{"id":56315,"date":"2022-05-08T11:33:53","date_gmt":"2022-05-08T16:33:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/?p=56315"},"modified":"2022-05-08T14:10:57","modified_gmt":"2022-05-08T19:10:57","slug":"how-to-comfort-someone-whos-sad-crying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/relationships\/social-skills\/how-to-comfort-someone-whos-sad-crying\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Comfort Someone Who\u2019s Sad\/Crying"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Vintage<\/a>

How not to comfort someone. For how to do it, see the tips below.<\/p><\/div>\n

With our archives now 3,500+ articles deep, we\u2019ve decided to republish a classic piece each Sunday to help our newer readers discover some of the best, evergreen gems from the past. This article was originally published in May 2016.<\/i><\/p>\n

Have you ever had someone come to you crying?<\/p>\n

Maybe your wife had a brutal day at work and fell apart when she came through the door.<\/p>\n

Or your mom lost it while reminiscing about your deceased dad.<\/p>\n

Or your usually stoic buddy broke down about his girlfriend dumping him.<\/p>\n

Interacting with someone who\u2019s sad and hurting can be awkward; you want to be there for them, show your empathy, and strengthen your relationship, but it\u2019s hard to know how to act and what to say. A lot of us end up sitting there uncomfortably, offering some awkward back pats, while saying, \u201cThere, there, it\u2019s okay.\u201d<\/p>\n

I know a lot of guys out there struggle with this scenario, because I\u2019ve gotten more requests to cover this topic than any other.<\/p>\n

I held off on doing so, because while I thought I did a pretty good job in this area myself, I wanted to see if there was real research out there concerning best practices. Fortunately, I recently came across some great tips from Dr. John Gottman<\/a>, a professor of psychology and arguably the foremost relationship expert in the country. Today I\u2019ll share his advice, as well as the tips I\u2019ve gleaned from personal experience, on how to comfort someone who\u2019s sad, so you can help them in their time of need and be a better son, friend, and husband\/boyfriend.<\/p>\n

How to Comfort Someone Who\u2019s Sad\/Crying<\/h3>\n

\u201cWitness\u201d their feelings. <\/strong>One of the most difficult things about trying to comfort someone who\u2019s hurting is feeling like you don\u2019t know what to say. Fortunately, most of the time people aren\u2019t actually looking for you to offer specific advice or pearls of wisdom; the most comforting thing in the world isn\u2019t an inspiring platitude, but feeling like someone else gets what you\u2019re going through, and that you\u2019re not alone in the world. The thing people want most when they\u2019re hurting is for you to act as a sounding board and to show understanding and empathy. Gottman calls this \u201cwitnessing\u201d your loved one\u2019s distress.<\/p>\n

So to start off comforting someone, simply describe what you\u2019re seeing\/sensing. Say something like, \u201cI know you\u2019re having such a hard time with this,\u201d or \u201cI\u2019m sorry you\u2019re hurting so much.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also affirm that you hear what they\u2019re saying by saying it back to them in your own words.<\/p>\n

So if your wife, who\u2019s in tears, says:<\/p>\n

\u201cMy boss told me I wasn’t cut out for my job, and that if I make one more mistake he\u2019s going to fire me.\u201d<\/p>\n

You would say back:<\/p>\n

\u201cIt sounds like you\u2019re upset because you haven\u2019t been doing as well as you\u2019d like at work, and you\u2019re worried that you\u2019re going to lose your job. Is that right?\u201d<\/p>\n

Affirm that their feelings make sense. <\/strong>You want to not only acknowledge that you hear the person\u2019s feelings, but that they make sense to you. It\u2019s lonely to feel like you\u2019re coming at something from out of left field.<\/p>\n

So you might say to your friend who\u2019s going through a bad break-up: \u201cOf course you\u2019re devastated. I honestly was depressed for months after Emily and I ended things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Keep in mind that while sharing your similar experiences shows empathy, you want to be careful not to pivot the focus of the conversation onto you<\/a>. Don\u2019t try to one-up the person by sharing a story of how you\u2019ve had it worse, and don\u2019t go on and on about your own experience. Instead, briefly share how you\u2019ve been through something similar, and then return the focus to the other person by asking them questions and eliciting more details (see the next point). Even if you haven\u2019t experienced the same thing, you can still say, \u201cThat\u2019s never happened to me, but I can really get why you\u2019re feeling that way.\u201d<\/p>\n

If the person\u2019s feelings don\u2019t <\/em>make sense to you, that makes the next step all the more important.<\/p>\n

Show the person you understand their feelings, and facilitate the deepening of his or her own understanding of them. <\/strong>Sometimes people do want advice or a proposed solution to their problem, but even then, they usually first <\/em>simply want to vent their feelings; as has often been observed, this is especially true of women. So hold off on going into problem-solving mode at first, and just listen. See your job not as talking, but as getting the other person to talk, so that they can sort through their feelings themselves; they may not even be able to articulate why they\u2019re feeling down, unless you draw it out of them.<\/p>\n

In getting your friend\/partner\/relative to open up, you demonstrate your genuine support and interest, enhance your understanding of their suffering, and let them know that you <\/em>know why they\u2019re sad; as the philosopher Soren Kierkegaard (he the advocate for indirect communication<\/a>) advises, that last part is important even if you think you already understand, and already know how to solve their problem:<\/p>\n

\u201cIf real success is to attend the effort to bring another person to a definite position, one must first of all take the pains to find that person where he or she is and begin there. This is the secret of the art of helping others. Anyone who has not mastered this is himself deluded when he proposes to help others. In order to help another effectively, I must understand more than he \u2014 yet first of all surely I must understand what he understands. If I do not know that, my greater understanding will be of no help to him. If, however, I am disposed to plume myself on my greater understanding, it is because I am vain or proud, so that at the bottom, instead of benefiting him, I want to be admired . . . To help does not mean to be a sovereign but a servant . . . not to be ambitious but to be patient.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Or as the minister Fred B. Craddock<\/a> puts it so well:<\/p>\n

\u201cTo understand what is understood and how it is understood means not only that you understand but that the listener understands that you do<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

To facilitate this drawing out process, Gottman recommends using \u201cexploratory statements and open-ended questions\u201d like:<\/p>\n