Rabbi Simcha Cohen
One common difficulty in communication between spouses stems from the fact that a woman seeks partnership, while a man focuses on a goal.
A wife tends to tell her husband about everything that has happened to her. The husband naturally listens to her as he would listen to anyone else who is speaking to him. But because men think in terms of goals and also feel responsible for the woman in their life, the husband assumes that his wife's stories have a particular purpose: to ask him to do something, solve a problem for her or help her with something she finds difficult to do herself.
So when his wife tells him how her day went, it does not even occur to him that she may not be asking for help.
All she wants is to share her experiences and thoughts with him. He, however, treats her story as an introduction that will lead to a request and tries to guess where her words are heading. So when the story goes on and he still cannot understand what she ultimately wants from him, he interrupts her and says, “Well, what do you want from me?!” Naturally, his wife feels hurt—she “only” needed to share everything that had happened to her from beginning to end and tell him where she had been, whom she had met and how she had felt.
What upsets her is not only that her husband interrupts her story, but—and this is the most important point—that he does not understand her.
Let us illustrate this with the following example.
Late at night, a wife starts a conversation with her husband: “Do you know what happened today?” Her husband is a goal-oriented person, and he is certain that something has happened that requires his intervention: from his perspective, there is no other explanation for his wife's agitation at such a late hour. And since the brain works faster than the tongue, he mentally runs through every possible situation in which she might need his help. Perhaps they have run out of bread and the children will have nothing to take to school? Perhaps the milk has gone sour? Or perhaps the washing machine has broken down?
The woman continues her story: “I went over to the washing machine…”.
At that moment, the husband becomes more convinced that the problem involves the washing machine. Hearing the words “washing machine,” he concludes that her story has a specific purpose and that she undoubtedly needs his help. His brain continues working at full capacity and suggests several possibilities: “Maybe she couldn't close the machine's door, so it won't run? Maybe the drum is stuck and won't turn? Maybe the pump has broken and the water won't drain, or there's a problem with the filter? Could there have been a short circuit? Or have we run out of washing powder?”.
And indeed, she says, “And then I noticed that I had run out of washing powder.” “Aha,” thinks her husband. “If she's telling me about this at such a late hour, she is probably preparing me for a request she will make a little later: to drive to a supermarket that is open around the clock and buy washing powder. After all, if that isn't the case,” he continues thinking, “what would be the point of telling me a story with no purpose in the middle of the night?”
But to his surprise, he hears that she went to the household goods store herself. “So she doesn't need me to go and get washing powder—there is no problem. Then why is she telling me all this?!” (Men reading these lines will notice that, at this point, the husband makes an abrupt mental shift from his initial understanding that his wife is seeking a solution to a particular problem to complete bewilderment about why she is telling him a story with no purpose.
The husband's goal-oriented thinking keeps propelling him forward; his inventive brain will not rest.
He arrives at the following “solution”: “Perhaps she couldn't find washing powder at the household goods store and is now going to ask me to go and get some?”
His wife continues describing how she arrived at the store, went to the household cleaning products section and checked all the shelves, but her favorite washing powder was not there. At this point in listening, the husband is already certain that he will soon be asked to drive to another store and buy the missing washing powder: he begins mentally preparing to go out.
The husband's thoughts race, but his wife knows nothing about them and continues her story: “The saleswoman in the household cleaning products section saw that I was looking for something and couldn't find it. So she asked me what I needed. I replied, ‘My favorite washing powder!’ She asked me to follow her and showed me a box of washing powder that had just been delivered, in the stockroom behind the large bottles of floor cleaner. Imagine how lucky I was!” his wife concludes happily. “What a ‘letdown’ it would have been if I had arrived 10 minutes earlier?! I wouldn't have found the washing powder and would have come home empty-handed!”
At this point, the husband is completely confused and disheartened:
“So we actually have washing powder?!” he says to himself. “That means I don't need to leave the house now and buy it? And this whole long story wasn't meant to get me to help you obtain that damned washing powder! Then what is the point of all these long stories?! Well, finally I can go to sleep, since I have to get up early for work tomorrow.”
This frustrating dialogue illustrates that difficulties in communication between husband and wife stem not from ill intent, but from differences in male and female psychology and a lack of awareness of those differences.