How Seeing Things From Your Partner’s Perspective Can Boost Your Love

I recently took my 4 year old daughter to the zoo. She stood up real close to the glass where the smaller animals live.

She complained she couldn’t see many animals from that position. I explained that in order to be able to see the majority of the animals in any enclosed area she needs to stand further back.

She simply didn’t get that in order to see a fuller picture she needed to take a step back to gain more perspective.

She was thrilled to learn this very simple principle.

Do different perspectives affect relationships?

When I work with couples, they often find it difficult to acknowledge what their real challenge is because they are so enmeshed with what they are dealing with.

They are standing too close to the vantage point where they can’t see the bigger picture.

They can see their own perspective but they find it so difficult to recognize their impact on their partner. The reason we often can’t understand our impact on our partner is because of the 3 main things.

 What makes us lose perspective?

1. Our own fear of losing our own point of view
2. Our fear of not being seen and heard by our partner
3. Our own laziness. Meaning we just can’t be bothered, and we want what we want.

The first two reasons for not being able to see someone else’s perspective, fear of not being acknowledged and losing our viewpoint are most often embedded so deep in our subconscious we don’t even know why we’re fighting so hard.

In other words we know it’s important. But we don’t know why.

These reasons are often so deeply held and so raw and painful that even admitting them to ourselves is hard.

Often this fear of losing yourself comes from a much deeper and scarier place.

Perhaps we never felt seen in the families we grew up in. Or when we were seen and heard we were made fun of.

The fear of our point of view not being acknowledged is a big one

Let’s be honest, its painful to admit that we have this deep need for being seen, heard and acknowledged. Especially when this is something we’ve been dealing with for so long.

Our laziness, the third cause for losing perspective is often a result of apathy. Or an outgrowth of the other two reasons.

Because we didn’t receive the attention we often needed and craved for, from our parents or caregivers, we develop a bit of a hardening and find it difficult to be soft with the one we love.

We want them to be there for us, but we don’t necessarily want to give in to them.

For some of you this may seem obvious that we need to be there for our partner. For others this may be a real aha moment.

Learning to see things from your partner’s point of view

What are the ways to be more understanding in a relationship?

By allowing ourselves to fearlessly take a step back and see things from our partner’s perspective this will energize the relationship and make you feel closer to one another.

The more your partner sees you making the effort to understand things from their perspective, the more you are your partner or date will want to do the same for you. By following ways to keep your relationship in the positive perspective, you can create a loving and dynamic relationship.

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Micki Lavin Pell Marriage & Family Therapist

Micki Lavin-Pell, MFT, has been working with individuals couples and familys for nearly 20 years. She works with individuals to help them learn about what they would like to offer a relationship and what they most need for themselves in order to find the most suitable partner. She also works with couples... Read more in a relationship heading to marriage to help deal with triggering issues that can get in the way of their love. Micki also provides marriage education training for engaged couples utilizing the Prepare Enrich Program. She  uses Emotionally Focused Couples therapy as her therapeutic tool combined with Imago. She also provides Trauma therapy and has completed the Advanced level of training in Somatic Experience therapy. Micki is a member of the Israeli Association for Family Therapy, and ICEEFT as well as Get Help Israel. Read less