idiom requests - What would be a good word for expressing "a gesture of sympathy/empathy"

I've had someone say "I'm sorry!" to me to express a gesture of sympathy/empathy, whereas my answer to that was "Don't apologise for things you cannot control..."

The only thing I can think of in English that comes even close to what I want to express is "my condolences" but in this case, no one died, so that's not a good fit neither...

So, a question to the experts: What would be a good idiom to use to tell someone that I empathise/sympathise with them, without saying "I'm sorry..."?

_{Note: This question is a bit similar to this one but that one doesn't really answer my question and Google didn't turn up anything useful either... :-(}