I can’t talk to my wife!
Guys, sometimes you may feel like you just can’t say anything at all without a fight breaking out. You both seem to be on high alert. In those times, follow this simple rule.
Rule: Only tell her things because you are wanting her to know you.
(another rule: Only ask her things because you want to know her, I’ll discuss later)
Here’s what I mean. Only tell her things (as in making declarative statements) when your motivation is for her to know something new, preferably about you. You are showing her yourself, revealing something to her.
Right away you can see this rules out things like,
- “The dishes aren’t going to wash themselves!” or
- “Money doesn’t grow on trees.”
Think about why you say those things. She obviously knows them. What if you translated those statements into
- “I don’t really understand the reason the dishes aren’t done.”
- “I’m thinking that it’s gonna’ be really tough for us to afford that.”
She actually may know more about you after you said those things then she did before. Has a really different tone, right? The conversation may even be able to continue from there.
Here are some other reasons we have, or say we have, for telling our wife something. I don’t recommend any of them.
“It’s the truth!” Ah, this is one of my favorites. There are many things that are true. Even though it was years ago when I learned that 2+2=4, it is among the things that are true today. You could tell her that.
We could also list, “My Uncle is fond of raising turtles.” and “It’s best never to get in a land war in Asia.” You probably haven’t brought those truths into the argument lately, right?
These all have equal merit on the grounds that they are true. So, evidently, “It’s the truth!” is problematic as the primary method for determining what you tell your wife. She will not really believe you if that’s the reason you give for saying something. The conversation (and relationship) is no better off for your saying it.
“Just making an observation.” This is a kinder, gentler version of “It’s the truth!”, but involves all the same liabilities.
“Oh… no reason.” Really? When the relationship is on the rocks, and you want to fix it, are you simply rolling dice in your head to pick what to say? This is laziness, or a means to avoid admitting you don’t know, or an outright lie.
I know it hurts you when I say this.Yeah, that’s one we try not to say out loud, huh? In the place of “hurts” we can substitute “scares”, “angers”,”overwhelms”, “intimidates”, “confuses”, etc.. The idea here is that we are trying to manipulate the other person’s feelings for our benefit.
Here are some of the others we don’t say out loud.
I can’t tolerate feelings I’m having, so I’ll say them out loud to make it your job to manage my feelings.
I’m afraid of telling you the truth.
I know this is what you need to hear so I can get my way.
I want to highlight that fact (maybe for those listening) that I am smarter than you.
So, you see there are a lot of ways to break our simple rule. Allowing ourselves to really be known is hard and risky AND takes actually knowing yourself. By the way, knowing and being known is what intimacy means. Genuine interest and genuine disclosure are very powerful bonding agents.
But, please believe me on this. Following this simple rule can make an amazing difference in your communication, trust, understanding, and much more. I’ve seen it happen. Try it. I’m even willing to give you a money back guarantee. :)
Yes, I will be fair and talk about another simple rule your wife should follow.
David Hamilton
Cut straight to the motive, huh? Good stuff.
And both genders can benefit from the ‘rules’.
When you said…….
“Allowing ourselves to really be known is hard and risky AND takes actually knowing yourself. By the way, knowing and being known is what intimacy means. Genuine interest and genuine disclosure are very powerful bonding agents.”
This is so true, but I wish men would understand that it’s hard for women too. We also take a risk at being ridiculed or rejected when we open ourselves up. But by genuinely loving and respecting us, we want nothing more than to give back. Not with a ‘you do for me, so I’ll do for you’ attitude, but because we have a STRONG desire to. And not with the feeling that we ‘owe’ it to you, but because we WANT to give ourselves to you – completely. What man wouldn’t want that in a wife?
We want the same things you do. See, we really aren’t as complicated as some of you make us out to be. (Ok men, you can stop laughing now!) :-)
so my wife regularly leaves her dirty underwear and clothing on our bedroom floor, for up to a week or more on occasion, I used to move it myself, but got sick of this as it just feeds her laziness. If the kids left clothing like this on their floors she would be all over it, so what do I say here to challenge her behaviour, “I know this frustrates you when I raise this, but Im trying to understand why there is still washing on our bedroom floor”?
The best of it is, she even denies that most of it is hers and tells me she brings down her bath towels and clothes; even though, there they are, all over the floor. . brilliant
so tell me how can I challenge this for a beahviour change in a non combative way that wont result in my being skinned and dumped in a salt bath?
Hate to break it to you but the short answer is you don’t. Obviously she knows by now how you feel about it.
What she is doing is not immoral or a danger to anyone. Much like many of the things you do that annoy her. :)
Focus on how you can help her or manage your reactions, not change her behavior. That’s just the way it is,bud.
Humm… First time I laughed yet…(face)
:)