want anyone to know it. In a microsecond before they give a fake smile, the expression of anger will show on their face, and then it will disappear. It takes practice to pick up micro expressions, but they can be caught if you’re watching for them.
Once you are somewhat comfortable reading the face and the head, move to the shoulders, the torso, and the arms and legs. Are the shoulders back? That can indicate either confidence or hostility, depending on other signs. Notice if the arms are crossed. Has the other person turned their body partially away from you, or are they facing you? Are any arm gestures close to the body and tight? Does the person act distracted, such as noticing you have some lint on your shoulder and reaching to pick it off? Notice especially the gestures that seem spontaneous and exaggerated.
The body language shown when someone is lying is something everyone is curious about. Ex-CIA specialists on TV tell how they detect a person is lying, especially with micro expressions. One of the things they notice is where a person’s hand is while they talk. A possible indicator of someone lying is speaking with their hand or fingers in front of their mouth, as if they are trying to hide what they are saying. When a person is lying, their eyes move rapidly, and they don’t maintain eye contact. Their breathing increases, and their voice changes. Be careful, though—these are generalizations and can also indicate that the other person is simply nervous.
As you people watch, develop your skills to work at reading body language in general. For example, I was once watching a family walking in a line at a restaurant, one behind the other. The teenage daughter was at the end of the line, and her body language had “I don’t want to be here!” written all over it. Her head was down, she looked both angry and sad, and her shoulders were slumped forward as if she had been forced to come on this outing with her family. She obviously did not want to be there.
Now, I could be very wrong. If Jan had been with me, I would have pointed out the family and listened to determine if she saw the same things I did. She might not have. To her, the young woman may have appeared to be feeling sick, or she may have just been disciplined by one of her parents, or she may have just gotten the short end of some deal with her younger brother.
No one is an expert, but we are all learning. And as we learn to watch other people, we develop our sensitivity and ability to read our spouse’s nonverbal messages as well.
Action Plan #R3—Work on the Three A’s of Empathy
On the way to building our skill of empathy, we may feel we are so out of touch with each other that developing empathy seems impossible. Many people struggle with just getting their spouse’s attention. Here are three A’s that will help you get back in touch with each other.
The first A is to simply carve out some time when you can each attend to the other person. Take advantage of any time that you are both together without distractions as an opportunity to just be together and to connect with each other. I’ve suggested to couples that they take fifteen minutes after dinner to just sit and talk as friends. No problem solving! The foundation of a healthy marriage is the marital friendship. When you can, just sit and talk about all the mundane things that happened during your day, just like you might do with a friend.
If your date night involves going to a movie, there’s usually not much connecting happening while you watch it. It’s too much like sitting at home and watching TV. You’re sitting side by side, not facing each other. Therefore, your focus is not on each other but on the screen. Nothing wrong with that; it’s just not a connecting behavior. If you go to a movie on your date night, plan to go out afterward and talk about what you just watched. Or if you’re watching something on TV, turn off the TV when the show ends and talk about what you just watched. Attending to each other doesn’t involve deep, heavy conversations. Begin by keeping it light so you can strengthen your friendship.
The second A to work on is your attachment to each other. There are three behaviors that, taken together, form an attached, bonded connection with another person. First, the other person needs to be available. Only when there is availability is there the potential for attachment. Think about this in terms of a child. How can there be an attachment if the mother and father are not available to the child? There can’t be, and when we are too busy with life and family and are unavailable to our spouse, the attachment suffers.
Another part of attachment is responsiveness. We may be available to our spouse, but if we are unresponsive to them, the attachment will suffer. Mom may have been available when we were a kid, but if she was so preoccupied with her own world that she wasn’t responsive to us when we needed her attention, the attachment was weak and insecure.
The last piece that builds an attachment is to experience acceptance. If I feel you accept me and are both available and responsive, there will be a secure attachment.
The third A of getting back in touch is that we are able to experience attunement with each other. This means we are tuned in to our spouse even, and especially, when we aren’t together. It’s hard to be attuned to someone when they are “out of sight, out of mind.” But when we are attending to our spouse, securely attached to them, and in tune with them, we will develop an awareness of them, just as we do with our kids. We carry their concerns with us at all times. That’s laying a foundation for building empathy.
Action Plan #R4—Overcome Barriers to Empathy
In the previous chapter, we highlighted four obstacles that can limit our ability to be empathic, which are summarized below. Take some time together to talk about each one.
Action Plan #R5—Develop Basic Empathy Skills
Let’s assume you both are able to be empathic at least at some level with each other but wish you could deepen your skills. Where do you begin that process? For starters, to remember when you first met each other. Then think back to the time after you had started dating and realized, “This is the one.” Talk together as you answer the following questions:
Needed less sleep and ate less
Made that person your priority
Thought about that person often when apart
Looked forward to being together
Laughed a lot and were playful
Talked together endlessly
Accepted each other’s differences
Don’t get upset if you don’t experience all of these right now—they are the symptoms of couples falling in love. They make up what has been called an “altered state of consciousness,” and fortunately, they don’t last for more than a couple of years. They may come and go at times and appear at varying degrees, but they can’t be maintained. Yet recapturing the memory of those days gives you a great setting to describe three things you can do today.
First, help your spouse understand they have a place in your heart. Stop talking to yourself about what’s missing in your marriage relationship, and rediscover why you chose them to be your spouse. Practice daily the sense of awe at the uniqueness of your spouse as you remember some of those early feelings of interest, love, and acceptance.
Next, open yourself to what your spouse is experiencing emotionally—good or painful. We did that automatically in the early days before we tied the knot. Perhaps you’ve become too task oriented, too insecure on the job front, or too overwhelmed by the family and the kids to pay attention to what your spouse is feeling. Take the time to find out what in the present makes your spouse happy or sad or scared. Rediscover things like their favorite movie, favorite food, or favorite activity. Be willing to work at loving your spouse unconditionally—like you did at the beginning.
Finally, when you find out what your spouse is feeling, validate those feelings. Don’t problem solve—as we said earlier, just listen. One husband told his wife he wanted to hear about as many of her painful feelings as she was willing to share with him. He promised that he would simply listen. He wouldn’t jump in to explain or defend himself; the focus would be solely on her and what she described as her feelings.
She didn’t think he could do that but took him at his word. She made several pages of notes, and they sat down for him to listen. She launched in and went through her list and then some. He surprised her as he not only listened carefully but also took notes. It led to many other sessions with both of them talking because he simply listened. He communicated to her by his behavior that he valued what she had to share.
Action Plan #R6—Practice Listening
Listening is hard work. We not only have to focus on what is being said, but we also have to be aware in some way of what is not being said. I’ve worked with wives who think their husband is not listening, and the wife finally says, “You’re not listening!” So he repeats to her word-for-word what she just said. That stops her for a moment, and then she typically says something like, “That may be what I said, but you didn’t really hear me.”
He’s confused until I suggest that maybe what she meant was that he didn’t really hear her heart. He heard the words, but he didn’t hear the passion, the concern, or even the emotion behind what she was saying. Listening isn’t just about hearing the words—it doesn’t take much effort to parrot those. When we are skilled listeners, we have learned how to pay attention to the nonverbal information—to hear not only the words but also what lies just below the surface.
Here are some suggestions on how to really listen. When your spouse wants to talk, stop everything else and sit down close. Then look her in the eyes as she talks. I’ve suggested to some men that they put their hand on their wife’s forearm. It helps her feel connected as he listens and helps him to focus on what is being said. Don’t listen so long that you lose track of what the other person is saying; ask them to pause a minute and let you try to summarize in your own words what you’ve just heard. Then ask them to continue.
I’ve suggested couples do the following when the topic is potentially volatile. They are to do this at a specific time once a day until the issue is either resolved or clarified. Each person is to have a pad of paper and a pen, for it is important to take notes. Either one can begin, and they have fifteen minutes, with no interruptions, to make their case. After that time, the other person gets fifteen minutes to make their case without interruptions. The catch is, you cannot respond in this session to anything your spouse has said. That’s why you both have to take notes. In tomorrow’s session, each person’s fifteen minutes are used to add anything new and to respond to what the spouse said yesterday. The other rule is that the subject can only be discussed in the formal thirty-minute time frame. No talking about the subject at other times!
There is always a twenty-four-hour delay in responding to, correcting, or countering something said by the spouse. The delay forces you to take notes, which communicates that you are serious about listening. I’ve asked couples to do this who used to spend hours arguing about a specific subject. At the end of a week or two of following these guidelines, they came in and told me they finally ran out of things to say. They couldn’t fill even five minutes, let alone the fifteen-minute allotment. If you’re stuck on some subject and can’t get a handle on it, try this exercise.
Action Plan #R7—Live More in the Now
Living more in the present means we have resolved the issues of the past and are more trusting about the future, which leaves us more open to the here and now. The basic emotions that can become oriented to the past are anger and shame, which usually lead into depression. We get stuck living in the past if we consistently ruminate about what we should or shouldn’t have done, or what someone else should or shouldn’t have done. We struggle with the guilt of toxic shame and keep trying to remake the past so we don’t feel so angry, guilty, or shameful.
When we are caught up in the past, we are at some level trying to remake the past into something more acceptable. That may work for a moment, but soon we’re back trying again to fix what we thought we had remade. The obvious point is the past cannot ever be remade. It is what it is. So how do we resolve the past? The same way God has resolved it—through forgiveness.
In The Prince of Tides, Tom Wingo, the main character, says, “In families there are no crimes beyond forgiveness.”1 That is a biblically sound principle. God’s plan is for us to release the past so we can enjoy the present, and to do that we are called to forgive. We need to forgive others who have wronged us, and probably the hardest part of it all is that we need to forgive ourselves as well.
As believers, we can say, as Tom Wingo did, that there is nothing beyond our ability to forgive. Why? Because of how much we have been forgiven. God took the debt of our sin, which we could never repay, and canceled it through the cross when he gave his Son to die in our place (see Col. 2:13–14). He forgave us when we didn’t deserve it, so that’s how we can resolve the issues of the past—we forgive!
The basic emotion of the future is fear, and with it often come anxiety and worry. If we continually live in the future, ruminating on our fears and worries, we effectively shut down our experience of the present. In Matthew 6, Jesus gives us the reason that worry, along with fear and anxiety, is not to be part of our daily living. In verse 24 he says, “No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other, you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and be enslaved to money.”
Now, he’s not just talking about money, although that is probably one of the main things we worry about. He’s asking, “Whom are you going to trust—are you going to trust God, or are you going to try to control the future with whatever you fear and worry about?” That question is clear from the verses that follow: “That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life. . . . Can all your worries add a single moment to your life? And why worry about your clothing? . . . Why do you have so little faith? So don’t worry about these things” (vv. 25, 27–28, 30–31).
When I fear the future and am anxious or worried, I am choosing to trust in my fear, worry, and anxiety. It’s like I’m saying to God, “I’ll take care of these things with my worry. I’ll try to trust you with everything else.” So the principle is at the end of verse 24, where Jesus says you cannot serve both God and whatever you fear or worry about. Fear, worry, and anxiety all bring into focus what or whom we are going to trust.
As you clear up the issues of the past and of the future, you are released to fully live in the present. Make it a habit to enjoy the present moment. You can still make plans for the future, but not at the expense of the present. You can still remember the past, but not at the expense of the present. Be fully present with your spouse and with your family and friends.
If we are going to respond with empathy, we have to be living in the present.2
Action Plan #R8—Avoid the Lies We So Easily Believe
Whether we lie to ourselves or someone else lies to us, there are three lies we tend to fall back into that will short-circuit our ability to be empathic. Take some time to evaluate whether or not you’ve used any of them with each other.
Action Plan #R9—Reverse Roles
Think back to the old days before you started to practice SMART Love. An argument would begin, and while one person was presenting their impassioned side of the argument, the other person would listen for a brief time to catch the flow of their argument and then stop listening. They already knew what their spouse was going to say. So instead of listening, they planned their rebuttal.
Of course, once the first spouse who seemingly started the argument stopped talking, the other spouse jumped in and presented their side. Then the first spouse repeated the pattern—they listened for a short time to catch the drift of the second person’s argument, then stopped listening in order to restructure their point of view.
The point is, typically there are no surprises in these arguments. You both know what the other person is going to say. You really could argue either side of the issue. So here’s the plan: Take an unfinished “argument” and switch sides. The husband has to argue the wife’s point of view, and the wife has to argue the husband’s point of view. Set a timer for ten minutes and see if you can last that long. When finished, laugh a bit at how each of you handled the opposite point of view, and then talk about what the other missed or overlooked in their presentation. Talk also about how well the other person captured your emotions as they presented your side of the argument.
Research has found that about two-thirds of the things couples argue about will never be resolved. Surprisingly, this statistic is the same for couples who are successful in their marriage and for couples who fail and end up divorced. The difference is that successful couples have learned how to dialogue about the problem and even eventually laugh together about “going around the same mountain again.” Couples who fail in their marriage grow increasingly hostile as they hit the same roadblocks over and over again. Role reversal can help you learn to laugh together about the same old arguments.
Action Plan #R10—Get the Bigger Picture
One of the things I try to teach couples is that in their relationship, there is no such thing as absolute truth. All relational truth is subjective—it’s how I see and experience something versus how you see and experience the same thing. It’s like two people who have witnessed an accident from opposite corners of the street. What each saw was only part of the picture, and it was subjective based on their perspective. They may even offer conflicting accounts, because they saw what happened only from their individual vantage points. They both presented what they believed was the truth, but it was an incomplete truth, or what I call subjective truth.
It takes courage and strength to realize there is no point in arguing about subjective truth. The goal is to get the bigger picture, and like at an accident, that often requires an expansion of the subjective truth, or the acceptance that the “truth” is subjectively true. In the case of the accident scene, other factors will be brought in to come as close as possible to the absolute truth. There’s the physical evidence, other eyewitness accounts, and the testimony of both drivers. Taken all together, a bigger picture is created, and it is usually closer to the reality of what happened.
Let’s take it a step further. How about getting a bigger picture of how others see you? A close friend of mine invited six of us to a meeting in his conference room. He told us he wanted to get a more accurate picture of himself, so he was going to leave the room for an hour. The six of us were to come up with three characteristics that represented his strengths and as many characteristics as we wanted that represented his weaknesses. He encouraged us to be frank with him when he came back for our feedback.
That took courage on his part as well as ours. But we did what we were asked to do, and an hour later he returned. It was like asking six people to do a fearless moral inventory of him—I was glad it was him and not me. Yet it turned out to be an incredible experience for him as he invited the feedback so he could get a more accurate picture of himself. He wanted to get closer to the real truth about himself.
Don’t be afraid of the bigger picture. Enlarge the picture!