by Dr. Lori Davis, NP | Certified Sex Counselor | Relational Desire Coach

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Something is not working in how you talk to each other. One person tries to say something that matters and it comes out sideways. The other tries to help and makes it worse. Or nothing gets said at all, because the last time something got said it opened a door that could not be closed again.

What I know from using Responsive Listening Turns with couples is that something always shifts when we slow down and do it properly. Both partners learn something. Both of them see what has been getting in the way. Something drops and settles in the room, and you can feel it. People leave closer and more connected than when they arrived.

It is not accidental. It is the result of finally having the right structure for what was already trying to happen.

What does it mean to really listen?

Listening seems obvious. We all think we know how to do it. And yet it is one of the most complex things a human being can offer another.

At its most basic, listening is just receiving sound. But that is not what anyone means when they say they want to feel heard. What they mean is something much more specific: they want to know that what they said actually landed inside another person. That it was taken in. That something in the other person moved in response to what they brought.

There are different ways we listen. We can listen silently, simply being present, holding space, letting the other person speak without any response at all. That has its own power and its own place. We could call those Listening Turns and are a wonderful way to practice giving and receiving the gift of silent listening.

But there is another kind of listening that goes further. In this kind, the listener is not just receiving words. They are noticing what happens inside themselves as the words arrive, a flicker of recognition, a sense of something underneath what was said, a feeling that mirrors what the speaker might be carrying. And then, carefully, in service of the speaker’s experience, they offer that back.

This is what responsive means in this practice. Not reactive, not the automatic surge to defend or explain or fix. But attuned. The listener’s inner system is tracking the speaker’s inner system, picking up what is being carried, and reflecting it back with care. Like a car that flows through corners, accelerating where needed, easing where needed, not fighting the road but reading it. Responsive is a quality of movement. Of being genuinely in contact with what is happening and moving with it rather than against it.

That is the gift the listener is giving. Not just open ears, but attuned presence, noticing what arises inside you in response to your partner and offering it in their service.

This might sound “woo” or complex. But it is available to all of us, it just takes intention and practice to learn to be a relational and empathic listener. I find that it is usually present just below the surface of all the defenses and inhibitions that get in our way.

The listener’s gift

Betty Martin has spent decades mapping the ways we are always giving and receiving in relationship, and how rarely we are conscious of which one we are doing. In Responsive Listening Turns, the structure is clear: the listener is giving, and the speaker is receiving. The gift is the listener’s full, attuned, non-defensive presence.

That means the listener gets to ask themselves an honest question before they begin: can I give this with an open heart right now? Not grudgingly, not while composing a rebuttal internally, not while managing a flood of their own feelings about what is being said. Genuinely. From abundance.

A listening turn given from depletion or resentment is not a gift. Your partner can feel the difference. What they need is a listener who has made a real internal choice to set themselves aside for this window of time, who is actually available, willing, and present.

The listener also has limits. They can only give what they genuinely have to give. If they are too activated, too flooded, too close to what is being brought to be genuinely present, the honest thing is to say so. To ask for a pause. They also have limits about what they are willing to listen to. The listener is not available for everything and they can set limits if a speaker becomes mean-spirited, abusive, or if the listener simply does not consent to the direction of the conversation.

A listener showing up with willingness and consent from that honest place changes the tone of the entire experience.

The listener as companion

In Focusing, developed by Eugene Gendlin and expanded by Ann Weiser Cornell, the person supporting a session is called a companion, not a guide, not a solver, but someone who walks alongside. The companion follows wherever the speaker goes, stays close to what is emerging, and helps it find its way more fully into words. They do not lead or redirect. They are in service of the speaker’s unfolding, not their own understanding.

That is the quality this practice asks of the listener. Walk alongside your partner in their experience for a while. Not ahead, not behind. Alongside. You are not trying to get somewhere. You are helping them go deeper into wherever they already are.

In practice, this sounds like reflecting back what you heard, close to their own words. Noticing what might be underneath what was said, perhaps an emotion that was there but not named. Offering it gently as a question: “I get the sense that you are sad? Is that right?” Noticing how it lands.

It is asking for consent for things you might want to add beyond that: “Would it be helpful if I shared what I thought about that” or “Would it be helpful if I shared why I did that, my side of this?” Then genuinely accepting no as an answer. Because what matters is not what you want to say. It is what is helpful for your partner right now. Those are often not the same thing.

That question, “would it be helpful if…” is one of the most powerful things you can learn to ask. Instead of trying to say the right thing, you are experimenting with what helps. That is a completely different relationship to the conversation.

What the speaker is learning

The speaker has their own work to do, and it is more than just talking.

One of the things this practice teaches the speaker is to feel felt. Not just to be heard, but to actually take in the experience of being understood. Many people who have spent a long time not feeling heard have developed a kind of armor against it, a tendency to deflect, minimize, or move quickly past the moment when genuine understanding is offered. Learning to receive it, to stay with the warmth of being genuinely met, that is its own skill and it takes practice.

The practice also teaches the speaker to discover what they actually need. Most of us have not been asked that question often enough. What would help you feel understood right now? What would it look like for this conversation to go well? Most people do not know the answer until they are inside a responsive listening turn, starting to notice what helps them “feel felt” and what does not. That discovery is part of the point.

The speaker is also learning to find their way between being contained and being expansive. Contained means: bring one thing at a time. Say enough to be understood and then pause. Let your partner receive what you just brought before you bring more. For people who have spent a long time not feeling heard, the impulse is to say everything at once before the window closes. But a genuine listening turn means the window stays open. You can bring one thing, let it land, and then bring the next. For other people, what needs to be learned is how to keep going, how to take up space, how to brainstorm and let the thoughts flow without fear of how they land.

Finally, there can be a vulnerability hangover after a good listening turn, a strange mix of relief and exposure, the feeling of having actually been seen. That is normal. It means something real happened. But for many people that leads to withdrawal, collapse or a desire to make sure their partner isn’t mad at them. That’s ok. We can slow down with that, too.

How to practice

For your reference, I have created a Responsive Listening Turns practice document which you can use in real time to remind you of the intention of the practice. You can access that here.

What does this have to do with desire?

Everything.

You cannot desire someone you cannot be curious about. You cannot feel desired by someone who cannot receive you. The gap between partners around sex is almost always also a gap in this capacity, the capacity to hold each other’s inner world, to give and receive genuine attuned presence, to stay with each other without collapsing into defense or distance.

When your partner can walk alongside what is alive in you, without defending, without fixing, without making it about themselves, something opens. The body notices. Safety registers. And from safety, desire has somewhere to grow.

This is what I call Relational Desire: the recognition that wanting does not arise in a vacuum. It arises in a relationship, in a body that feels genuinely met. Responsive Listening Turns is one of the most direct ways I know to start building that.

Working With Me

If you and your partner keep trying to talk and keep ending up further apart, this is exactly the work I do. You can learn more about working together by booking a free consultation below.

I work in person in Ithaca and virtually anywhere in the US. My two-day Relational Desire Intensive is for couples who want to do focused work and come out the other side with something genuinely different. Ongoing coaching is also available. Book a free consultation below.