This current Weekly Reframe is written by someone very dear to my heart; my mother, Deborah K. Ward, LCSW-C. She is a certified advanced Imago Relationship Therapist who specializes in teaching families and couples new skills to repair old wounds and create lasting experiences of true emotional safety. This article is about the power of good listening and how it can transform any difficult relationship into a thriving one. 

My young daughter walks with me around her grandmother's Florida community. We pass lots of people riding bikes, playing tennis, on their way to one place or another. We are on holiday sharing mother-daughter time, holding hands. She shares stories about her life, about friends and feelings, ideas and dreams. I listen at first but then find I am drifting, soothed by the sound of her voice, the cadence of our walk, the warm summer day. My attention slips away, and I am unaware that I am no longer tracking what Jen is saying.  She squeezes my hand and gently brings me back.

"Mommy, are you listening?" she asks.  

"Yes, of course, Sweetheart, I (her trusted listener) am always listening to you. 

"What did I say, Mommy?"

"Well... I... You... Um... Err..."

I frantically search my memory but her words are not available. I think to myself, "I was just listening. My ears were open... What is the problem? Why can't I tell her what she said?" I am embarrassed. I search for an appropriate parental response, wanting to suggest I've really got this handled, but find myself falling deeper into the abyss of insincerity. Her story is nowhere in my sight, but I want to minimize my failing so I emphasize, instead, brief impressions of what I think she said. I show a vague, yet earnest effort, hoping this will satisfy. But Jen, the wise girl she is... knew what she knew.

"You didn't listen, Mommy".

I want to argue the point and hide from this moment, yet

her hand holds securely to mine. She does not pull away. Her love is unconditional and when I realize this, I feel ashamed to have let her down.  A silence sets in between us...

"You were pretending to listen Mommy."

The light of her simple conclusion illuminates the moment. I appreciate the chance she takes in sharing her honest experience.

"I'm so sorry, Jen. I thought I was paying attention... but I can't really put into words what you said."

No response. My heart is sinking. We walk further in silence. I judge myself and feel despair.

"Mommy," she says, "I want you to listen... like my diary. "

"How does a diary listen?" I ask. 

She considers her response. "I write down what I have to say and when I'm done I close my diary. Later, I come back and what I said is still there, the same as I said it.  I love my diary because it doesn't change anything.  It always keeps my words the way I wrote them. I want you to listen like that, Mommy.  So I know you can say what I said, when I ask you again. Okay?"

In her example, Jen expressed a principle of listening and in that moment, I was given another chance. I promised my daughter that day I'd find a way to listen and remember what she said. I knew this would take more then a promise.

Safety is perhaps the single most important ingredient in predicting the success of any given relationship. For happiness and true satisfaction to occur in a relationship, both partners need to experience that they are free t authentically be themselves, and that who they are is genuinely accepted by their partner, if not truly and deeply valued.

There are two primary components of safety. One concerns the attitude that you hold toward your partner, and the other has to do with the behavior that you demonstrate with your partner that deepens their experience of safety.

The attitude that promotes safety is one in which you affirm and believe that your partner fully and completely has the right to be him/herself, and that you deeply want that for him/her. This is true even at those times when you may disagree with a particular opinion that s/he may hold or disagree with a particular action that s/he may want or need to take. While this attitude allows you to have different opinions than your partner has, and allows you to make requests that your partner consider alternative actions, it grants your partner the sovereignty to do it or think it their way without reprisals from you and without your withdrawing your love from them or shaming, blaming or threatening them in any way.

The foremost behavior that deepens your partner's experience of safety within the relationship is that of active listening. The way that listening succeeds in any given dialogue is to understand and practice the principal of first seeking to understand the other person before seeking to be understood. This principal is outlined as habit #5 in Stephen Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

The most common mistake that couples make in most conversations is to proceed with going forward with their agenda of what they want the other person to know before they fully and deeply understand what their dialog partner is wanting them to know. This is the conversational equivalent of two people trying to go through a revolving door at the same time; things get very jammed up very quickly.

Successful listening involves knowing and practicing the art of one person communicating a thought or a feeling at a time, with the other partner setting him/herself up to be understanding or receiving what is being sent over before sending a message of his/her own. This is very much like a game of catch, where you must first receive the all before you can throw it back. The analogy is similar to baseball where the pitcher pitches and the catcher receives, or like in football where the quarterback throws and the receiver catches.

Harville Hendrix has a model of this procedure which he calls the couples dialogue that he explains ad speaks to in his books. Keeping the Love you Find, and Getting the Love You Want. John Gray in Men are From Mars, Women are from Venus, and in Mars and Venus Together Forever, speaks to the tremendous importance that listening plays in the creation of a successful relationship.

Fred Kleiner, Ph.D. 5/27/99