I never knew that every time I didn't want to have sex that he was feeling rejected.
Dave Meurer ( http://www.davemeurer.net/ ) is a great Christian humorist who wrote an excellent article in a recent issue of New Man, a publication for Christian men. I'd love to copy his words here but unfortunately it's copyrighted material and I was unable to find anywhere on the Internet where it's already posted that I could provide a link to. So if you want to see it you'd have to find a library or something with a copy of the March/April 2007 issue of that magazine. But to loosely paraphrase as much as possible, Dave used the example of a wife asking her husband how a new dress looks on her, and his response is "fine." In his eyes, that was an acceptable response, he meant nothing "bad" by it. He said "fine" in the sense of, he's happy with how she looks in it, he wouldn't change a thing. But she thinks he might as well have told her it's barely acceptable, and off she goes throw the dress away and change into something else.
Then Dave uses the example of a husband suggesting sex, but the wife tells him something along the lines of, "Sorry, but I've got plans with my girlfriend in an hour." She doesn't see that as a big deal, but to him, she might as well have said she'd rather trade gossip about the neighbors than make herself one with him.
I did the best I could here, but trust me, what I wrote doesn't hold a candle to the way he worded it, and if you have interest in finely written humor, it would be worth your while to read this original article in its entirety.
So it's easy for each side to overstate the meaning of the other and create mountains where there weren't even molehills intended. Honest communication, and lots of it, is the only way to clear up these misunderstandings.
