A new begining......

[Sherman333]

I came away feeling like a child and I don't feel understood.I want my feelings validated. I want him to see that I am lonley and I am tried of being the strong one all of the time.

As a man I sometimes have trouble determining whether a woman wants help with the problem or just to be listened to. I'd like to think that I'm better at it than a lot of my guy friends, but I still get confused (hey I'm a guy too). So an easy way to clear up some of the confusion of the male gender is to preface what you are saying with "I need you to listen to me on..." or "I need help with..." Make sure the guy in your life know what the 2 different statements mean.

Men are very task oriented and once they realize that the way to "help" is to perform active listening (a learned skill) we can be awesome at it. But we sometimes need the trigger to switch modes.

I'm sure your H doesn't think of you as a child. He knows you're a mature capabile woman; just look at all the crap you successfully dealt with. He just needs to pick up some new skills and you can point him in the right direction. This book has some useful info: The Secrets of Happily Married Men: Eight Ways to Win Your Wife's Heart Forever It put's things in terms a guy understands (at least I thought so); including a chapter on active listening.