I wonder if men, because of work situations, are conditioned to hear what we expect to hear
For example, if I am in conversation about what "behaviour" this faulty machine exhibits, my concentration is focused on discovering the cause of the fault. If someone were to start talking about baseball, with the first words out of their mouth I would be saying to myself "how does this relate to the machine?" until I realize that there has been a change in the conversation focus. It is not what I expected to hear.
Similarily, when talking to my W, I am often confused because she will change the focus of the conversation without making me aware of it, then claim I am not listening. There is truth to this in that it is not what I am expecting. I expect to complete what was started, where as to her it either was finished or she does not want to finish it.
For now, for me to hear her is hard work. I have to be on my toes all the time. Probably good for me though, good practice for life.
Andy and Laurin, I wish my H would read your last 2 posts. You both said so much!
Andy, it IS all about perceptions. I have tried to change my H's mind with words. You're right--it doesn't work. If I had put as much effort into changing his perceptions by my change in behavior, I probably would have him back by now!
And Laurin, I wish Mar/Venus had been written before I got married 26 years ago. It contains info every couple who are thinking about marriage should at least read. I bought it for my D and her fiancee and gave it to them at Christmas. It has so much info about the listening style of men, and why we women don't believe our men are listening to us.
I think we are getting into semantics here. ("wants to hear" vs. "expects to hear")
I do believe it is human nature to place value in opinions that agree with our own and discount opinions that disagree with us.
When I began suspecting that much of my wife's behavior could be caused by menopause, I found some information on the web concerning mood swings and emotional behavior caused by menopause that confirmed many of my suspicions. I showed this information to my wife in hopes that she would read the information and be able to understand that I wasn't the cause of all of her problems that in fact, there were chemical processes going on in her brain which affected her mood and thus affected her perceptions.
Since she did not believe that these chemical imbalances were happening to her, she immediately accused me of only finding evidence which agreed with my point of view.
Well, one thing she was right about...I was looking for information which supported my own point of view. I had passed over information which my not have supported it or weakly supported it. I did the research again and tried to be objective. The preponderance of the evidence did indeed support my thinking about mood and menopause. However, there was some convincing evidence to the contrary. After looking objectively, I still believe that the majority of the evidence supports my position. Unfortunately, my wife does not approach this in an objective manner. She doesn't want to hear about it and consequently any information I presented to her was discounted from the start with no attempt to weigh it on its own merit.
Eventually, I came to the conclusion that it was useless to even attempt to discuss it with her. Her emotions had overcome her reason and despite which information was correct, she was going to believe only what she wanted to believe and hear only what she wanted to hear.
I believe that how open-minded we are on an issue depends greatly upon how emotionally involved we are in the issue. I believe this is why in Divorce Busting we are encouraged to "detach" ourselves emotionally from the heartaches caused by going through our various situations. The more detached we can become, the more objective we can be in evaluating and correcting the situation.
You make a good point. I too find it hard to shift focus. Is it a man thing? I think not. My daughter does the same thing (my W says she takes after me). In any case, I completely agree that it is a skill that we have to learn. It usually doesn’t hurt anything except that the perception is that we aren’t listening, and like you said, that gets us into major perception problems.
Jen,
Yeah. We can talk an talk, but it is meaningless. Then we change our behavior, and it takes soooooooo long to make a point that, if we could only explain (and be believed), it would be understood so much faster.
greenbar,
quote:Originally posted by greenbar: I think we are getting into semantics here. ("wants to hear" vs. "expects to hear")
No. It’s not semantics. There’s an important distinction. An example:
One day, W mentioned to me that she and MF could start on a certain phase of our renovations, and I could work on something else. I said that another option was for she and I to do the work, since we could avoid getting in each other’s way. She blew up. She was “sick and tired” of me competing with him for dominance of the project. I had to say that I was just putting an option out. Did she want me to be in competition? No. But since I had always wanted more involvement, she interpreted my statement in this light. She didn’t hear my words, she heard what she thought I was thinking based on past conversations. She had preconceptions about my motives.
Having said that, I must now change my answer.
quote:Originally posted by ANS: True or False. A person hears only what they want to hear.
I said False. My answer now is… Depends.
I have to agree with you that sometimes, a person does only listen to (hear) opinions that agree with their own.
I guess my point is that we can’t change a person’s opinion when they have their mind made up, and especially if they see themselves as being in an adversarial position. This is the scenario you described. However, I think what we are attempting to do with 180s is to change their expectations. Your W has grown to expect a certain action from you. This becomes the expected behavior. Over time, a 180 becomes the expected behavior.
Good thoughts here. I happen to think that we hear what we want to hear. This is predicated of course on expectations too. My W asked me last night "What if I got pregnant tomorrow...how would you react to this if I stopped working, stayed at home, became less attractive etc..." Well of course my answer is in total conflict with my behaviour when she was pregnant before. And this is not what she will believe. But then again she probably expected me to say this. So how I replied is different then what she believes. That given new behavior will replace old thoughts. Unfortunatley huge amounts of time are required for this. An unfortunatley again most probably throw in the towel before the time elapses. Or they are so stuck they can't be objective about things.
I just got word that the dreaded project has decided to take me. I’m to be contacted – probably next week. Don’t know when I’ll start, but rumour has it that it’ll be a 1 year assignment.
so Andy... might it be worth moving the family for a year? Or would the kids find it too disruptive rather than an adventure? And then I guess there is the care of the special needs kidlet? Just asking if that's an option.
No, tree. Nice thought, but it's really not an option. It would be too disruptive, and there's no point putting W's life on hold just because I have to.
I slept on the couch last night. Well, actually, I didn’t sleep much and that’s why I didn’t go to bed. Of course W noticed and wondered what was wrong. I was pretty vague, other than to say that I’ve had it pretty good over the past several years, and it’s difficult to adjust when things get tougher. She asked what was so tough, so I just fell back on the travel thing.
Tree’s gonna LOVE this…
I’m just not up to OR talks right now.
On the bright side, W also talked about what she’s going to do to cope with my absence. That’s a far cry from the day when she told me that things were easier when I was on the road!
And I can understand why you don't want to move the whole family for the year you will be gone. Better to disrupt one person and everyone else stay pretty stable, than to disrupt all 6!
So you didn't sleep well due to fretting about the job? Sometimes life just isn't very easy, is it? The tough times really make us appreciate the good times. When I get back to good times all the time, I know I'll really appreciate them.
