How A Man Loves A Woman

If there is one thing women say they want, it is to be heard. ‘I just want to be heard’. Sounds simple, and it actually is. However, it’s a skill to be mastered like any other. Learn the technique and then practice it. Barbara Graham [*] calls it ‘aural sex’, because it is one of the ways women get turned on.

The first part of listening is straightforward. You pay full attention. That means not reading the paper, thinking about what you have to do tomorrow, or building a counter argument. It means having some level of interest in what she is saying.

It’s not a good idea to interrupt. If you are busting to go to the toilet, interrupt. Or if you have a time limit, interrupt. Otherwise, keep quiet. Sometimes this requires physically biting your tongue. This is well worth doing.

If for some reason you can't or don’t want to pay full attention, or the topic is really not interesting you, then say so. She may react, especially if you put her off repeatedly. But pretending to listen is much more destructive than being honest. The best way to avoid the likelihood of a negative reaction is to say, ‘this is not a good time for me to listen to you, I am distracted/need some space. Lets talk … (e.g. tonight after dinner)’.

Here is a caution: don’t give advice or try to solve the problem – well at least not straight away. If you do either the result will almost certainly be that she won’t feel heard, even though you are listening with full attention and responding in a way you think is appropriate.

So if you don’t give advice, what do you do?

This is the second part. You acknowledge how she is feeling. It's like being sympathetic without the syrup. If she doesn’t actually tell you how she is feeling (i.e. she is in complaining mode), ask her. Or you can take a bold step and imagine: ‘I imagine that must really frustrate you’.

If she is expressing a resentment, you can be pretty sure she just wants to be heard. Don’t defend, don’t make excuses. Just listen. It's hard to hear someone else’s pain, particularly if you think it's your fault. Well, listen anyway. It’s an important life skill. Keep working at it!

Acknowledging how she is feeling is usually preceded by a simple formula: ‘I hear that you are feeling…….’ It is really amazing how sometimes this is all she needs to get back from you. Sometimes you will see her visibly relax when you say this. The trick is to stop after this statement; allow some time for it to sink in that you are simply there for her. Don’t explain, justify, suggest, analyse, criticise, or put in your two bobs’ worth.

You think this sounds too simple, too easy? Is that really all she wants? Try it and see for yourself.

The next skill is to work out whether she wants you to actually do something about her subject, or she just needs to be heard. For instance:

My wife, Sumana, was heading off on a long trip, and decided to leave very early in the morning. When she woke up at the appointed hour it was raining. I was half asleep when she said, ‘I don’t know whether to go now or wait till it’s light.’ My brain was not in full gear and I mumbled, ‘well why don’t you go seeing as you are awake anyway, and just take it slowly’. She didn’t like that answer so I tried the other base, ‘well why not just go back to sleep and leave when it gets light.’ That didn’t go down well either; I was running out of responses. Her reply says it all: ‘I don’t want you to give me a solution, I just want you to hear my dilemma.’

Usually your partner’s complaints will appear to be a demand for action or advice. But often all she wants is for you to understand how she is feeling. If she really feels understood, her demands may dissolve. Then you can relax.

However don’t bank on this. Once she feels understood, she may also want some action.

She might say, ‘I am really annoyed that it's been a week and you still haven’t fixed the tap on the washing machine, it's making such a mess.’

If you are like most men, you skip over the ‘annoyed’ bit and focus on the ‘fix it’ bit. Who wants to focus on someone else’s annoyance? Easier to move straight into the solution – ‘I’ll fix it now’. The trouble is, she probably wants you to really hear her annoyance first. She wants you to take it in, acknowledge it. Then do the fixing (as in do it rather than promise to do it).

The best time to give advice or offer your solutions is when she asks you specifically for that. If you are just bursting at the seams with your perfect solution but she doesn’t seem to be getting around to inviting it, ask first if she wants to hear it.

The next challenge is if she rejects your perfect solution. If your self worth is tied up in being Mr Fixit, you are probably going to feel personally rejected. This is just going to create another problem, and now there are two problems, rather than just the original one.

Watch out for any hidden expectation you may have. She has a hassle. You have provided the solution. She is just not doing it. You get irritated. Spot the hidden contract? It goes like this: ‘I have given you the right answer, so you should be solving this in my way’. This is a unilateral contract, and if you press it, you will end up in strife.

Here is a listening test:

She tells you that while she was buying a new desk the salesman was rude, and afterwards she discovered that he overcharged her.

How would you normally respond? Check out if you do any of the following:

¨ Offer your opinion: ‘Stupid salesmen, they are all the same.’

¨ Ask a helpful question: ‘What do you plan to do about it?’

¨ Offer a helpful suggestion: ‘I suggest you talk to the manager about this.’

¨ Offer her support: ‘What kind of support would you like from me?’

If you do any of the above, you are putting the cart before the horse. Nine times out of ten what she wants is firstly to be heard, which means:

¨ Reflect her feeling tone: ‘You sound pretty annoyed.’

¨ Offer her confirmation: ‘You have a right to be angry.’

¨ Offer your feeling: ‘I am outraged at the way he treated you.’

Then you can offer support or try to be helpful.

Listening is not everything. One time not to listen for very long is when you are getting dumped on; you know, that feeling of getting run over by a freight train. Just end the conversation, and don’t try to get the last word in.

The whole listening thing is sometimes confused by a wild card: the coded messages. This is a statement which seems to mean one thing, but in fact means another. The challenge is to firstly work out if there is a hidden message, and secondly to decipher what that message is. This requires very advanced skills.

It’s dangerous to jump to conclusions straight away or play the analyst, accusing her of double messages or hidden agendas: ‘I know you really mean something else’. That is just putting fat on the fire.

The best way to determine if it’s a code is to listen to your gut feeling. You will have a sense that something doesn’t fit, something else is being asked for. It’s like the tone of voice you hear when a kid asks, ‘can we go down to the shops?’ and somehow you just know that they have something else more devious planned.

Let’s say she proposes something outrageous such as, ‘I want to move to Antarctica’. Perhaps she has always had a dream of going to the wild, and now she wants to do it with you; perhaps she wants a colder climate to live in. No coded message.

On the other hand, this may be an indication that she is sick of having so many people around and wants more peace and quiet; or she may feel things are too heated between you and she wants to chill out a little. Who knows?

Don’t jump to conclusions: ‘That means we will have to sell everything, and buy 3 sets of winter clothes’. Don’t go to the opposite extreme and rubbish her idea. Both extremes are the opposite of good listening and are not going to help you unlock the code, if there is one.

Begin by taking her at face value and then ask her to tell you more about it; then listen hard. A powerful invitation is: ‘So tell me exactly what it is about that idea that appeals to you’. Or: ’What is happening in our lives that makes you think of this idea?’ By exploring her feeling and thinking in this way, whatever she is trying to get through to you will be revealed without unecessary dramas.

Here’s another coded scenario. It’s her birthday and you say, ‘what do you want to do tonight? Let’s go out for dinner. She says, ‘no, it’s not that big a deal. We can just stay home.’

But…she really wants you to ‘prove’ you care and love and value her. Decoding the reply you might realise it’s a cryptic invitation to ‘please tell me I am important and that I really deserve to have a special night out.’

In this case, it is best that you don’t take what she says at face value.

At this point, like many men, you are likely to throw your hands in the air and want to give up ever trying to understand exactly what it is that your partner is saying.

Don’t give up. You can work it out, with patience and skill. Part of what helps here is a good memory. If you don’t have a good memory, write things down. Stuff she says about what she likes. That can help in your decoding skills.

I don’t need to tell you that this is all part of the exasperating and challenging joy of being in relationship with a woman. Ultimately you need to listen with your male intuition. It’s the deep ancestral knowing you inherit from countless generations of men who have tried and failed and tried again to decipher what women want. The operative question being what your woman wants, in this situation at this time.

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[*] Graham, B (1994). Women Who Run With The Poodles. Virago, London.

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