How to Read Your Partner’s Mind

For the relationship experts, this may come off as sacrilegious.

For the men who have felt like they had to attain a literal superhuman power in order to relate, communicate, and understand their partner, this might be too good to be true.

And I assume some women may have felt the frustration in not being able to be on the same wavelength of their partners too.

What I am about to share isn’t beyond the realm of human understanding. However, it is something that will take time, dedication, and most importantly, honesty (or at the very least, consistency).

Also, forgive me if I sound spooky. I’m not advocating for telepathy or anything like that. If that stuff exists, dope. But what I want to discuss is fairly practical and something you probably have experienced.

I was watching The Blackening and there was a scene early in the movie where two of the leads, Alison and Lisa, were exchanging facial expressions and having a full-on conversation with one another. We the audience understood what they were saying thanks to voice over.

While it was a bit exaggerated to drum up the humor of the scene, it was also funny because it’s real. There are times you can look at your friend or they look at you and there’s an inner knowing of exactly how each other feels and of what to do (or not do).

And now for a more sinister example.

When a parent or partner gives a stern or serious look towards their respective child or partner, the recipient knows not only what they need to do, they know why the look is being given.

I remember I once had a friend who did this every now and then, but for the life of me I could never figure out what he was mad at or what he wanted. I couldn’t read his mind.

And now for an even more sinister example.

In Lundy Bancroft’s book “Why Does He Do That: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men,” he shared the thoughts of a client he once had in group therapy.

“My wife and I had plans to meet in the lobby of the building where she works to go out for lunch. I was waiting around near the elevators, and when she finally came out I saw that she’d been alone on the elevator with this good-looking guy. He had a look on his face, and she did too, I can’t really describe it, but I could tell something was up.”

Long story short, he ended up calling her a slut because he believed that the guy in the elevator and his wife did something sexual in the elevator together. Then when she tried to explain that she didn’t even know the guy, he didn’t believe her.

The reason I offered these three examples was to illustrate the ingredients for the ability to read your partner’s mind, and the ingredients necessary to totally delude yourself into thinking you can.

So, first up, there must be a connection. Connection is facilitated by getting to know the person, long conversations with questions honestly answered, spending time with them, laughing with them, crying with them, and overall consistently having shared experiences with them that reveal intellectual and emotional information about them.

This is a person you care about and value. Otherwise, it is someone you fear and distrust. Either way, consistently strong emotions give rise to strong connections (whether positive or negative) and a ton of intellectual and emotional information.

Lisa and Alison had one of the best friendships among the cast and it was demonstrated in how they could exchange knowing looks and communicate several sentences worth of information.

For me and my former friend, we knew each other intellectually but not emotionally. After years of spending time together, we learnt a lot about each other’s external lives but not what was going on within. I chalk it up to toxic “men don’t show their feelings” stuff, but there was also mutual distrust.

If you cannot trust someone, how can you know that what you are perceiving is correct? Which of course leads to the guy in Bancroft’s group therapy session who clearly did not trust his wife and misread his wife’s expressions.

Secondly, there must be an expression of emotion and empathy. Sounds somewhat similar to the first point but let me explain the difference.

Friends or lovers who hide their emotional state cannot be read, simply because, whether they know it or not, they are afraid to reveal what’s going on inside.

If emotions are the way we gain information about our environment (this person is safe, I feel uneasy about that restaurant), then it is important to share that information. People who are reticent about showing you how they feel block you from emotional resonance.

Another hindrance to emotional resonance is a lack of empathy. The inability to “be in another person’s shoes” is the inability to understand another person’s why. Understanding why someone does or thinks the way they do aids in your ability to read them and to anticipate what they will do next.

Third, and finally, there is a lack of psychological interference. Things such as doubt, fear, jealousy, insecurity, and anger cloud our better judgment and prevent us from accurately reading the room and reading our partner.

Being a more intuitive person can also aid the process, but ultimately, being able to read your partner’s mind is largely an unconscious act. It is spontaneous because the information one receives leads to a quick reaction.

Unfortunately, like in the case of the emotionally abusive man in Bancroft’s group session, his fear, jealousy and insecurity in his marriage led him to believe that his wife and a stranger could have sex while on an elevator that was moving only a few floors down.

As far as I know they weren’t in the elevator of the Burj Khalifa, so the time to do the deed and fix their clothes afterwards wouldn’t make sense to the wife to risk it all and to answer to a husband who’s going to group sessions for marital woes.

As a result, the health of the relationship is paramount.

The simple reason why people want their spouse to read their mind or they complain that their spouse wants them to read their mind is because the health of the relationship is poor.

Communication is weak, psychological interference is high, and empathy is lacking. Improve these and not only will the relationship improve, you two might even become superhuman.

People may feel cheated, as if they thought they could really get some occult magick to achieve telepathy. The people I know who’ve achieved these things don’t belong to a coven (as far as I know) and don’t read Aleister Crowley.

The irony is, why would you need any of that when this stuff is how sisters know when the other one is sick despite living in different countries, or when one forgets to buy something for work but a friend already bought it just in case, or when one needs their partner for something and then, moments later, the partner enters the room asking if they just called them.

It’s not magic. It’s just practiced and prolonged caring.

—

This post was previously published on medium.com.

***

From The Good Men Project on Medium

What Does Being in Love and Loving Someone Really Mean?

My 9-Year-Old Accidentally Explained Why His Mom Divorced Me

The One Thing Men Want More Than Sex

The Internal Struggle Men Battle in Silence

***

Join The Good Men Project as a Premium Member today.

All Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS.

A $50 annual membership gives you an all access pass. You can be a part of every call, group, class and community.
A $25 annual membership gives you access to one class, one Social Interest group and our online communities.
A $12 annual membership gives you access to our Friday calls with the publisher, our online community.