What Are 4 Warning Signs Your Relationship Could Be in Trouble?

Many couples who seek help in couples therapy wait until the relationship is in serious trouble or they are one step away from ending the relationship.

Problems in a Relationship

Most long term relationships usually don't end because of one argument. On the contrary, they usually end due to the repetition of the same issues that don't change: Feeling unseen, unheard, misunderstood and stuck in a negative cycle.

Although all long term relationships have their ups and downs, there are specific patterns of behavior that indicate deep trouble. These include:

1. Communication Problems

There are certain communication problems that often precede the breakup of a long term relationship:

• Stonewalling: One or both people in the relationship shutdown, withdraw or refuse to engage during discussions (see my article: Are You a Stonewaller in Your Relationship?)

• Extreme Defensiveness: Feedback is met with excuses or counter-attacks rather than active listening and responding (see my article: Responding Instead of Reacting).

Communication Problems in a Relationship

• Off Limit Topics: One of both partners avoid talking about certain important issues due to fear of the other partner's response.

• Passive Aggressive Hinting: Dropping subtle (and not so subtle) clues or making sarcastic remarks instead of expressing needs directly and clearly.

2. Emotional Distance: Emotional distance often develops and grows over time in relationships that are in trouble:

• Living Like Roommates: Although you share a physical space, you no longer share your thoughts, feelings, vulnerabilities, hopes and dreams or even talk about the highlights of your day.

Emotional Disconnection in a Relationship

• Fading or Absent Physical Intimacy: Physical intimacy declines over time and might be absent for months or years. There is no sexual or non-sexual expressions of affection--no holding hands, no hugs or cuddling (see my article: Have You and Your Partner Stopped Having Sex?).

• Feeling Relief During Absence: Feeling a sense of relief and peace during times when you are apart.

• Intentionally Withholding: Intentionally withholding time, affection, interest and, possibly, withholding financial openness as a tool to punish a partner.

3. Chronic, Unhealthy Conflict

This might include:

• "Looping" Arguments: Having the same conflict over and over again without ever reaching a compromise or solution (see my article: Breaking the Negative Cycle in Your Relationship).

Chronic Conflict in a Relationship

• The Relationship Scorecard: Continually bringing up old mistakes to blame your partner and try to "win" current arguments (see my article: How to Stop Keeping Score in Your Relationship).

• Personalized Attacks: Shifting from discussing a partner's current particular behavior to attacking your partner's character.

• Lack of Repair After Conflict; Ruptures and arguments happen frequently, but neither partner steps forward to apologize or to genuinely try to heal the emotional wound.

4. Toxic and Controlling Behavior

These might include:

• Holding the Relationship Commitment Hostage: Threatening a breakup or divorce over minor, every day disagreements as a way to manipulate the other person.

Toxic and Controlling Behavior in a Relationship

• Walking on Eggshells: Constantly monitoring your own behavior, words and tone to avoid triggering a partner's anger.

Clinical Vignette

The following clinical vignette, which is a composite of many cases, illustrates the long term relationship can decline over time and how couples therapy can help:

Jane and Peter

During the early stage of their relationship, Jane and Peter had a happy, passionate relationship. 

Two years after they met, they got married and both of them developed busy careers.  Initially, they made sure to make time for each other on the weekends, but over the years, as ongoing conflicts developed, they stopped prioritizing their relationship and spent less time together.

Peter resented Jane's close relationship with her sister. He felt that Jane was constantly trying to solve her sister's problems. But when he complained to her about it, Jane refused to talk about it. After a while, as his resentment grew, Peter resorted to making sarcastic remarks to Jane whenever she got together with her sister. Inwardly, he was hurting, but he didn't know how to express his wounded feelings.

Jane resented Peter's long hours at work. She knew Peter didn't want to hear her complain about the time he spent at work, so she seethed inwardly. Sometimes she made caustic remarks ("I think you must be having an affair with someone at work"), but rather than addressing her complaints, Peter stonewalled and spent most of his time in his home office. Underneath her anger and resentment, Jane really missed spending time with Peter, but she felt too vulnerable to tell him this.

Problems in a Relationship

Several years later, they both felt lonely in their relationship. They were co-existing in the same New York City apartment as if they were roommates. They hadn't had sex in years and they were no longer physically affectionate with one another. Even though they still loved each other, they hadn't expressed love for one another in years.

Their biggest problem was their emotional disconnection, but neither of them felt comfortable enough to bring that up, so they had ongoing arguments about money instead. Peter accused Jane of spending too much money and Jane accused Peter of being cheap.

When Peter planned to be away on a business trip for a few days, he sensed that Jane was relieved that he wouldn't be around. On the surface, he was aware of being angry, but deep down he felt sad and hurt.

When Peter returned from his business trip, he could feel Jane's resentment. After a while, he felt overwhelmed by the problems between them and he told her, "I don't even know why we're together. If things don't get better between us, I think we should get a divorce."

Jane felt shaken by Peter's threat of divorce. She wanted to talk to him, but she was afraid of being rebuffed by him. Later that day when she saw her sister, Jane was in tears. She knew things were bad in her marriage, but she couldn't believe Peter was threatening divorce.

Jane's sister told her that when her close friend had marital problems, she sought help from an Emotionally Focused Couples Therapist (EFT) and they were making progress.

After Jane got the name of the EFT therapist, she took a deep breath and spoke to Peter about it. To her surprise, he listened to her and admitted that he would like to try to work on their relationship.

Their EFT couples therapist helped them to identify the recurring negative cycle in their relationship and provided them with tools and strategies to overcome this cycle.

Since their problems were long-standing and entrenched, the work was neither quick nor easy, but they made steady progress over time.

Their couples therapist was also a certified sex therapist, so after Jane and Peter worked through their emotional disconnection and recurring arguments, they made progress on improving their sex life.

Conclusion

Many couples wait until their relationship is in serious trouble before they seek help.

Like most difficult problems, relationship problems are easier to solve when problems first develop--before they become entrenched.

Get Help in Couples Therapy

If you and your partner have been struggling with relationship problems, seek help from a licensed mental health professional who is a couples therapist.

Get Help in Couples Therapy

If your problems include sexual issues, seek help from a couples therapist who is also a certified sex therapist (not all couples therapists are trained to deal with sexual problems).

A skilled couples therapist can help you to work through your issues so you can have a more fulfilling relationship.

About Me

I am a licensed New York psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, IFS/Parts Work, EFT couples therapist, Somatic Experiencing and Certified Sex Therapist.

I have helped many individual adults and couples over the years.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

I provide a free 10-15 minute call before setting up an appointment.

To contact me, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Relationships: Asking Your Partner For Emotional Support

Many people in relationships have problems asking for their emotional needs to be met because it requires intense vulnerability and it also triggers deep fears of rejection, judgment or fear of abandonment.

Asking Your Partner For Emotional Support

In addition, our American culture treats emotional self reliance as a strength which causes many people to view their normal human needs as character flaws or signs of weakness.

Childhood Conditioning

Childhood conditioning can also play a role:

• Early Childhood Emotional Neglect: If someone's childhood emotional needs were minimized, ignored or punished, their nervous system learned that asking for their emotional needs to be met was emotionally and physically unsafe (see my article: What is Childhood Emotional Neglect?).

Childhood Emotional Neglect

• The "Easy" Child Trap: Many people learned as children that they had to earn love and approval by being low maintenance, quiet and overly accommodating and this belief often persists on an unconscious level in adulthood in their relationships.

• Hyper-Independence: Childhood emotional neglect often forces children to become overly self sufficient beyond their developmental capacity, but this is a pseudo-independence because it's a survival mechanism driven by fear and neglect rather than a natural, healthy stage of development. This builds thick emotional walls against relying on anyone else. This pattern continues into adulthood which makes it difficult to ask for emotional support in a relationship (see my article: Masking Vulnerability and Shame By Pretending You Don't Need Anyone).

Fears and Psychological Barriers

• Fear of Being a Burden: People frequently convince themselves that their feelings will overwhelm, stress out or inconvenience their partner. 

Fears and Psychological Barriers to Asking For Emotional Support

• Shame of Being "Needy": Internalized shame makes people worry they will be perceived by their partner as being too "needy", dramatic, high maintenance or emotionally unstable. They have learned from early childhood, often on an unconscious level, that their normal emotional needs were "too much". This often occurs because their parents were overburdened with just trying to survive. For example, the parents  might have been working two or more jobs just to be able to meet basic needs. In many cases, the parents also didn't have their own emotional needs met and this emotional neglect is part of a long line of intergenerational trauma (see my article: What is Intergenerational Trauma?.).

• The Mind Reading Myth: Many individuals have an unspoken belief that if their partner really loved them, they would automatically know what they need without being asked (see my article: Are You Expecting Your Partner to Be a Mind Reader?).

• Emotional Disconnection: Decades of suppressing feelings can leave someone fuzzy or completely unaware of their own emotional needs.

Relationship Dynamics

• Fear of Rocking the Boat: When a relationship is going relatively well, individuals might remain silent about their unmet emotional needs to protect the harmony in their relationship and avoid conflict.

• Past Experiences of a Partner Weaponing Vulnerability: Some people avoid asking for what they need emotionally because their emotional needs and vulnerabilities in prior relationships were used against them as leverage or ammunition during arguments.

What Are Practical Strategies For Asking For What You Need From Your Partner?

Focus on Your Internal State

• Identify Your Feelings: Pinpoint your emotional need (loneliness, feeling invisible, feeling overwhelmed) before speaking to your partner.

Locate Physical Sensations Related to Emotions

• Locate the Physical Sensation: Notice where the tension is located in your body to help you to connect with what you need. 

• Name the Core Deficit: Figure out if you need reassurance, physical touch, focused attention or validation (see my article: What is Emotional Validation and Why is It Such a Powerful Skill in Relationships?).

• Learn to Separate the Past From the Present: Acknowledge whether your current emotional reaction is being driven by old unresolved childhood wounds or prior relationship experiences (see my article: Learning to Separate Past Experiences From Your Current Experience).

Use Specific Communication Techniques

• Lead With Vulnerability: Use "I feel" statements rather than "You make me feel..." statements.

Asking Your Partner For Emotional Support

• Say the Hard Truth: If you feel afraid to express your needs, start with a phrase like, "It's really scary for me to admit this, but..."

• Describe Your Internal State: Feel into your internal state and become aware if you're telling yourself a story that might not be true. For instance, recognize if you're telling yourself something like "He's bored with me" or "He doesn't love me anymore" when this isn't true. Then, tell your partner, "I'm telling myself that you're bored with me" (or whatever you're feeling) and allow your partner to respond.

• Make Requests That Are Actionable: Ask for specific behaviors instead of vague concepts. For example, instead of saying "I need you show you care more", say "I need you to hold my hand while I'm talking to you about my feelings."

Asking Your Partner For Emotional Support

• Ask For a Specific Time: Ask your partner something like, "Can we find 20 minutes tonight to talk about something that has been weighing on me?" If it's not the right time, schedule another time that works for both of you. If you have children, choose a time when you won't be interrupted.

• Remove All Digital Distractions: Turn off and put away phones, turn off the TV, put away the computer and other distractions and sit face-to-face before diving into your discussion.

• Reassure Your Partner in Advance: If they haven't done anything that is making you unhappy, reassure them that they're not in trouble--you just need to share your feelings.

• Keep the Conversation to a Manageable Length: Focus on a specific emotional needs rather than listing months or years of unmet emotional needs (see my article: How to Stop "Kitchen Sinking" Your Partner).

Responding to Your Partner's Reaction

• Appreciate Your Partner's Willingness to Listen and Communicate: Thank your partner for listening--even if the conversation is awkward and uncomfortable. Recognize that your partner is experiencing their own emotional vulnerability by just listening.

Express Appreciation to Your Partner

• Validate Your Partner's Perspective: Acknowledge your partner's response. For instance, if your partner is opening up to hearing your unmet needs and you recognize that your partner is tired, acknowledge this to them by saying something like, "I realize you're tired and I appreciate that you're hearing me out."

• Allow Room For Pauses: Give your partner time to emotionally process what you are saying without rushing in to fill in the silence.

• Schedule a Future Check In: Propose circling back in a few days to see how the new approach to communicating your needs is working for you and for your partner.

Get Help in Couples Therapy

Communicating your emotional needs to your partner can be challenging especially if you never learned to do it before.

Get Help in Couples Therapy

A skilled couples therapist who is a licensed mental health professional can help you to learn to express your emotional needs and work out problems in your relationship.

Rather than struggling on your own, seek help from an experienced couples therapist so you can have a more fulfilling relationship.

About Me

I am a licensed New York psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, IFS, Emotionally Focused Therapy for couples, Somatic Experiencing and Certified Sex Therapist.

I have helped many individual adults and couples over the years.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

Before setting up an appointment, I provide a free 10-15 minute telephone call.

You can call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Coping With Relationship Stress

My article focuses on how stress affects sexual desire in relationships (see my article: To Improve Intimacy in Your Relationship, Get Off the Sexual Staircase).

Coping With Relationship Stress

For most people stress is a libido killer: Work stress, raising children and the daily grind of life can leave people feeling depleted and unmotivated to have sex.

When you feel stressed or anxiety and hyper-focused on having an orgasm and ensuring that your partner has an orgasm, your nervous system shifts into a fight-or-flight mode. This is the opposite of what most people need to enjoy sex.

The Impact of Stress on Pleasure:

Stress can affect pleasure on a physical and mental level:

The Physical Impact

• Stress Blocks Blood Flow: Stress releases cortisol and adrenaline, which constrict the blood vessels and direct the flow of blood to the genitals. 

• Stress Prevents Relaxation: When the nervous system is under stress and you can't relax, sexual arousal can be difficult.

• Stress Reduces Sensitivity: Anxiety can numb physical sensations. This can make touch less intense or even distracting.

The Mental Impact

• Stress Can Create a Goal-Oriented Mindset: Treating sex like a task to complete creates sexual anxiety (see my article: What is Performative Sex?).

Coping With Relationship Stress

• Stress Can Create "Spectatoring": You become a detached observer and judge your own performance instead of being an embodied participant (see my article: Understanding Your Sexual Accelerator and Brakes).

How to Overcome Stress-Related Sexual Problems

To overcome stress-related sexual problems, you can try the following:

• Practice Sensate Focus: Sensate Focus is a common exercise given to couples in sex therapy. It is a structured touching exercise where you and your partner take turns giving and receiving non-sexual touch. There is no sexual activity--even if one or both partners get sexually aroused.  Sensate Focus helps to eliminate performance pressure and goal-oriented sex (see my article: What is Sensate Focus?).

Coping With Relationship Stress

• Redefine Intimacy: Dedicate time to non-sexual physical closeness. This can include things like taking a bath together and giving a back massage where there is no pressure or expectation of sexual intercourse.

• Redirect Your Thoughts: When you feel your mind racing when you and your partner are being sexually intimate, shift your focus in a mindful way to other sensations--like the texture of skin, sound of music or slow, deep breathing.

Coping With Relationship Stress

• Talk to Your Partner: Instead of trying to suppress your stress and anxiety, which can make it worse, talk openly with your partner outside the bedroom (see my article: How to Talk to Your Partner About Sex - Part 1 and Part 2).

• Share What You Each Like: Talk to your partner about what feels comfortable and pleasurable to remove guesswork and doubt.

Coping With Relationship Stress

• Be Aware of Fluctuations in Sexual Desire: Acknowledge to each other that it's normal to have fluctuations in sexual desire to eliminate any performative aspects of sex. If you don't want to have sex on a particular occasion, instead of just rejecting your partner outright, suggest another time during the week to have sex (see my article: Coping With Occasional Sexual Rejection).

• Make Lifestyle Changes: Lifestyle changes like engaging in some form of physical exercise at a level that is right for you (e.g., walking, working out at the gym or taking a yoga class) can lower stress and increase blood flow. You can also engage in mindfulness to train your brain to stay in the present moment. Also, limiting caffeine, reducing alcohol and eliminating nicotine can improve your nervous system and vascular health (see my article: Can Yoga Improve Your Mood?).

Get Help in Sex Therapy

Sex therapy is a form of talk therapy for individual adults and couples (see my article: What is Sex Therapy?)

Get Help in Sex Therapy

Sex therapists are licensed mental health professionals who have advanced training and a  certification in sex therapy.

There is no nudity or sex during sex therapy sessions (see my article: What Are Common Misconceptons About Sex Therapy?).

Individuals and couples attend sex therapy for many reasons (see my article: What Are Common Issues Discussed in Sex Therapy?

If you and your partner have been unable to resolve your sexual problems, you could benefit from working with a sex therapist.

About Me

I am a licensed New York mental health professional who is a Certified Sex Therapist.

In addition to being a sex therapist, I am also a trauma therapist who has advanced training in psychodynamic psychotherapy, EMDR, AEDP, IFS, Somatic Experiencing and hypnotherapy.

I have helped many individual adults and couples over the years.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Also See My Articles:

Sharing the Mental Load

Understanding Your Sex Script 

What is Sexual Desire Discrepancy in Relationships? 

Responsive Sexual Desire and Spontaneous Sexual Desire Are Both Normal

What is the Difference Between Emotional and Sexual Intimacy? 

How to Develop Emotional Depth in Your Relationship

Overcoming Sexual Shame and Guilt

What is Your Sexual Initiation Style? 

Creating Sexual Desire With the Sexual Simmer Technique

What Causes Out of Control Sexual Behavior (OCSB)? 

Financial Infidelity in Relationships: How to Stop Hiding Financial Debt From Your Partner

Hiding financial debt from your partner is a form of financial infidelity which can be just as harmful as having a sexual affair. 

Keeping this secret can break trust with your partner, jeopardize your legal standing and ruin your shared relationship goals.

Financial Infidelity in Relationships

What Are the Potential Consequences of Hiding Financial Debt From Your Partner?

Let's look at the consequences in more detail:

• Erosion of Trust: Finding out about secret debt can cause a tremendous erosion of trust and feelings of betrayal. It can trigger relationship conflict or a breakup.

• Damaged Future Goals: Hidden debt takes away money that you and your partner would otherwise use to save for future goals, like a wedding, a new home or retirement.

• Credit Roadblocks: Hidden debt can prevent you and your partner from qualifying for apartment rentals, home mortgages or car loans.

• Legal and Joint Liabilities: If you co-sign for a loan or open joint accounts, your partner can become legally liable for the debt regardless of who spent the money.

Why Do People Hide Debt From Their Partner?

Secret spending or hidden debt usually occurs due to specific emotional and situational factors:

• Shame and Embarrassment: Feeling severe shame, guilt and embarrassment about past financial mistakes or current bad habits

Financial Infidelity in Relationships

• Fear of Confrontation: Worrying that a partner might judge you, get upset or call off a wedding or end the relationship

• Desire For Control: Wanting total independence or a financial fallback without answering to anyone

• Underlying Impulsive or Compulsive Habits: Masking debt that stems from hidden gambling, compulsive shopping or substance habits

What Steps Can You Take to Stop Hiding Debt From Your Partner?

There is no one-size-fits-all answer to this issue. What might be right for one person might not be right for another. 

You have to assess your situation and ensure that you are safe physically and emotionally before revealing secret debt. If you are in an unsafe environment where your partner might become physically abusive, you have to prioritize your safety. Depending upon your situaton, you might have to work with a domestic violence agency to develop your exit strategy before addressing financial issues.

For most people the following steps can be helpful:

• Own Up Before the Wedding: Don't let your partner find out about your secret debt through a rejected loan application or a surprise collection letter.

Financial Infidelity in Relationships

• Gather Concrete Information: Print and have available for your partner your credit reports and a clear list of every single card, interest rate, minimum payment and other relevant information.

• Draft a Repayment Strategy: Present your partner with the truth along with an actionable plan as to how you plan to pay off your debt--whether this includes getting a second job, strict budgeting or whatever other positive steps you need to take.

• Choose a Calm Setting: Pick a quiet time when you and your partner will have privacy to talk without being interrupted. Don't bring it up during an argument or in an offhand way.

• Avoid Defensiveness: Take responsibility and don't blame your partner or others for hiding the debt.

• Acknowledge the Betrayal: Validate your partner's feelings including anger, shock, hurt, sadness or whatever feelings your partner might have. 

• Recognize That the Lie is Often More Damaging Than the Money Owed: Lies of omission where you don't reveal secret debt is still a lie. Assuming your partner wants to remain in the relationship, you will have to work to regain your partner's trust.

• Assume Responsibility For the Financial Burden: Make it clear that you consider this to be your financial responsibility to fix and it is not their responsibility.

What Kind of Professional Help Can Be Helpful?

• Financial Planner/Legal Advisor: Depending upon your situation, you might need a financial or legal professional to help you map out a financial strategy. A legal consultation can also help you to work on either a pre-nuptial or post-nuptial agreement to legally shield your partner from your liabilities.

• Couples Therapist: A licensed mental health professional can help you both to deal with the emotional fracture in your relationship after you revealed the secret debt. It's best not to avoid dealing with the psychological damage to the relationship because these  problems can harden into deep resentment and mistrust. A couples therapist's role would include:

• De-escalating and Creating Psychological Safety: The couples therapist would set communication boundaries to stop repetitive and toxic argument loops. They reinforce agreements against blame-based language, yelling or bringing up deception as a tool to weaponize for constant punishment.

Getting Help in Couples Therapy

• Managing Emotional Flooding: A high betrayal trauma often leaves the partner who feels betrayed in a state of hypervigilance and, at times, panic. The couples therapist can teach emotional regulation skills and implement structured pauses when sessions become overwhelming or unproductive.

• Validating the Deception Trauma: The clinical focus honors the hurt partner's pain. The therapist ensures that the secretive partner knows that the primary damage is the lying and the concealment--not just the missing money.

• Halting the "Trickle Truth": A major obstacle to healing occurs when the secretive partner admits to hiding a certain amount of debt at first and then, later on, admits that there was even more debt. This continuous drip of information re-traumatizes the betrayed partner each time.

Getting Help in Couples Therapy

• Investigating Each Partner's Relationships to Money: Using a therapeutic model like Emotionally Focused Therapy For Couples (EFT) the therapist helps the couple to look beneath the immediate problem of the debt to examine family-of-origin patterns, childhood financial insecurity or feelings of lack of autonomy in the current relationship.

• Addressing Core Drivers of the Secretive and Deceptive Behavior: The therapist guides the secretive partner to look inward at their capacity for deception. The therapist explores whether the secretive behavior was driven by intense shame, a fear of conflict, severe avoidance or compulsive spending behavior.

• Addressing Other Relevant Issues: Once the air has been cleared, the couples therapist can help the couple to develop verified openness in their relationship. This often involves sharing login information, co-managed budget spreadsheets and notification triggers for banking applications. It also involves setting financial boundaries where the couple establishes a pre-agreed upon threshold that would require a conversation before money is spent. In addition, once trust has been regained, the clinician helps the couple so that they don't remain in a permanent parent-child dynamic where one partner acts like the disciplinarian and the other partner acts like the untrustworthy child. 

About Me

I am a licensed New York psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT (for couples), IFS Parts Work Therapist, Somatic Experiencing and Certified Sex Therapist.

Over the years, I have helped many individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Also See My Articles:

Talk to Your Partner About Money 

What is the Connection Between Secrets and Shame? 

Toxic Family Secrets 

What is the Difference Between Privacy and Secrecy in a Relationship? 

Relationships: How is Curiosity a Gateway to Empathy?

Curiosity is a gateway to empathy by shifting your mindset from judgment to exploration. 

Curiosity as a Gateway to Empathy

Curiosity is the capacity to feel and understand another person's internal experience. However, you cannot share a feeling that you have not first tried to understand. Curiosity bridges this gap by creating the cognitive framework for deeper emotional connection. 

Curiosity breaks down the barriers to true empathy through several important mechanisms:

Curiosity Replaces Judgment With Inquiry: 

• Assumptions Are Blocked: When you enter an interaction with a curious mindset, your brain stops trying to instantly categorize, label and judge the other person's behavior.

• Understanding "Why" Becomes Prioritized: Instead of dismissing a behavior you don't like with a statement like, "He's being hostile towards me", curiosity poses the question, "What is causing him to react in this way?"

• Cognitive Loops Are Interrupted: This simple shift de-escalates emotional defensiveness which makes space to objectively observe the other person's reality.

Curiosity Unlocks Deep Listening:

• Focus is Externalized: Curiosity allows you to set aside your internal dialog, your biases and your premeditated responses.

Curiosity as a Gateway to Empathy

• Meaning is Prioritized Over Winning: When you focus on trying to understand the meaning of the interaction, you stop focusing on your counter-argument or a need to offer unsolicited advice.

• Open-Ended Exploration is Invited: By asking non-judgmental questions, you actively invite the other person to share their nuanced, authentic experience.

Curiosity Expands Your Imagination

• Perspective-Taking is Activated: Curiosity and empathy encourages you to put yourself in the other person's place.

Curiosity as a Gateway to Empathy

• New Perspectives Can Be Explored: Curiosity provides the spark to wonder about other perspectives and other realities that are different from your own.

• Biases Are Dismantled: Curiosity can help you to bridge the gap so you can empathize with others.

Clinical Vignette

The following vignette, which is a composite of many cases, illustrates how curiosity can lead to empathy:

Ann and Frank

Ann and Frank were married for 10 years.  During that time, whenever Ann became fearful or anxious, Frank became impatient and harsh with her, "Why are you afraid to go on this job interview? You have the skills and experience to get this job. Stop worrying so much."

Curiosity as a Gateway to Empathy

Whenever Frank spoke to her in this way, Ann felt her feelings were dismissed by Frank and  then she felt ashamed of herself. Logically, she knew had the right skills and experience, but she didn't feel this way emotionally.

When they attended their next couples therapy session, Ann brought up how dismissed and ashamed she felt whenever Frank scolded her for being fearful and anxious. 

When their therapist explored what was happening for Frank emotionally when Ann got anxious or fearful, at first, he said he wasn't aware of feeling anything about it. So, their therapist asked Frank to slow down and sense into his body while remembering the conversation he had with Ann.

After a few moments, Frank remembered, "When I was child, whenever I tried to talk to my father about how scared I was of trying out for the Little League team, my father yelled at me and told me I had to face my fears and stop being a baby. He gave me a disgusted look like he was ashamed of me for being scared. That's how it was whenever I told him I was scared--until I stopped telling him."

As he said this, Frank's eyes welled up with tears, "I felt so ashamed, so I pushed down my fears and toughed it out."

At that point, Frank realized he was dismissing and shaming Ann in the same way his father dismissed and shamed him, "All I ever wanted was for my father to encourage me and give me emotional support. I realize now that's what Ann wanted, but whenever she feels anxious and afraid, it brings up those old feelings for me that I pushed down when I was a kid. It's so hard for me to tolerate because it triggers my own insecurities." Then, he apologized to Ann.

Their therapist spoke to them about using curiosity as a way to avoid judgment, criticism, dismissiveness and shaming.

Ann and Frank practiced these new skills in their couples therapy sessions as well as between therapy sessions. When he was able to get curious, he felt empathetic towards Ann and he discovered that Ann's fear and anxiety were also tied to her own childhood experiences of emotional neglect.

Frank became much more emotionally supportive and, in the process, he was able to talk in session about his own insecurities that he was never able to express as a child. Feeling understood for the first time by his wife and his therapist helped Frank to heal these old wounds.

Ann was also able to talk about how she was affected by emotional neglect in her family and she realized that, as adults, she and Frank could be emotionally supportive of each other as one way to heal their emotional wounds.

Being able to support one another also helped Ann and Frank to deepen their emotional connection (see my article: How to Develop Emotional Depth in Your Relationship).

Conclusion

Curiosity is a gateway to empathy.

Understanding the underlying issues that get in the way of being curious can help you to understand the emotional barriers you might be experiencing to feeling empathetic (e.g., unresolved traumatic childhood experiences).

Get Help in Therapy

If you have difficulty letting go of defensiveness that gets in the way of getting curious, you could benefit from working with a licensed mental health professional.

Get Help in Therapy

Working through these issues in therapy can help you to live a more meaningful life.

About Me

I am a licensed New York psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT (for couples), Parts Work Therapy (IFS and Ego States Therapy), Somatic Experiencing and Certified Sex Therapist.

I have helped many individual adults and couples over the years.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Also See My Articles:

Developing Curiosity and Self Compassion 

Maintaining a Sense of Wonder As An Adult 

Nurturing Your Relationship