How can I listen if she won’t talk?

[Jamesjohn]

Andy -

Are you a big "fixer"? Do you always know the solution to problems? Do you have to really restrain yourself from having to solve other's dilemmas?

I was there, and I found it to be a BIG problem in my communication skills with my wife. She would take my "helping" her as me thinking she couldn't handle things on her own. This built up a giant wall, and immediately put her on the defensive. Our talks went absolutely nowhere but down.

I've found that the more I let her talk things through, the better. When she keeps her thoughts inside of her head, they start to get all jumbled up, and go off in wierd directions sometimes. "Thinking out loud" really helps her, and she really appreciates it.

The code for us now is, "Honey, I'm just thinking out loud, so don't hold anything I say against me". Or "I don't want you to feel you have to fix this for me, I just need to talk this through".

We often have to interupt each other, too, to keep us from interupting each other! I think she rambles all over the place, but if I let her just go on, things eventually come around full circle to the root of what she's feeling. She thinks I take too long to get to my point (which I definitely do at times!), so I try to give her the Reader's Digest condensed version whenever possible.

Don't know if any of this may help you, but it might give you a few different ideas to try, or some things to think about!