When Being Understood Matters More Than Being Agreed With

Have you ever tried to explain something that mattered to you, only to still feel misunderstood or unheard?

Over the years, I’ve seen how easy it is to keep trying to explain something because we believe that if the other person could just understand, something would finally shift. We go back to it because it matters, and because some part of us still hopes that this time the other person will understand what we have been trying to say. But sometimes we aren’t really asking them to agree with us or even see something exactly the way we do. Sometimes what we really want to know is, Can you see how this is affecting me?

I’ve had times in my own life when I didn’t need someone to tell me I was right. I needed to know they understood that something had affected me and that it mattered. There were also things I wanted to share because they had brought me joy or meant something to me, and I wanted the person I cared about to understand why.

When you constantly feel misunderstood and not heard by someone who matters to you, you can start to feel unseen by them. They may care about you and still not fully understand why something affects you the way it does. But when you have had to explain it over and over and still don’t feel heard, it can start to feel like they are not really seeing what this is doing to you or why it matters.

After a while, you can stop saying things because you don’t want another argument or to feel let down again. Being misunderstood can leave you feeling vulnerable, especially when you have already tried so hard to explain yourself. It can become easier to keep those things to yourself, and over time you may also stop sharing some of the good things because you are not sure the other person will really understand why they matter to you.

I think this is where being understood and being agreed with can get mixed together. Someone may never completely understand why something affects you the way it does because they have not lived it the way you have. They may see the situation differently and still recognize that what you are feeling is real and important to you.

And that can show up in very ordinary ways. If someone knows something hurts you, they may choose to respond differently even if they still don’t completely understand why it affects you so much. If they know something means a lot to you, they can make room for that too, even if it would not carry the same meaning for them.

There is a difference between wanting someone to agree with everything we feel and wanting to know that what we feel matters to them. I think a lot of us know that difference when we experience it, even if we have never really put words around it.

You can disagree with someone and still feel close to them. You can see something differently and still feel understood. But when you are repeatedly trying to explain why something matters and still feel unheard, the disagreement can start to feel like something much bigger than what it began as.

Maybe being understood is not about someone completely understanding why we feel the way we do. Maybe it is knowing they can still recognize that something matters to us, even when they would not experience it the same way.

And I wonder how different some relationships might feel if we stopped asking, “Do you understand why this should matter?” and started asking, “Can you understand that it matters to me?”