Quote: how do you learn to stop this behaver and instead of talking, start listening? i wish i could figure this out. she wants my love, but she is so affaid of letting the past go, that even she thinks at this point, that will be our downfall.
Ding, ding, ding, ding!!!!!
Listen to this! She's telling you a BIG part of what she DOESN'T want from the past, and the reason she can't let it go is because it's still going on...right now...or right then at least.
Quote: how do you learn to stop this behaver and instead of talking, start listening?
I AM you in this respect. I love to talk and had a really hard time with the listening part. All I can say is learning more about HOW to listen and WHY you listen and WHAT to listen for helped me a lot. I read a ton of stuff (Five Love Languages and Mars/Venus top the list) and then really decided that I WANTED TO CHANGE THIS BEHAVIOR.
You see, I have a philosophy that goes a little something like this (and it's not a unique one BTW)...
Most people won't change something about themselves until they want that change more than they want what already is. That may sound logical and oversimplified, but I don't think so. Take me for instance. I discovered awhile ago that I enjoyed certain drama more than I wanted to change the dynamic of my sitch to eliminate that drama. That was a hard thing to admit because it meant I actually LIKED some of the pain I was in enough to not WANT to change it or alleviate some of the cause of the pain. I found this out because I realized that all I had to do to change the sitch was, well, just DO it. When I figured out it was that easy, I looked at the sitch and realized that I KNEW it was that easy all along but didn't do it, mainly because I felt entitled to my sorrow and fell into the trap of getting comfortable with it. It wasn't until I WANTED to be happy, or have less drama that I made some changes that helped achieve that goal.
I think that in your case, you are hung up on expressing yourself to your W, as if her hearing it ONE more time will make the critical difference. You have to WANT to listen rather than express YOUR opinions and you have to WANT to understand her more than you WANT to have her understand you.
The important distinction is that you develop an understanding that for you, knowing what SHE thinks is just as, if not MORE important a goal in conversation than is expressing yourself. I had to figure this out too, and it's a BIG work in progress. I still run off a the mouth and have to force myself to shut up. I am most successful when I remember that to learn more about her, I actually have to let her talk.
You can learn to listen, but first, you have to want to.
