It’s a pretty common thing, particularly on discussions of failed relationships to see lack of empathy cited as a major issue. In fact, this lack of empathy is the primary cause of marital failure. Totally ignoring feelings often led to break-up. Empathy by definition is the power of understanding and imaginatively entering into another person’s feelings. It is an essential part of the relationship to keep and to understand each other’s needs.
If you want to save your marriage, first and foremost, you need to accept that Empathy is a Vital Skill for Successful Relationships. This acceptance typically demands the knowledge of what empathy is and is not. Some people confuse being empathic with giving in or not being assertive. Empathy has nothing to do with giving in. One can be empathic and yet disagree with another person. One can be empathic and validate what another person is saying, but have an entirely different view of the situation.
Some people are not capable of understanding people’s emotions. They claim to be very practical and, hence, fail to see the importance of emotions and understand them. These people do feel that they hurt their loved ones at times; however, they believe it is required. Others are not exactly lacking empathy. The odd part is that they are completely aware of the feelings of the person. However, they take pleasure in causing pain to the person. More so, they may even use this knowledge to manipulate the person.
Lack of empathy in a marriage comes out of the lack of understanding and trust. In most marriages that experience lack of empathy, a similar pattern is observed. It is observed that in the start of the relationship, they used to talk to each other about everything, and everything was very beautiful. They spent time together, and the pressures of the world were lesser. However, later on, the pressures increased, and the time that they spent together reduced. They barely got the time to talk to each other about their feelings. Moreover, whenever they did try to talk, they were mostly tired and irritable. This led to fights. As such, as time passed, display of feelings for each other also reduced.
The best solution for such a case is to spend some quality time together to allow the couple to bond with each other, physically, mentally and to be able to listen each other’s emotions and concerns, it also regains the loving empathy that you once felt and then lost.