Understanding Your Partner Doesn’t Mean Agreeing With Them

This week, I'm sharing how compassionate curiosity turns conflict into connection and why understanding your partner does not require you to agree. Practical scripts, clear definitions, and real examples show how to stay on the same team while holding different views.

• use post‑Valentine’s expectations and disappointment as a chance to communicate
• compassionate curiosity as the path to intimate friendship and passionate partnership
• difference between understanding and agreement
• story of taking a friend’s side and how stance changes feedback
• faith shift case study and fear of being “tainted” by new views
• ping pong versus softball dialogue and why pacing matters
• both‑and language with sample phrases and questions
• applying the tools to money, parenting, sex, and tech boundaries
• building safety, respect and teamwork without forced consensus

Make sure that if this episode was helpful, you share it with a friend or leave a review.

Transcript

Post‑Valentine’s Disappointment And Communication

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Hello and welcome to the Secrets of Happily Ever After podcast. I'm your host, Monica Tanner, and this episode is coming right after Valentine's Day. And so my hope is that you all had a wonderful day and really felt loved and supported by your partner. But I also know that that's not super common. I usually get a ton of emails, calls, and messages after Valentine's Day because one of you or both of you is disappointed about how the day went. I just want to assure you that this is perfectly normal, that nothing has gone wrong, but it is a really good opportunity to communicate. And so if you're feeling disappointed, I will always encourage you to speak up, to have a frank and honest conversation, hopefully before the day, but definitely after the day, so that those resentments don't deepen and you can have the vulnerable, honest conversation that you need to have and get on with life. I also want to say thank you so much to all of you who have been emailing and messaging all of your questions. Our theme for this year is learning how to have compassionate curiosity for your partner's subjective reality. So all of my content in the podcast and online on social media have all been explaining deeper how to really do this, because I think that this sentence, having compassionate curiosity for your partner's subjective reality, is really the basis for creating an intimate friendship and a passionate partnership, which is our goal. So today's episode is a really big one and it's been coming up a ton, especially in the messages I've been getting. So keep sending me emails, keep sharing your stories and asking your questions, and I will try to address those things on the podcast. So today I want to talk about this idea that gaining more understanding through compassionate curiosity means that you have to agree with your partner. Now, this is subtle, but it comes up a ton. And so I want to address it head on and really talk about the ways in which we can have a lot of compassionate curiosity and through that understand our partner without having to give up anything ourselves. So it feels threatening to a lot of us to ask a lot of questions and try to understand where our partner is coming from, especially when it feels like in order to do that, we have to agree with their position or give up part of ours. And I want to assure you that understanding your partner does not equal agreeing with them and being curious about their thoughts, ideas, opinions, or perspectives does not mean that you have to surrender yours. In fact, the more understanding we can have about our partner and their ideas and opinions, the more powerful we become as a team, not only to create the life that we want, but also to work together to find solutions that are great for both of us. So in this episode, I want to talk a lot about how to stay grounded in yourself and in your own ideas and opinions, meaning to hold on to who you are while also gaining a really deep understanding of who your partner is. So if that sounds good, let's get started. I want to start by giving two examples of how this shows up in everyday life. One from my own marriage and one from a couple that I've been working with. So the first example happened just a few weeks ago. My husband came home from work and I was telling him a story about how I had sent this text to my really good friend. And I was like, she must not have understood the context of my text because she fired back with a pretty pointed, kind of mean text. And so I was sharing this with my husband, and he was like, Whoa, she's right. Your text sounded like did it, did it, did it, did it. And he proceeded to like point out why she had every right to be upset. And it felt like he was completely taking her side. And so, of course, I got really defensive and then shh completely shut down. I did not want to talk to him about it anymore. And so after I had had some time to kind of process what happened and figure out why I was so upset by how that whole thing went down, I went to my husband and I was like, hey, listen, I want to chat about what happened earlier about the text and explain that it's not about the feedback that you gave me, because that was actually pretty valuable insight. Because he was trying to explain to me her point of view and something I might have missed. But the reason I couldn't accept the feedback was because it sounded like you immediately took her side against me. And he was like, Well, I did. And I was like, but I want you to be on my side. And he is like, Well, I don't agree with you. And I was like, Listen, you can still give me the same basic feedback that you gave me, but by understanding my position and getting on my side, it's more helpful. And then I can actually accept the feedback if I feel like you're on my side. So what I was explaining to him was that you can basically say anything to me, give me any feedback as long as I feel like you're giving me the feedback from my side, like you're on my side, and here's what you want me to know. But I thought it was really interesting that he wasn't curious about what happened from my perspective, because he didn't want me to feel like he agreed with me, which is fine. The point of this episode is for you to understand that you don't have to agree with your partner in order to get a greater understanding of where they're coming from. So, in that example, and what I ended up asking my husband to do, which he took it very well, we had a great conversation about it, was I was like, hey, ask me more questions. Like, understand my view of it and my perspective. And then when I feel like you're on my side and you understand where I was coming from, then I will gladly take your feedback. I understand that you don't agree with my position, but if I feel like you understand it, then it would be so much easier for me to take your feedback when you say it like, hey, listen, I know you care about your friend and I understand where you are coming from, but maybe you could see from her perspective how she might have thought this, this, and this. And then that would have been such valuable feedback for me. So that's the first example. The second example of how I see this play out a ton is with this couple that I've been working with, and they got married and had several children, and the agreement they had when they got married was that they both were very faithful in this religion. And then about 25 years later, the husband decided that he no longer believed the same way. And it's really, really, really hard for the wife because they got married under the impression that they were both gonna be very faithful in this religion for their entire lives. And now he's changed the arrangement. And so when they came to me, his biggest complaint was that he could never talk about how he feels and what he's learning and the different perspective that he's taking. Because as soon as he starts to talk about it, she immediately shuts him down. And the reason why she shuts him down so quickly is because she doesn't want him to think that she agrees in any way, shape, or form with the new kind of position that he's taking. She's so afraid of listening to any of his thoughts or ideas or understanding any of what he's going through because she does not agree and she does not want his new views to kind of taint her ideas, or she doesn't want to give up her position, the position that they both mutually held for so long, according to his new way of thinking. And so as we work together, it's really, really important for her to understand that just because she's curious about his ideas, just because he wants her to ask questions, he wants to be able to share with her, he's not expecting her to agree. She doesn't have to give anything up. She can continue to feel exactly the way she feels, have the perspective that she has, worship in the way that she's always worshipped. But there's so much intimacy and connection and understanding that's being lost because neither of them will really get curious about the other one and understand their position. So just to kind of go back and define these two words, the definition of understanding is to see another person's internal logic and meaning. So when it comes to the text that I sent to my friend, or this man and his changing religious views, understanding that just means that our partners would be able to see our logic and the meaning that we're making. Agreement, on the other hand, means to share the same conclusion or choice. So the two are not mutually exclusive. Just because you see my logic doesn't mean that you have to come to the same conclusion that I did. This goes to this idea of subjective reality. My experience is real because I experienced it. It doesn't make it truth or absolute truth. So for my husband to ask questions to gain a deeper understanding of how I'm thinking about something or seeing it or experiencing it does not mean he has to come to the same conclusion I came to, right? So the problem or the clash that most couples have with this is that they're arguing facts. No, this is how it is. No, this is how it is. When the real issue is just this is how I experienced it. So recently I was listening to a podcast episode with my friend Jocelyn Freeman, and she was talking about how when couples argue about something, it's kind of like ping pong. And we have a ping pong table downstairs, and there's always teenagers over at our house playing ping pong. And so I have memorized the sound of a ping-pong ball, hitting a paddle, hitting the table, hitting the other paddle, hitting the it's a very rhythmic, quick back and forth. And typically that's what happens when couples get into disagreements. It's like ping-pong. It's going back and forth. No, this is how it happened. No, this is how it happened. This is what's right, this is what's right. But instead, I would challenge you to make your discussion more like a game of softball, where you're tossing the ball to each other, you're catching it in the glove, you're taking it in, and you're asking questions. You're trying to understand what your partner just said before you hit back with whatever your conclusion is. Because the reality is that you can understand someone deeply, meaning seeing their logic and still completely disagree, meaning having a completely different conclusion or making a completely different choice. Both of those things can be true at the same time. Now, when I dig into this with especially my clients, so many of them will get defensive or shut down or extremely combative because they've been conditioned at some point to think that if they gain a deep understanding of their partner, they're going to have to give up something. And that's really not the case. So the relational skill that I want to offer to you in this episode is called both and, meaning that two things can be true at the same time. So if you're discussing something like religion or how to parent your children or how to create more intimacy in your marriage, you can gain a deep understanding of your partner's position and also hold on to your position that is different from your partner's. What this sounds like is I can understand why that's important to you or why you might feel that way, and I see it differently. Both things can be true at the same time. So here's how you put this into practice in real life. Remember that when you're trying to gain understanding of your partner's position or perspective or opinion, you want to ask questions. You want to get compassionately curious. You're not correcting them, you're not defending your position. You just simply want to know more about theirs. Again, this sounds like I hear what you're saying and I can see why you feel that way. And from my side, I experienced it this way. Or it sounds like this is really important to you, and I don't see it that way. What's important is that you're using and and not but, and that you keep your comments brief and grounded, grounded in compassion and in curiosity. So good questions that invite more sharing and more understanding are like, can you help me understand what this brought up for you? Another great question is, what did you need in that moment? Or help me understand what you were thinking. So back to that example of the text I shared with my husband. A great question would be, help me understand what you were thinking when you sent that text. And then he could say something like, I understand how you might have thought that, and maybe your friend took it this way. See how once he understands where I was coming from and I feel understood, that feedback of how my friend might have experienced it is so helpful and welcome because I feel like my husband understands me, he's on my side, and he's trying to help. Now, if we're talking about holding different positions, like disagreeing about religion, this sounds like help me understand how you came to those conclusions. What is it like for you to think about it that way? And then something like, I can see how you might see it that way, and also I experience it very differently. So the point is not to agree, the point is to understand each other better. This creates more respect, more love, and ultimately more intimacy and passion. You wouldn't want to be married to somebody who sees everything in the same exact way as you do. That's not helpful. It would be so boring. So support your partner's differences by getting compassionately curious about them and allow yourselves to have different ideas, opinions, positions, perspectives. It actually will strengthen your relationship much more than weaken it. So you can insert any conflict here, whether it has to do with money, parenting, sex, or even emotional availability. I know my husband and I have lots of conversations about electronics and phone usage in our house, where we may disagree over how we use our devices or how we allow our children to use our devices. And just because we understand where each other is coming from and why we feel so strongly about certain things, it doesn't mean that we agree on it. But we can live in harmony and we can come up with solutions that are good for us and for our family simply by understanding each other. So instead of arguing and having to defend our position, we stay open and curious by using that both and response. I see why you feel that way and I see it differently. This creates less escalation, more safety, and more mutual respect, which is so important. Remember that understanding each other takes practice. Start asking great questions and using that both and response. And I guarantee when you and your partner feel understood by each other and when you operate from the same team, even when you don't agree, you're going to be able to create more teamwork, more mutual respect, and more intimacy in your relationship. So remember that intimacy does not require sameness. It requires understanding and respect. No, go get compassionately curious about your partner's subjective reality and make sure that if this episode was helpful, you share it with a friend or leave a review. And I will be here same time, same place next week. And until then, happy marriaging.