A recent study published in "Personal Relationships" examined the factors that shield couples from marital stress. Marital stress or distress can arise from various social challenges, including personal differences, financial pressures, balancing caregiving roles, navigating extended family relationships, and significant life changes together.
Researchers found that marital stress can create emotional distance between couples, with their individual emotional experiences impacting one another and affecting the relationship as a whole. Unfortunately, amidst our internal emotional storms, we often fail to turn to one another for support and connection.
However, the findings also suggest that two protective factors can shield against marital stress and create a genuinely resilient bond between partners: their emotional closeness and empathy for each other. In truly satisfying marriages, both partners experience deep emotional fulfillment, connection, and support.
Here are the two signs that your marriage is genuinely fulfilling and strong through challenges, according to the study.
1. You Prioritize Emotional Closeness Despite Challenges
Emotional closeness involves a deep sense of intimacy and connectedness between partners, characterized by mutual trust, understanding, and emotional sharing. We trust that every partner will be honest, transparent, and supportive.
In relationships with high emotional closeness, partners feel comfortable with each other and share their deepest thoughts, emotions, fears, and dreams without fear of judgment or ridicule.
"Marital stress can often limit closeness. The experience of stress may constrain couples' ability to engage in emotionally demanding aspects of their relationship, such as understanding and responding to their partner's feelings and needs," the researchers write.
However, when partners work on being responsive and open with each other, especially in the face of marital distress, it can bring them much closer. In these crucial times, how they treat each other can shape their future together.
In truly fulfilling marriages, partners continue to share feelings and resist the urge to avoid or criticize their partner in the midst of a challenge, while taking the time to build or rebuild emotional closeness by focusing on shared experiences, common values, and the larger goal of protecting the relationship.
Such couples spend quality time together, engage in meaningful conversations and activities, and continue to show love, care, and appreciation, signaling to their partner that no matter the situation, their connection comes first, and they can always rely on each other.
2. You Are Generous With Your Empathy
Empathy means to recognize, understand, and respond sensitively to the emotional states and perspectives of others. Experts suggest that empathy is a vital interpersonal skill that can enhance emotional closeness and strengthen emotional bonds.
There are primarily two types of empathy:
- Cognitive Empathy: Cognitive empathy is the skill to understand another person's thoughts and feelings without experiencing them yourself. For example, saying, "It looks like you're feeling overwhelmed with everything on your plate." Experts suggest that this type of empathy is particularly useful in maintaining emotional closeness.
- Emotional Empathy: Emotional empathy involves offering comfort and support by sharing in someone else's emotional experience and truly resonating with their feelings. For example, saying, "I feel really sad knowing how much this has hurt you."
"When couples are stressed, showing empathy helps them feel understood and valued. This, in turn, contributes to a home environment that fosters more open communication, allowing spouses to feel comfortable sharing and expressing themselves, thereby mitigating the negative effects of stress on closeness," the researchers explain.
Empathy enhances communication by helping individuals understand and respond appropriately to each other's emotional signals and helps resolve conflicts by allowing partners to see each other's perspectives, fostering mutual understanding and compromise.
Empathetic partners also respond to each other with compassion and sensitivity, offering reassurance during times of distress. Researchers discovered that when husbands show empathy to their wives, it can help maintain a couple's closeness during marital stress.
"When the experience of stress is alleviated for their wives, it can thus reduce the negative impact of burden on their own experience of closeness," the researchers add.
To be truly empathetic, it is essential to avoid making assumptions about what your partner is feeling and instead approach conversations with gentle curiosity. Empathetic and responsive partners practice active listening by fully paying attention, understanding, remembering, and responding to what is being said during a conversation. This goes beyond passively hearing words to actively engaging with one's partner, ensuring the message is accurately received and processed.
Emotional closeness is the heart of a fulfilling and lasting relationship, and empathy can pave the way through it. In truly fulfilling marriages, partners continuously work on deepening their emotional connection. Ultimately, the strength of a marriage lies not only in its ability to withstand external challenges but also in how partners choose to turn towards each other in these vulnerable moments.