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IT COULD BE YOU….
How can I make my husband listen to me?
A visitor to laterlife writes:
What can I do to make my husband listen to me? I have tried over
and over again to try to talk to him about our daughter-in-law, but he
just won’t listen to what I have to say.
He was so rude and abrupt with me the
other day when we went out for a pub lunch that I ended up in tears in
front of the other diners. He told me to shut up, saying he didn’t
want to hear any more and got up to get a newspaper, which he then
read at the table for the rest of the meal. I feel as though everyone
could see he was being horrid to me and I felt so humiliated to be
upset publicly at my age. I’m 65 and my husband is 67. We’ve been
married for 40 years, surely we should be able to talk about our
family?
G.
Maggi replies
G’s letter demonstrates how difficult it is sometimes to discuss
emotional worries with a partner who isn’t comfortable talking about
feelings. The pattern is not such an unusual one. It is often, though
not exclusively the way, that a woman will want to discuss an
emotional concern, but her partner would prefer to avoid it altogether
and hope time will sort things out. But by ignoring his wife’s
worries, the husband has upset her and hidden behind his newspaper,
leaving her to sit tearful, isolated and awkward in a public place.
Daughter-in-law worries are the source
of many tricky moments in a family, and I have had several letters
recently voicing concerns about this relationship. I’m sorry I cannot
address all of them individually.
Mothers of sons can be fiercely
protective and might have unrealistically high expectations of the
new women who come into their sons' lives. What many mums forget is
that no-one will ever take her place in a son’s heart. But with that
privilege comes the responsibility to leave well alone once he becomes
adult. This will give him space to learn to love his chosen partner
without feeling compromised by trying to share love. Each is a
different kind of love and neither woman has a claim to the other’s
place in the man’s affections.
Perhaps G was worrying over something
small; perhaps her husband has heard it all before; perhaps he has
never been able to talk about emotional family matters, but the
humiliation experienced when publicly snubbed by a partner is painful.
It is unfair of him to do this. He really needed to have been kinder
and more patient by acknowledging how worried she sounded and either
quietly engage in helping her pinpoint what she is most concerned
about and listen properly, or reassure her that they would talk about
it when they got home and mean it.
Either way G needed some attention and he was not giving it to her.
Things G can do
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Recognize her husband's discomfort over
discussing things in a public place and, if she feels it is
important, suggest they can discuss it later, at home.
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How would she would like him to respond
to her worries? What, if anything, would she like him to do or say?
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Is she being realistic in asking this of
her husband?
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If she could tell him her worries when
they get home, maybe he might just feel less overwhelmed and
therefore be more likely to hear her out.
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