5 Proven Tools to Design Loving, Sensitive Romance

Researcher Dr. Elaine Aron advises highly sensitive people (HSPs) on intimacy.

In intimate connections, I crave depth yet often feel terrified about getting closer. Discovering my high sensitivity over the last year – and its impact on relationships – has seriously increased my self-acceptance and life quality.

As I get closer to my similarly sensitive partner, understanding how our temperaments impact the relationship feels essential. In “The Highly Sensitive Person in Love” book, Aron gives incredible advice from her HSP research, workshops, and psychotherapy work.

“One of the greatest steps in growth is to accept each other – to appreciate that every person is a ‘package deal’ and ‘when you choose a partner, you choose a set of problems.’ It is almost the essence of wisdom to accept the limits of life and mortality, to be thrilled by what you do have for as many moments of the day as you can be aware and in love,” wrote Aron.

Being highly sensitive means we have many gifts to bring into close relationships – like our passion, creativity, and more nuanced awareness. We also have some unique, temperament-based challenges and opportunities.

I gathered this advice mostly from Chapter 7: “Creating a Satisfying, Sensitive Partnership,” Aron’s top tips for HSPs partnered with another HSP or a non-HSP.

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1. Do exciting, challenging activities together.

Aron shared research from a doctoral student who explored the theory about boredom in relationships. They discovered doing a mutually exciting and challenging activity together for at least 90 minutes each week led to significant increases in relationship satisfaction.

“A pair of HSPs must be careful not to make their relationship such a calming refuge that it becomes boring. This is actually a common problem in all HSP relationships,” wrote Aron.

In the study, they separated married couples into three groups: one did nothing different, one spent more time together doing “pleasant” activities, and one spent time regularly doing “exciting” things together. After 10 weeks, the first two groups did not show signs of increased satisfaction.

The pairs who engaged in the exciting projects together shared more positive and less hostile conversations and felt more love for their partners.

“This research has made quite a stir among those who study close relationships, as relationship quality has always been seen as the result of the personalities or histories of each of the partners plus their communication skills. Yet it seems very possible that much of the trouble couples have could be due to boredom,” Aron said.

She uses the analogy of dogs who haven’t gone for walks in a while and need to move around. When we’re bored, we can easily stir up all sorts of trouble, if only to keep things interesting.

2. Listen to and appreciate each other’s perspectives.

Having different genders, races, temperaments, or religions, for example, often creates vastly different approaches and responses to the world. Being intentional about understanding, respecting, and seeing each other’s viewpoints as valid matters. We need to talk about it.

Aron encourages a specific approach: “Listen empathically and speak empathically.” Rather than focus entirely on the other person, we need to remember to also be fully in our truths.

“Those who advise couples, myself included, used to put their emphasis on reflective, empathic listening. But that has not proven to be quite sufficient, because sometimes one partner is quite skilled at listening but does not express his or her own perspective with enough force to have it honored or else just gives in too easily,” wrote Aron.

I can relate. Connecting with my inner truth and expressing it as valid still feels scary sometimes. My daily journaling practice helps a lot.

Here are some steps for doing this exercise well:

With empathic listening, the listener attends to the feelings as well as the content and does not interrupt, interpret, advise, or even offer his or her own experience or ask questions.
When your partner is doing this listening, you give your own perspective without flinching from your authentic truth.
You speak plainly, honestly, without blaming, using “I statements,”: “I need that” or “I see it that way.”

In healthy conflict resolution or “fighting fairly,” we’re sharing and listening to understand each other’s perspectives more clearly. We stay on the topic at hand and take breaks as needed to manage stimulation levels.

3. Manage levels of arousal during conflicts.

If one of you becomes triggered or overly stressed, having a valuable and authentic dialogue may be impossible. Taking at least a 20-minute break can help you return to normal.

“Overaroused people want to get out of the discussion or totally control it. If you keep them in it, they are more likely to complain about all sorts of things and engage in what Gottman calls the ‘four horsemen’ – criticism, defensiveness, contempt, and stonewalling or emotional withdrawal (the last being the most typical of HSPs),” Aron explained.

By noticing the signs of overarousal, we can prevent emotional explosions and improve the connection. Things like a racing heartbeat, keeping your eyes closed (to block out stimulation), folding your arms across your chest, or overcontrolling facial muscles, for example, mean you’re overstimulated.

“In a more global sense, over-aroused people show little humor, interest, or brightening of their expressions in response to anything. They are hypervigilant for threats, and when a negative train of thought begins, it persists far longer. New information and insights are not processed, so everything said is pretty much wasted on the over-aroused,” Aron described.

She shares a few tips for keeping arousal in check:

Don’t begin difficult discussions when either of you is tired, overstimulated, or already stressed out about something else.
Begin topics gently and appreciate what the other person has already done to minimize the issue.
Find every possibility to compromise or give in while maintaining personal integrity and honoring your own needs.
Both partners need to prioritize maintaining optimal arousal levels, recovering from previous chronic overarousal, and healing past emotional wounds.
Be proactive by ensuring the positive events and feelings about the relationship far outweigh the negative ones.

Additionally, she recommends things like meditation retreats, massages, healthy diets, and psychotherapy to create an ongoing calmer perspective, which makes all the difference in conflicts. Rather than being selfish, these self-care steps are simply necessary and an investment for sensitive people.

4. Do the difficult discussions, in your own way.

Most couples say they’re separating because they’ve “grown apart” (80% of divorcing couples), while only 40% list “fighting and conflicts” as the reason. As Aron shares, “growing apart,” really comes from disengaging.

“HSPs are likely to avoid conflicts or withdraw during them – one of the worst strategies. Most relationships end due to this disengagement. Fighting might lead to a resolution; not talking about a conflict can only lead to this ‘growing apart,’” Aron wrote.

Conflict and anger don’t predict relationship longevity, since happy and unhappy couples have the same amount and type of issues they disagree on. Finding ways to navigate conflict well together makes or breaks the connection.

We can prevent more serious disengagement by noticing and addressing the subtle signs. Feeling angry, irritable, distant, or worried about the relationship, for example, are cues that something needs to be addressed.

“To overcome disengagement, both of you must admit that it is a serious problem and work to change it. Changing it requires, first, that the disengaged person, often an HSP, discuss what first began to shut him or her down,” expressed Aron.

Exploring these nuances has already immensely helped my partnership. I feel more hopeful about the longevity of the connection since we’ve talked about and used thoughtful strategies for having difficult conversations.

5. Discover deeply buried hopes and fears.

Recurring, intense disagreements often stem from unfulfilled hopes or unresolved fears. For example, you may freak out when your partner doesn’t recycle something because deep down you feel fear for our world.

“HSPs are especially likely to struggle to find meaning in their work and to have lifelong hopes about that. Needing meaning and purpose so much, we will suffer greatly if anything seems to stand in the way, even while we also want to please our partner,” said Aron.

I remember having a really heated argument about taking out the trash with my college roommate and best friend. I quickly realized our fight was definitely not about the garbage cans. Once we addressed some hidden beliefs and concerns, we were able to move forward.

“When one or both of you is fighting, defending, or stonewalling as though possessed, try asking, ‘Is there a big unnamed hope or fear beneath all this uproar?’ There almost always is, if you can only name it,” Aron encouraged.

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I look forward to exploring and working more with these approaches, especially doing more exciting, challenging activities. My partnership has already benefitted from this piece of advice. We practiced partner dance, did ecstatic dance together, and signed up for an acro yoga class.

Lastly, Aron’s advice applies to any close relationship including friendships and loved ones. Pick up your copy of “The Highly Sensitive Person in Love” to dive deeper into this topic.

Explore high sensitivity in some of my recent posts:

Feature Photo Credit: Anas Qtiesh – another masterpiece from my amazing partner!

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I publish inspiring, empowering content on self-actualization topics once a week (Tuesdays). I include insights from personal experience, research, expert advice, and others’ stories. I use my professional journalism and research background to keep posts concise, empathic, and trustworthy.

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