| By Marije Roos It sounds so simple: listen with your heart. Listen beyond the words — listen to the needs behind them. And yet — when your partner is shouting at you in the middle of the street, full of anger — it can be the hardest thing in the world to remember… Last week was such a day. My partner was standing in the street, yelling as I arrived on my bike: “You might as well go home! I’m not in the mood to spend time together”. His face was flushed, his body tense. He wasn’t just angry — he was furious. After weeks of hard work and missing each other, we finally had spacious time together. Just an hour earlier, we’d wandered through nature, feeling the thread between us grow strong again. My heart was soft and open. So what had changed? Before heading to his house, I stopped quickly at my place to feed my cats. Since it looked like I would arrive first, I had taken his house key. Just as I was about to leave, I discovered that my cats had managed to open a milk pack — it was everywhere, so I cleaned it up. On my way, I ran into my neighbors, and we chatted (longer than I had intended). When he saw me, he exploded — furious that he had been left waiting outside for 30 minutes. “You might as well go home,” he yelled. “I’m not in the mood to spend time together.” “And I don’t want to hear why you’re late. This is not acceptable. You can’t do this!” The idea of going home made me sad — sad that we would both be in pain, in separate homes. In moments like this, I’m so grateful that I could remember: His anger isn’t about me. Yes, my being late was the trigger — but the anger belongs to something deeper inside him, something that matters greatly to him. That realization made me open. Soft. Curious. I said, “Shall we go inside? You can continue shouting if you need to. I’ll just listen. And afterward, if you still want, I’ll go home.” I trusted that welcoming what is — listening empathically without any goal other than hearing him — could take us somewhere we couldn’t yet imagine. Upstairs, he kept shouting. I put on my ‘triple giraffe ears’. Without defending, fixing, or explaining, I listened — not to the words, but to his needs: He wanted to be considered. I fully get it, and I love considering him. I stayed connected to my breath, and to my own feelings and needs, anchoring myself amidst the storm. From time to time, I reflected back what I heard: “Is it that you want to feel considered? That this crossed a limit of what feels like minimum respect for you?” Bit by bit, his anger softened. His body relaxed. His voice quieted. Eventually, I asked, “Are you open to hearing my regret?” He nodded. And I shared: “I can fully understand your anger, and I deeply regret not being more mindful of the time. I love considering you.” I was genuinely touched by what he said. I could viscerally see how much it had hurt him. It pained me to realize the impact my distraction had on him. And I felt even more sorrow, knowing how much I had been looking forward to continuing our day together — savoring the deliciousness of being with him. We sat in silence. I looked into his eyes and asked, “Do you want me to go? If you feel closed toward me right now, I understand.” And somehow, against all odds, love returned to the room. We hugged. We laughed. I cried — a release after holding so much intensity inside my nervous system. He later expressed how much he dislikes shouting, and how powerless he had felt in the situation. Strangely, even though it had been so intense, I felt happy that I could witness his anger. It allowed me to see — more clearly than ever — the impact my forgetting had on him, and how important it is for him to be considered. It landed deeper into my heart as a learning: to care for that more attentively in the future. It felt like a miracle to me — that after his anger, I felt even closer to him. As if we had gotten to know each other better. Marije |
