Many women complain to me that their husband doesn’t listen or won’t listen to her.
She can complain that he is emotionally unavailable or just not capable of an emotional connection, suggesting that he is broken.
Not hearing her can leave her feeling disconnected, resentful, and lonely in the marriage.
For women communication is a critical part of building trust, deepening connection so she can feel safe to be herself in her marriage. This helps her to feel safe to love him.
If she can’t connect with him she can feel they are the wrong fit or he doesn’t care or she’s not enough for him. This will lead her to protect herself from him and now a vicious cycle can start.
>>>Today I’m going to share the real reason why men don’t listen to their wives.
When I’m interviewing couples to work with one factor always presents itself.
As each person describes their history, the woman will share her pain her problems, and the emotional journey she has been on with him.
In contrast, he will usually describe their history as a factual journey of them being together minus the emotions.
So what is this telling us?
Is he really non-emotional or is his communication model naturally organised differently to women and she is not aware of this?
When a woman brings emotions to a man he is naturally designed to not trust her emotions because he knows they can change, to him she can be erratic or unreasonable.
If I were to generalise a typical man’s view is…
- She doesn’t say what she means
- She can change her mind a lot
- She can say she likes things when he knows she doesn’t
- She can tell him what she wants and then not be happy when she gets it
- She can become emotional over the smallest of things
- She can be upset for no reason
- She can tell him she hates him one day and then loves him the next
- She can be miserable with him and instantly switch and be happy when a friend calls
- She can lie about past events
- She’s overly emotional and unreasonable
- She’s controlling
Simply speaking men don’t trust her emotions they only trust the facts.
When women bring emotions to men he shuts down because there is so much information that really doesn’t make sense to him.
In his world, he can listen to what she is saying offer her a solution only to be met with her now being more upset with him.
My message today is that men and women communicate so differently in an intimate relationship that getting through in a meaningful way to each other is such a struggle they can go round and round in circles.
Women tell me they have been crystal clear about what they are saying until I help them understand how their husbands are translating their words.
For men, women are never in a solution-based model.
Men are usually looking for solutions they want to fix the problems, but with no real understanding or trust in what she is communicating, he is going to fail at being successful with her.
So he can give up as she seems impossible to please – pleasing her is his primary mission until he feels unsafe in the relationship which is when he shuts down.
Men see a problem shared with his wife is a problem doubled so he can say very little and tries to solve it himself.
So how do you bridge such a large gap in communication styles?
1: Help men learn the steps to hearing her emotions as facts that enable him to support her in the way she wants.
2. Then help women to understand her emotions her pain her criticism of him is confusing him and pushing him away not making him want to change.
Believe me, I have seen so many men who have discovered how to be successful with wife, his confidence soars and this ignites his passion for her again.
This, of course, is just one of many disconnects that couples are suffering from without knowing.
If you want to hear the real reason you are in trouble make contact with us so we can assess you and put you back on track with simple steps.