Understanding is not agreeing. The sentence most couples stumble over

Almost all couples who talk past each other make the same mistake: they believe that anyone who understands the other person’s point of view has already given in. That’s why they correct each other in the middle of listening. “No, that’s not how it was.” “I never said that.” And with that, the conversation is over before it has started.

In my experience, this mix-up is the most common reason couples can no longer reach each other after years together.

How you recognise it

It looks like this:

She talks about what it was like for her when he laughed at her in front of his parents on Sunday.

He says: It was only a joke.

She carries on.

He says: And anyway, you said something about me before that.

That’s where it ends. Not because he’s being nasty. But because he believes he has to defend himself, otherwise what was said counts as fact.

And she notices: He isn’t listening to me. So she tells it again, louder or in more detail. Which pushes him even further into defence.

That’s how hundreds of conversations go, where both are exhausted at the end and nobody has learned anything.

What’s behind it

Two things that are constantly confused.

Understanding means: I now know what it was like for you.

Agreeing means: I think you’re right.

They’re not the same, and you can do one without the other. You can know exactly what it was like for him and still think his view is wrong. Both at the same time.

But for the other person that isn’t obvious. That’s why he resists the listening itself. He’s afraid that not contradicting counts as an admission.

Once this sentence has been said and understood, something fundamental changes. In my work it’s one of the first to come up, and often the moment when couples sit up and listen.

What you can try this evening

You can practise the principle at home. It only needs two things: time in which nothing escalates, and the willingness, for once, not to correct.

One of you talks, the other listens. One topic, not a full account. And without “you always” and without “every single time”.

Then the listener only says what they heard. Not what they think of it, not how it really was. Only what came across.

“You felt humiliated when I made that joke.”

Then you adjust until it’s right. “Almost. The worst part was that everyone laughed.”

Then you swap. And only after that do you discuss.

Two sentences help to set the frame. For the one who’s talking:

“You don’t have to agree with me. I just want you to know what it was like for me.”

For the one who’s listening:

“I see it differently, and I’ll tell you that afterwards. Right now I first want to understand what it was like for you.”

The second sentence is the more important one. It allows him to listen without giving himself up.

Why summarising is so hard

Because it feels like giving up.

You hear an account that, from your point of view, isn’t accurate, and you’re supposed to repeat it without setting it straight. That takes effort, for everyone.

What helps is this thought: You’re not admitting that it happened that way. You’re admitting that it felt that way to her. And that can’t be disputed, because it’s her feeling and not your action.

There’s a second reason too. When you summarise, you have to leave your own world for two minutes. That’s exactly what couples in stuck relationships almost never do. They listen, but they stay sitting in their own interpretation and wait for the point where they can jump back in.

What counselling adds

To keep this honest: the part above is the beginning, not the whole thing.

If it doesn’t work for you at home, it’s usually not down to a lack of will. It’s down to two things that are hard to see from the inside.

The first is the level on which you speak. There’s a reason why a sentence meant harmlessly sets something off in the other person that doesn’t fit the situation. Making this level visible is the part of my work that changes conversations fastest, and it rarely works as a do-it-yourself experiment.

The second is the moment when it tips over. At home nobody notices it early enough. In a session, that’s exactly when I interrupt, and you play the scene again, differently. That it happens in the room and not as a resolution for next week is the real difference.

This isn’t meant as advertising. It’s the reason why some couples get a long way with the principle above and others don’t.

Where this doesn’t belong

The principle doesn’t work when one of you is already flooded. Beyond a certain point of agitation nobody can summarise, not even with the best will in the world. Then you first need twenty to thirty minutes of distance.

And it doesn’t work if your perception is regularly declared wrong. If you keep hearing that you’re remembering it wrong or exaggerating, then that’s not a communication problem you need to practise on. In Germany, the helpline Hilfetelefon Gewalt gegen Frauen (violence against women) can be reached around the clock, free of charge and anonymously, on 116 016.

What I’d like you to take with you

Most couples who sit with me don’t have an understanding problem. They have a permission problem. Neither of them dares to understand the other, because both believe they’ll lose something by doing so.

The sentence that resolves this is short: Understanding is not agreeing.

If you both say it to each other properly once, before the next difficult conversation begins, that changes more than any technique.