TheUF - Changing gears - Dropping the rope?

[theUF]

One of her complaints(180) has been that I don't listen enough. On the phone she got really angry and said I didn't listen.

Listening does not mean just hearing her words and responding.
What she probably means is she wants you to understand her feelings. She wants to feel validated.

This is valid, and true. I'm not disregarding it, but for now lets leave it out so I can be more specific about my quote at the top.

S hasn't been eating well the last days so the phone convo was actually her stating "Today S ate x,y and z" I responded "oh so he got some food in then, that's sweet!" she replied "I just told you he did! You never listen!"
That's why I figured it was just her enforcing her believes of me never listening.

Anyway to clarify her complaint;
It's not so much the listening part as the taking it in

Ie she will tell me about her schedule or plans.
I listen and respond. But only on a superficial level. I don't take it in.
So at some point I ask or say something which shows I forgot or never fully took in what she said.
Of course I don't do this all the time but way too often. With her and others. IDK why, and it's not something I'm proud of, but it's the truth. And it's one of the things I'm trying to work on.

Problem is, most of us have no idea how to do this! DR touches on it and RetroV is almost exclusively about training couples to do it, but basically when she's telling you something ask her how she feels about it. Happy? Angry? Sad? Ambivalent? Then talk to her about how intense that feeling is- strong/ middle/ weak. The idea isn't to fix her problems, it's just to find out how she feels, and validate her emotions.

So back to what you said about listening, feelings and validation.
Yes, it's something I need to work on. RetroV would be awesome, but no option at this point. Some solo-training of some kind would be best option.

I have not been good at validating. If she told me something that bothered her, my mind would go straight to solution mode.
"OK so how can that change, what needs to be done? Can it be changed? etc"
I dropped the ball on the part of being loving H who would listen, understand and validate her feelings.