4 Ways to Feel Emotionally Safer With Your Partner

When it comes to intimate relationships, feeling emotionally safe to act and be as you really are is a precious gift that keeps on giving. Empathy helps create emotional safety by affirming that our struggles are OK—not necessarily right or wrong, but OK. This helps us to let down our negative judgment and barriers.

The problem for so many people in loving relationships is that they don't feel emotionally safe. Over the course of over 30 years of coaching couples, I have often heard about this sense of not feeling emotionally safe firsthand from partners.

Check out what some of my clients describe when they don't feel emotionally safe in their relationships:

• Louisa, age 34: It's like Steve is so defensive. He tells me to open up to him, and then he can't handle what I say. On top of that, he refuses to own his sh*t.
• Jake, age 25: I mean, she has this wall up. I just can't get her to really tell me what is going on in her head. She just shuts down.
• Mary, age 42: You'd think I would have learned by now not to trust that Aubrey is really listening to me. One time I actually overheard her telling her friend, 'She'll just have to get over it.' So, I don't feel safe opening up to Aubrey, even though everyone thinks we are this super happy couple.

What Is Emotional Safety in Relationships?

Emotional safety has been discussed by psychologist Don R. Catherall. He shows that emotionally safe partners are caring, warm, and supportive when they are struggling. Catherall shares that shifts in feeling secure in a relationship are precipitated by a partner's perception of change in the other's affective tone regarding their emotional relationship (i.e., the partners' feelings about themselves, each other, and their connection).

4 Ways to Feel Emotionally Safer With Your Partner

My writings and clinical work as a therapist and relationship coach are about that all-important sense of empathy to increase emotional safety. As I discuss further in my book, Why Can't You Read My Mind?, below are some key ways to gain a sense of emotional safety with your partner.

1. Reinforce your partner when they are empathetic and supportive. Too often, we focus on what our partners do wrong versus what they do that feels healthy and good. Make sure you let them know how you appreciate being able to be open with them and feel safe in doing so. The more you encourage and show appreciation to your partner for helping you feel safer and closer to them, the more likely their supportive behaviors will flow your way.

2. Identify and challenge your toxic thoughts toward your partner. Overcoming your toxic thoughts toward your partner (e.g., "She only really cares about herself") is imperative to create an emotionally safe relationship. By freeing yourself of your own toxic thoughts and related negative energy, you make it easier to have your partner respond in kind. (For more, see "Do These Toxic Thoughts Threaten Your Relationship?")

3. Be consistent. It is very emotionally draining and unsafe for your partner (and for you, as well) if you are moody and unpredictable. Behaving this way can sabotage feelings of emotional safety. Also, avoid unwittingly or wittingly saying one thing and doing another.

4. Demonstrate commitment. Protect your relationship. Don't destructively trash your partner to your friends or family. Be faithful and supportive. Doing this will help you navigate choppy waters in your relationship and get you both to a better place.

Some Final Words of Caution:

You did not get into your relationship to be treated poorly, ignored, or abandoned. Being abused or denigrated, subjected to reckless spending, deprived of a sex life, or forced to put up with problematic, immature behavior is not what I'm asking of you. If this is occurring in your relationship, your partner needs to make major changes. Individual and couple's counseling may be needed.

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If your partner will not cooperate with counseling, you need to face the fact that they will probably never change and then decide whether you want to try living with them the best you can or move on to a new and hopefully more satisfying relationship. I am all for trying to save relationships, but in the face of repeated hurts and insensitivity, it may be best to move on.