Why Is Being Misunderstood So Painful? Thoughts on Empathy in Relationships
Few experiences in intimate relationships are as painful as feeling misunderstood.
When we turn to a partner with a worry, a frustration, a disappointment, or a loss, we are usually seeking more than solutions. We want to feel like we are not alone. We hope that the other person will make space for us, listen attentively, and help us feel seen. In doing so, our burden becomes a little lighter and our experience a little less lonely.
When this doesn't happen, the emotional impact can be surprisingly intense. Couples are often bewildered by the strength of the hurt or anger that follows what may seem like a relatively ordinary conversation. Yet much of what brings people to couples therapy revolves around precisely this struggle: the difficulty of feeling understood by the person they love.
If partners could reliably soothe, understand, and repair these moments between themselves, therapists like me would have far less work to do.
What Is Empathy?
Empathy is often misunderstood as simply "feeling what the other person feels." In reality, it is something more nuanced.
To empathise, we need to recognise that another person's experience is separate from our own. We need to imagine what their world might feel like while maintaining enough distance that we don't become overwhelmed ourselves.
In developmental terms, empathy depends on a sufficiently secure sense of self. When our own boundaries are fragile, we can find ourselves pulled into one of two difficult positions.
Some people become highly attuned to others' emotions. They are vigilant to shifts in mood and may feel responsible for managing the emotional atmosphere around them. Their partner's distress quickly becomes their own distress.
Others fear being overwhelmed by another person's feelings. To protect themselves, they withdraw from emotional engagement, appear detached, or minimise what the other is experiencing.
Neither position allows genuine empathy to flourish. One loses oneself in the other; the other distances itself from the other's reality.
Why It Matters So Much
Attachment theory helps us understand why empathy carries such emotional weight.
One of the central functions of an attachment relationship is to provide a "safe haven" in times of distress. As adults, our intimate partners are our attachment figures; they occupy a role that resembles the one held by our earliest caregivers. We turn to them when we are frightened, uncertain, ashamed, hurt, or overwhelmed.
The longing to be understood is therefore not merely about the present moment. It often touches older experiences and deeper emotional wounds
. Feeling unseen by a partner can awaken painful memories of not being adequately responded to as a child, of having emotional needs overlooked, misunderstood, or dismissed.
The intensity of the reaction often reflects more than the immediate interaction.
The Role of Mentalising
Our capacity for empathy is closely connected to what psychologists call mentalising.
Mentalising is the ability to step back from our own immediate emotional experience and reflect on it. It allows us to observe our feelings rather than become completely identified with them.
This ability is usually developed through relationships in which our emotional experience was acknowledged and understood. When we can make sense of our own inner world, we become better able to imagine and understand someone else's.
Empathy requires us to imagine what another person might be experiencing while also remembering that it is their experience, not ours. We move toward them emotionally without losing our footing.
Why Empathy Sometimes Fails
Empathy is not simply a personal quality that we either have or do not have. Context matters.
Many relationship difficulties arise from an expectation that our partner should always be emotionally available whenever we need them. Yet people are human. They become tired, distracted, preoccupied, stressed, or overwhelmed.
No one can be fully attuned all of the time.
Developmental research has long suggested that caregivers do not need perfect attunement. "Good-enough" parenting involves being responsive often enough, while allowing children to gradually develop their own capacity for self-soothing and resilience.
Something similar applies to adult relationships.
Sometimes a simple question such as, "Is this a good time for me to talk? I could really do with being listened to right now," can transform an interaction. It helps both partners take responsibility for communicating their needs and their availability.
Repeating Old Stories
At times we unconsciously create situations that confirm our deepest fears.
We may approach a partner expecting rejection, criticism, disinterest, or misunderstanding. Without realising it, we can find ourselves participating in familiar relational patterns that repeat old emotional experiences.
We may long for reassurance while simultaneously expecting disappointment.
When we become more aware of our histories, vulnerabilities, and relational habits, we gain greater freedom to respond differently.
Healthy relationships require us to develop both togetherness and separateness. We learn to tolerate the fear of abandonment without clinging, and the fear of losing ourselves without withdrawing.
Empathy lives in that delicate space.
Not in becoming the other person, nor in standing apart from them, but in remaining ourselves while reaching towards them.
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