How to Give (and Receive) Emotional Support

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There are many benefits to being in a romantic relationship with a responsive person. Responsiveness means recognizing your romantic partner’s needs and providing timely care and support.

Individuals with responsive partners tend to make more progress toward achieving personal goals, enjoy greater intimacy, have higher sexual satisfaction, and experience less stress and depression.

Of particular importance to healthy relationships and happiness is emotional responsiveness, which involves demonstrating interest in and sensitivity to another person’s needs.

Individuals with emotionally responsive partners are more likely to feel understood, accepted, validated, and appreciated.

How does one demonstrate emotional responsiveness (and encourage the same in one's partner)?

Published in Current Opinion in Psychology, a recent paper by A. Gordon and E. Diamond of the University of Michigan provides some answers.

Three sources of feeling appreciated

Feeling understood and appreciated is central to responsiveness. There are three sources for these feelings: your partner, you, and shared experiences.

1. How to make your partner feel understood and appreciated. It is helpful to engage in relationship maintenance behaviors. These could be anything from taking out the garbage on time to actively encouraging the sharing of views, opinions, and emotions.

In general, try to be expressive, attentive, and supportive. For instance, during conversations, listen actively, maintain eye contact, ask thoughtful follow-up questions, provide considerate responses, and validate your partner’s feelings.

2. How to encourage your partner to acknowledge and value you. By being supportive and appreciative yourself, you encourage your significant other to do the same. Aim for openness and honesty during emotional conversations. Avoid getting defensive, shutting down (stonewalling), or blaming.

Also, examine the evidence for your beliefs about your partner. To illustrate, it is not unusual for a person who is depressed or has low self-esteem to believe, mistakenly, that their spouse does not get them and, as a result, feel less accepted, understood, and loved.

Be mindful of your motivation to feel understood and valued. If this motivation is too strong, it might promote the belief that your partner completely understands your feelings regarding an issue, even if the evidence shows they have no idea at all.

3. How shared experiences increase mutual understanding and appreciation. Simply put, aim for synchrony. Synchrony, a key aspect of interpersonal chemistry, refers to experiences during which two people’s emotions and thoughts converge, and both feel understood and valued. This can occur when engaging in activities you both value or enjoy—be it going to the movies, attending concerts, or taking a class together.

Another way to increase synchrony involves body language mimicry (e.g., mirroring posture, facial expressions, and speech rhythms). The importance of body language mimicry becomes clear only when it is absent. For example, you may feel a sense of disconnection if your spouse remains serious as you recount a funny story or leans back as you lean forward to share something deeply personal.

How does feeling understood and valued affect relationship quality?

Research suggests feeling known, understood, and valued by a partner can buffer negative experiences.

This occurs due to positive sentiment override, meaning positive general perceptions of one’s relationship and romantic partner. When positive sentiment override occurs, one is more likely to interpret a specific behavior in a positive way and give their partner the benefit of the doubt.

Furthermore, positive sentiment override encourages cognitive reappraisal. Cognitive reappraisal involves thinking differently about an emotion-eliciting event or situation, such as relationship conflicts (e.g., division of labor, financial problems).

Feeling understood and appreciated may, additionally, act as a buffer against feeling insecure. For example, a recent longitudinal investigation concluded that perceiving greater gratitude from a partner was associated with reduced attachment anxiety, both immediately and in the following year.

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Cycles of responsiveness and gratitude

Whether through words, attitude, or action, a romantic partner who expresses gratitude is often perceived as worth appreciating. Through this mechanism, gratefulness can promote responsive and supportive behavior that helps maintain the relationship.

Indeed, when Partner A expects to receive respectful and kind treatment during conflict discussions with Partner B, A may be more willing to show vulnerability and share private feelings, thoughts, and desires. This, in turn, encourages supportiveness on B’s part, giving rise to a cycle of responsiveness.

An opposite pattern may result when responsiveness is absent, and insensitive and hateful behaviors have taken its place. Emerging from these hateful interactions may be a vicious cycle of anger and destructiveness (described in detail here).

Takeaway

We have been discussing behaviors that can help your partner or spouse feel understood and appreciated and behaviors that would make it easier for them to validate and value you, too.

Examples of these behaviors include:

• Being expressive, supportive, and attentive.
• Engaging in high-quality listening and relationship maintenance activities.
• Establishing open and honest communication.
• Being mindful of the effects of relationship-relevant beliefs and motivations.
• Cultivating synchrony.

A romantic relationship characterized by mutual understanding, respect, trust, care, and appreciation can not only buffer against stressful events but also give rise to cycles of responsiveness that promote happiness and relationship satisfaction. So, working on improving responsiveness may be worth your time and effort.

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