Comforting anyone at all can be very hard work. It gets harder if the person to be comforted is your girlfriend. This is because your emotional attachment to this person makes it harder to become neutral. And quite frankly, some level of neutrality is needed if one is to be comforted. In this article, I will be showing you how to comfort your girlfriend and make her feel better whenever she talks to you about her difficulties.
1. Set the mood
Before you can comfort anyone, you have to learn to set a mood that allows them to open up to you.
Remember that comforting someone is bringing them into a more relaxing headspace. You lead them into this headspace, and they decide whether to follow you or not.
Your girlfriend will only follow you into comfort if you make her feel like she is in safe hands, your hands.
A lot of guys often complain that their woman does not speak to them. My answer is always: she doesn’t feel like talking to you will make any difference.
Set the right mood to comfort her. Don’t make the mistake of doing it over texting. Don’t do it over a call, either. Insist to talk to her in person. Drive over to her place as a heartfelt gesture. Or invite her over for a date. This way, she is in a place she knows she is loved.
It’s also important to not sit far apart from each other when you comfort her. Some body contact can truly change how things play out. Hold her in your arms like she’s such a cute little baby, and she is.
Read: How to keep your phone conversations interesting
2. Ask
If you’re going to comfort your woman, don’t make the mistake of assuming anything. Whatever it is you think is wrong may just be speculation. And women hate it when guys speculate.
Sometimes, all she wants is for you to ask her how she is doing and why her mood has changed all of a sudden.
You must remember not to ask your questions in a way that suggests you are asking out of frustration. Some guys ask questions in ways that tell the girl that, well, this guy doesn’t really care. He is just asking so I can get the bad mood over with.
Some guys do this anyway. A lot that I know of at least.
You may have to ask what is really going on a lot of times. But be sure not to let any kinds of frustrations slip in. Don’t tell yourself: this girl has to fix herself and stop acting like a psycho.
Ask because you care, and practice giving her some space until she comes around.
3. Listen
Don’t listen to talk. Listen to know. A lot of guys like to pride themselves on their supposed listening abilities, but in reality, not many guys really listen. The art of listening, especially in relationships, is one that only exists in people who have stripped themselves of all their ego. And trust me when I say that quite a number of men have raging egos.
Ego makes the listening session all about you. It makes you see yourself in everything she is saying. And when you do respond, you will likely respond with from a very biased standpoint.
Replace your ego with empathy. Try to feel what she is feeling, but remember not to feel her own emotions for her. Understand how anything she must be going through must really hurt. Understand her confusion. Usually people who need comfort are often very confused.
It is the confusion that makes us feel very scared and afraid of possibilities that may never even happen.
Listen like someone who cares.
Read: 10 Unexpected Things Women Might Find Puzzling About Men
4. Tell
This is where you must practice the most restraint you are capable of. This is where you have to strip your ego of its desires and let love for your partner have its way. After they have spoken to you, you must use the one thing that makes you masculine to bring a solution to her negative emotions. It is called logic.
While very helpful, logic can also bring a lot of anger into the conversation if you don’t know how to use it right.
Most guy make the mistake of losing logic as a means to fault what their woman is saying. They say or presume things like: “Why should you even feel this way?”
This is the wrong thing to do. Do this to a woman more than once, and I can assure you she will not speak to you about anything else again. At least not things she considered that important.
Your logic should agree that she has a right to feel what she feels. Of course, every woman has a right to feel what she feels, no matter how this confuses you, her man. And frankly, it should confuse you, haha.
After you have acknowledged her emotions as an ideal human response to difficulty, it becomes time to let her see what should be done.
5. Retell
Tell her what you think about whatever happened, analyzing the situation from a place of logic. Try as much as you can to be neutral. Don’t support and don’t accuse. Say she is sad because she got into a fight with a coworker and was called a lot of weird names; how do you respond to this?
Well, analyse the situation by trying to find out the cause of the problem, its course, and its current impact. Be sure not to use hyperactive or accusatory language. It is best if you stick to the phrase: “I think…”
You can say something like: “So, to be honest, I think you both were just very stressed.” This is the cause of the problem.
The course may be: “You remember how you talked about your issues with this coworker a while ago. It just had to happen, and it doesn’t even make you a bad person.”
6. Aid decision-making but don’t interfere
Sometimes, comfort doesn’t really stick if one does not make a decision. Your girlfriend has to make a decision somehow and she has got to do it with your help.
Be the lover that you are and help her go through her issues with making a decision.
Help. But don’t interfere. Be suggestive with your advice. You can say something along the lines of;
“Hey babe, you know I feel like you should try this out…”
Offer to help her if she ever runs into difficulty. This is how you win her trust and make her love you deeply. This is how to make a woman relaxed around you. This is how you bring comfort to her mind.
Read: Why are Women so Sensitive?
7. Listen some more
Trust me, when you offer her some advice that requires her to go ahead and make a decision, she will often have a lot ofquestions. These questions spring from her fear and confusion. Making a decision to get better or receive comfort is hard. Our minds often resist it, acting on the fear that something could go wrong somewhere else.
This is where you have to listen to her.
Listen and support.
If she says: “What if I do this and it doesn’t work…”
Support her by teaching her acceptance. The power of acceptance cannot be overestimated. When one accepts something as a possibility and is fine with it happening, no matter what it is, one feels better.
You can respond with: “Even if it does happen, I will be here with you as always.”
Watch her face brighten up with affection.
8. Resolve emotional responses
She may respond with emotions a lot when you’re trying to comfort her. This is normal. Our emotions want to protect us, although sometimes they do such a bad job at this and go on to cause even more pain.
When you notice that her emotions begin to tilt towards a pathological end, then you can stir them back into health.
For example, one of the most common responses to bad moods, which I see sometimes in women, is a change in sense of self-worth.
A woman will always say, “After all, I am a jerk, so it isn’t even surprising; I am good for nothing.”
Don’t overlook this one. Have her know she is not a jerk, and lovingly stir her back into a better place.
9. Don’t use sex
Sex may seem like a good option, but I assure you that it is not. Don’t even consider having sex with her as a means to make her feel good. At least not before you both have talked things through and she comes to get a hold of her emotions.
10. Keep it out of your mouth until she brings it up again
Seriously, don’t talk about it, except she brings it up on her own.
Summary
Everyone has bad moods. Love should make bad moods easier.
