Want to make a lasting and positive impact on your relationship with your partner this Valentine’s Day? Chocolates, flowers, and/or a candlelit dinner for two certainly have a traditional role to play for many in making this a romantic occasion. But there’s something more deep and meaningful you can do to improve how you love your partner that won’t cost a cent.

Valentine’s Day can often make us think about and focus on something we might take for granted at times – the love of our partner. But how can we change this and show our partners love like we really mean it, not just on the 14th of February but all year long?

It starts with ourselves

“Transforming relationships with others starts with us; it’s an inside job.”
CHRISTOPHER GERMER, PSYCHOLOGIST

Genuine love and affection isn’t possible if we fear being emotionally present and authentic in our relationships. We have to have the confidence to be ourselves when we’re with our partners. Yet many of us operate on autopilot when it comes to love, totally at the mercy of our old brain wiring.

To truly love like we mean it, and to enjoy successful, mutually fulfilling relationships, we have to listen with our hearts to ourselves and our partners. We have to genuinely empathize with them.

The importance of empathy

To empathize with our partners and to truly understand them, we need to imagine what life is like in their shoes. As I point out in my book Loving Like You Mean It, this requires:

“Dropping inside yourself and getting a felt sense of your partner’s emotional experience. It’s a chance to discover something different. Hear your partner’s despair. Sense any sadness and fear they might have or their longing to connect.”

Dropping inside ourselves takes space and time. It’s not something to be rushed, it must be done slowly. Turning our attention inward enables us to connect with our feelings in real time. Slowing down our thinking and our reactions stretches the time between stimulus and response—between what our partners say and do and how we react to it. It gives us an opportunity to see more clearly, to find our own truth in the moment and the truth of our partners. And, it maximizes the potential of our being able to more readily empathize with them.

We all have an innate ability to empathize with others. It’s a capacity we demonstrate early in our lives when we’re highly tuned in to the emotions of our caregivers. We can tell what they’re feeling and react accordingly.

Over time, some of us lose this skill or forget we have it. But empathy is vital for successful relationships as it enables us to see, know, and love another, as well as feel seen, known and loved by another. If you empathize with your partner and they empathize with you, right there you have a win-win situation, the foundations for a loving relationship.

How to feel empathy for others

Empathy starts with our ability to be emotionally present with ourselves. Being open and tuned-in to our own feelings enables us to more easily resonate with our partner’s emotional state. We’re more ready to try and understand how it feels to be them.

As well as being open and honest about our own feelings, it’s important to pay attention to our partner so that we can sense and understand their feelings. If you get the chance to sit down for a meal with your partner this Valentine’s Day (or at any time for that matter), when you are talking to one another, try to go beyond just listening to the words they’re saying. Look out for and sense what they’re communicating non-verbally as well. This means watching their facial expressions, listening to the tone of voice they use when they speak, and keeping an eye on their body language.

Seeing eye-to-eye

Making eye contact with our partners can enhance our ability to empathize. If we avoid eye contact we risk missing out on opportunities to see the truth behind a partner’s words. We miss the chance to pick up visual signals. While what they’re saying may sound full of disdain, by looking at them while they speak, we could see or sense a longing to connect. When they sound angry, we might see hurt in their eyes. And when they sound fearful, there could be signs of tenderness in their expression. All of which we could miss if we don’t make eye contact.

Tapping into our empathy for our partners lets us see beyond the barriers they may be putting up so we can discover their inner truth. And when we recognize and identify with their fears, our own barriers weaken. If we have fears, they too tend to subside and our heart opens. This allows compassion to flow and gives us the inspiration to respond to them in a more loving way.

An exercise to help you listen with your heart

Following these simple steps below will enable you to connect with and empathize with your partner more deeply and successfully:

  • First, sit down somewhere quiet and relaxing with your partner. Somewhere you can give your partner your full attention.
  • Let them express themselves without interrupting what they’re saying.
  • Listen to what they’re saying and sense the feelings, emotions and intentions behind their words.
  • Tune your body into what they are doing and try and sense what your partner is feeling.
  • Pay attention to their non-verbal cues, such as the tone of voice they use and their facial expressions.
  • Notice what you feel when you do this.
  • Try to make eye contact with your partner, even if it’s just for brief moments during your conversation.
  • Consider why they’re feeling the way they’re feeling.
  • Try to imagine what it’s like to be them in that moment.
  • Notice how you feel toward your partner as you do.
  • Share your understanding of your partner’s emotional experience with them by saying something like: “I’m getting a sense that you’re feeling X, Y or Z.”
  • Ask them to tell you if what you’ve said is accurate.
  • Whether you’re right or wrong, near or far from the truth, note how your partner responds emotionally and note how you feel.
  • Your partner will likely appreciate your interest and care and your wish to really know and understand them.

This exercise is worth doing regularly with your partner, to help ensure you are both as attuned to each other’s thoughts and feelings as possible. Don’t just save it for Valentine’s Day. Practice empathizing throughout the year to strengthen your relationships. Then those chocolates, flowers, and/or that candlelit meal at Valentine’s will mean so much more to both of you.

The information and exercise featured in this article form part of the Mindfully Relating step in my four-step approach to overcoming fear and connecting more deeply with yourself and others. I cover this in much more detail in my book Loving Like You Mean It.