Things to Try if You Don’t Feel Heard : 5 Ways to Express Yourself Differently

5 Things to try if you don’t feel heard : Feeling unheard or misunderstood in your relationship can be incredibly isolating. It can also be exhausting when you’ve tried everything you can to explain how you’re feeling and your partner still doesn’t hear you. 

I often hear my clients report that their biggest complaint in their relationship(s) is that they aren’t being heard. They feel they communicate effectively and express themselves clearly. So what is the problem? 

There is most likely a disconnect because your partner’s perception is totally different or they don’t know what to do with the information you are expressing. We may not intend to do this, but we often end up trying to change our partner’s perception when we aren’t feeling validated. This causes conflict and we then get stuck defending why our perspective is right. 

The reality, is neither of you are right, but both of you are valid. When we struggle with being heard, it can often be contributed to how we are being perceived. Although we don’t have any control over how other’s perceive us, we can work on our expression of vulnerability and detach from our partner’s response if they have a reaction that isn’t fulfilling to us.

We also have to remember, our partner is an insecure child inside at times of feeling triggered and they have their own demons they are battling. If they are reactive to our feedback or vulnerability, it may be tangled up with their own deep seeded struggles. This doesn’t give anyone a free pass to be abusive, but if you perceive your partner is guarded, defensive, attacking or blaming, we can try our best to understand why without personalizing it. Their reaction may not have everything to do with us. 

There is also huge difference between communicating clearly, (which involves little to no emotional exposure) and communicating vulnerably (which has everything to do with exposure and letting down your guard). Which do you often do? 

Here are 5 things to try if you don’t feel heard: 

#1 Things to try if you don’t feel heard: Exercise your emotional intelligence. 

It is essential to know what you are feeling! Seems simple enough, but often times we don’t really know what we are feeling, we just know we are uncomfortable. This leads us to subconsciously project onto our partner. We then create an expectation and are disappointed when they don’t fulfill our needs. Understanding our own vulnerable emotions is crucial for your partner to fully understand them, too. How helpful would it be for you to be aware that you feel insecure about how you look, prior to having an upset reaction with your partner when you project that they are looking at stranger with a wandering eye?

#2 Things to try if you don’t feel heard: Don’t default to anger. 

When we feel dismissed, it’s hard not to default to anger. Anger is a special emotion, because it “protects” our inner fears. It helps us feel powerful in moments when we may feel really small. Instead of expressing anger, practice exposing your fear, insecurities or hurt to your partner. Anger will most likely always set off your partner’s defense mechanism(s) and you won’t end up feeling heard anyway. 

#3 Things to try if you don’t feel heard: Be aware of your accusations.

I often her my clients say to their partner, “I HAVE TOLD YOU SO MANY TIMES THAT IT PISSES ME OFF WHEN YOU CONTINUE TO ACT AGGRESSIVE WHEN I’M TRYING TO EXPRESS MYSELF. YOU APPARENTLY DON’T CARE OR LISTEN.” As an objective party, I can understand that this person is trying to express their hurt feelings by expressing their tolerance is low; they are feeling defeated and most likely really sad. As an objective party, I can also understand how this expression is hard for their partner to hear with compassion, because the stance is accusatory and it’s being expressed from anger. Now, we get caught in a dance of arguing about who’s right, because most likely your partner wants to (naturally) defend a misrepresentation of themselves that they don’t agree with. So if you want your partner to understand you, not defend themselves, you have to be very mindful of how you are expressing your perspective. The second you accuse, (ex: “You did ______,” or “You always do this______,”) is the second your partner flips the switch and stops listening to you. It’s important to try to express your perception by expressing, (ex: “Maybe this isn’t your intention, but I perceive you shut down when I try to talk to you sometimes and it really hurts me. I feel dismissed and rejected.” 

#4 Things to try if you don’t feel heard: Practice humility. 

Humility is important in a partnership. It requires you look into the mirror and acknowledge that maybe you aren’t right, or maybe you aren’t being vulnerable. It helps us take ownership of our behavior when our behavior isn’t congruent to our feelings. It’s important to confront your partner with humility and own your projections when you can’t catch them in the moment, (ex: “I’m sorry I came at you today with anger and accusations. I know you don’t intentionally mean to dismiss me. I’m really hurt and feel disconnected from you and instead of saying that, I got angry.”) Please remember that in a partnership, no one is to blame. Both people actively contribute to conflict, disconnect and hurt feelings. 

#5 Things to try if you don’t feel heard: Try to give your partner the benefit of the doubt by recreating your narrative about their intentions. 

Maybe you struggle with conflict or are sensitive to your partner’s moods/reactions. If you try your hardest to avoid the scenario of feeling dismissed or having a disagreement, you may not even realize that you start to suppress your feelings over time. This eventually leads to an angry outburst from a nasty narrative you’ve created about your partner’s intentions, (ex: “He really doesn’t care about me,” or “She is so needy or selfish.”) Our attempt to avoid conflict ends up being more conflictual because we have stopped trying to see our partner with compassion and understanding, (ex: “Maybe he doesn’t listen to be at times because he’s under a lot of pressure and feels like he is failing at everything. When I tell him I’m hurt with him, he just hears how much of a failure he is all over again,” or “She feels so disconnected from everyone right now and it must be really difficult for her to feel disconnected from me, she just misses me.”)

In a partnership, we have to constantly work on ourselves. This is key. If we constantly default to blame and aggression, we will never be heard or understood. In the Denver area and need help with this? Give us a shout! We are happy to help!

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