A couple sits across from me, mid-argument. She's explaining why she's upset—something about feeling dismissed when she brought up a concern earlier that week. He's nodding. His body is still. He looks like he's listening.
But I've been doing this long enough to see what's actually happening. His jaw is tight. His eyes keep darting to the side. He's not absorbing what she's saying—he's building his counterargument. He's waiting for her to finish so he can explain why she's wrong.
She can feel it too. That's why her voice is getting louder. That's why she keeps repeating herself. She's not being heard, and she knows it.
This is one of the most common patterns I see in couples therapy—and one of the most destructive. Both people are talking, but no one is actually listening. And here's the paradox most couples don't understand: the fastest way to end the fight is to stop trying to win it.
Listening to Respond vs. Listening to Understand
There are two fundamentally different ways to listen when your partner is upset with you.
Listening to respond is what most of us do by default. Your partner starts talking, and immediately your brain kicks into defense mode. You're scanning for inaccuracies. You're mentally composing your rebuttal. You're thinking about what you're going to say the moment they stop talking. Your body might be still, but your mind is anything but present.
The problem is, your partner can feel this. They can tell you're not really taking in what they're saying. And when someone doesn't feel heard, they don't calm down—they escalate. They repeat themselves. They get louder. They use stronger language. They're trying to break through, to get you to actually understand.
Listening to understand is something different entirely. It means you're genuinely trying to grasp your partner's point. Not so you can dismantle it. Not so you can defend yourself. But because you're actually curious about their experience. You want to know what this was like for them. You want to understand why they're hurt.
This shift—from listening to respond to listening to understand—is one of the most powerful changes you can make in your relationship. And most couples never make it because they're so focused on being understood themselves that they never stop to truly understand their partner first.
Why We Default to Defense Mode
If listening to understand is so powerful, why don't we do it naturally? Because when your partner is upset with you, your nervous system reads it as a threat.
Think about it. The person you love most in the world is telling you that you hurt them. That you failed them in some way. That you weren't there when they needed you. That doesn't feel like feedback—it feels like an attack. And when we feel attacked, we protect ourselves.
This is why defensiveness is such a common response—and why it's so destructive. When you get defensive, you're essentially telling your partner that protecting your own image is more important than understanding their pain. That's not the message you mean to send, but it's the message they receive.
So instead of absorbing what your partner is saying, your brain starts working on your defense. You're cataloging their exaggerations. You're remembering times when they did the same thing to you. You're preparing your case. And the whole time, you're not actually listening at all.
Your Body Tells the Truth
Here's what I tell couples: you can say all the right words and still communicate the wrong message. Your partner isn't just listening to your words—they're reading your body, your tone, your facial expressions. And those non-verbals are almost impossible to fake.
You can say "I hear you" with your arms crossed and your jaw clenched. You can say "I understand" while looking at your phone. You can nod along while your eyes are rolling. The words don't land because everything else about you is contradicting them.
Genuine curiosity has a different posture. When you're actually trying to understand someone, you lean in. You make eye contact. Your face softens. You ask follow-up questions—not to poke holes in their argument, but because you want to understand more. Your body signals safety, not combat.
Your partner can feel the difference. They know when you're genuinely engaged versus when you're just waiting for your turn to talk. And that felt sense of whether they're being heard will determine whether they calm down or escalate.
Why They Calm Down When You Actually Listen
This is the part that surprises most couples. When you shift from listening to respond to listening to understand—when your partner can actually feel that you're trying to get their point—something remarkable happens. They calm down.
Not because you agreed with them. Not because you admitted fault. Not because you said the magic words. They calm down because they no longer feel like they're fighting to be heard.
From an attachment perspective, this makes perfect sense. When your partner senses that you're genuinely trying to understand them rather than defeat them, their threat response decreases. You've signaled that you're not the enemy. You've communicated that you care about their experience. In the language of Emotionally Focused Therapy, you've made yourself accessible, responsive, and engaged—the three things that create felt security in a relationship.
Think about what your partner is really asking when they come to you upset. On the surface, they might be complaining about something you did or didn't do. But underneath that complaint is a question: Do you see me? Do you care about my experience? Am I important to you?
When you listen to respond, you're answering "no" to all of those questions—even if that's not what you mean. When you listen to understand, you're answering "yes." And that "yes" is often all they need to stop fighting.
Understanding Doesn't Mean Agreeing
One of the biggest obstacles to listening well is the fear that understanding your partner means agreeing with them. It doesn't.
You can fully understand your partner's perspective—really get why they're hurt, see the situation through their eyes, grasp what they were hoping for and why they were disappointed—and still disagree. You can validate their feelings without conceding your point. You can acknowledge their experience without admitting you were wrong.
But here's what most couples miss: you can't get to productive disagreement without going through understanding first. When both people feel heard, you can have a real conversation about what happened and what to do differently. When neither person feels heard, you just keep fighting the same fight over and over.
This is why I often tell couples that understanding has to come before problem-solving. The temptation is to jump straight to fixing things—to explain, to defend, to offer solutions. But if your partner doesn't feel understood first, none of those solutions will land. They'll just feel dismissed. Sometimes what your partner needs isn't for you to fix the problem; they need to know that you get how they feel.
What It Actually Looks Like
So what does listening to understand actually look like in practice? Here's an example.
Your partner comes home upset because you forgot to call the insurance company like you said you would. If you're listening to respond, your brain immediately starts working: "I was busy. It's not a big deal. You forget things too. Why is this such a problem?"
If you're listening to understand, you set all of that aside—at least for now. Instead, you get curious. You ask questions: "What happened when you realized I hadn't called? What did that mean to you?" You notice their frustration isn't really about the insurance company—it's about feeling like they can't count on you to follow through.
And instead of defending yourself, you reflect that back: "So when I didn't call, it wasn't just about the insurance. It made you feel like you can't rely on me. Like you have to carry everything yourself."
Watch what happens when you do this. Your partner's shoulders drop. Their voice softens. They say "Yes, exactly." Because finally, they feel understood.
Now you can have a real conversation. Maybe you do need to apologize. Maybe you need to explain that you got overwhelmed at work. Maybe you need to talk about how to divide responsibilities differently. But all of that becomes possible once your partner feels heard.
The Questions That Show You're Tracking
Listening to understand isn't passive. It's not just sitting there silently while your partner talks. It's active engagement—asking questions that show you're genuinely trying to grasp their experience.
Here are the kinds of questions that communicate real curiosity:
"What was that like for you?"
"Help me understand—when I did that, what went through your mind?"
"What were you hoping I would do instead?"
"What does this bring up for you?"
"Is there more you want me to understand?"
These questions are different from the questions that come from listening to respond, which sound more like: "But didn't you...?" "What about when you...?" "How was I supposed to know...?" Those are cross-examination questions. They're designed to poke holes, not to understand.
The tone matters too. You can ask "What did you want me to do?" with genuine curiosity or with dripping sarcasm. Same words, completely different message. Your partner will respond to the intent behind the question, not just the question itself.
When It's Hard to Listen
I want to be honest about something: this is hard. Genuinely listening when your partner is upset with you is one of the most difficult things you'll do in a relationship. It requires you to set aside your own hurt, your own perspective, your own need to be understood—at least temporarily. That's not easy, and I'm not going to pretend it is. If you've read my post about how even therapists struggle with this, you know that I don't always get it right either.
There will be times when you're too flooded to listen well. When your heart is racing and your thoughts are spinning and you simply cannot take in what your partner is saying. That's real, and it's okay to name it.
In those moments, it's better to take a timeout than to fake listening. Say something like: "I want to understand what you're saying, and right now I'm too activated to really hear you. Can we take twenty minutes and come back to this?" That's infinitely better than pretending to listen while you're actually building your case.
The goal isn't perfection. It's intention. It's recognizing when you've slipped into listening to respond and making a conscious choice to shift back to listening to understand.
Breaking the Cycle
Most couples I work with are stuck in a loop. One partner expresses hurt. The other defends. The first partner escalates. The second partner withdraws. Round and round they go, having the same fight about different topics, never getting anywhere.
Shifting to listening to understand is one of the most powerful ways to break that cycle. Because when one person stops fighting, the other person often stops too. Not always—sometimes the hurt is too deep, the pattern too entrenched. But more often than you'd expect, simply being heard is enough to change everything.
Here's the paradox again: when you stop trying to win the fight, the fight often ends. When you stop defending yourself and start understanding your partner, they stop attacking. When you signal safety instead of combat, they can finally relax.
It feels counterintuitive. Your instinct is to protect yourself, to make sure your side of the story gets heard. But that instinct is keeping you stuck. The way out is through—through your partner's experience, through genuine curiosity, through the willingness to understand before being understood.
Start Here
The next time you find yourself in conflict with your partner, notice what happens in your body and mind as they're talking. Are you present, or are you preparing your response? Are you trying to understand their point, or are you waiting for your turn to make yours?
If you catch yourself listening to respond, see if you can make a shift. Set aside your counterargument—just for now. Get curious about what they're actually trying to tell you. Ask a question that shows you want to understand, not just win.
It won't always work. Some conflicts are too big for a simple shift in listening to resolve. But you might be surprised how often it does. How often your partner softens the moment they feel genuinely heard. How often the fight ends not because someone won, but because someone finally understood.
That's the fastest way to end the fight. Not winning. Understanding.