16,000 Words a Day

I recently went googling on my biggest pet peeve in my marriage: NO COMMUNICATION! Of course (and not to my surprise) there were over 1 million other women googling on that same topic.

What makes men so dense and seemingly uncaring? It’s a question I’ve asked myself a thousand times in the past 10 1/2 years of marriage to "Dave" (we’ll call him "Dave" because - let’s face it – that’s his name). I couldn’t possibly put into print what I’d really like to call him!

In my search, I came across several articles, one of which was "Communication 2", originally written by (Oh, my GOD…yes, a … man!!) from www.menstuff.com and then reposted/reprinted on https://www.blogger.com/profile/06444198671318042977.

Although I was mentally prepared to argue with anything and everything he might say, I quickly self-adjusted when I realized it was a very insightful account of his own personal experiences from which he had learned a lot about how a woman communicates!!

This guy readily admitted that men not only have the bad reputation of being poor communicators, but that many milk that rep by pretending to not understand when in reality they just do not WANT to understand. In admitting men may be "dumb" but they’re not stupid, I had to laugh in agreement, albeit I do not think all men are this way.

**Please know that my personal definition of "dumb" is not ignorance (which is more naivete than anything else) but the unwillingness and/or the not wanting to learn something … in this case how one’s wife ticks: what makes her happy, sad, passionate, quiet or angry. If a man doesn’t choose to learn these things about his wife over the course of the relationship, then when he speaks the words "I love you", it will ring hollow, insincere and downright hurtful.

You fellows can crush a woman’s heart and spirit, thereby making for yourselves a really bad deal to come home to!! (CHOOSE to learn to treasure your woman’s heart and you’ll be happier than you’ve ever imagined you could be – - – and please do not report to the Women’s League of ’I Never Tell Anything to my Husband’ that I told you so- they’d excommunicate me!)

My husband declares that he’s found the crux of our communication problem: he says I have to talk to communicate (meaning he likes it when I don’t)! And while researchers for years have declared that women talk (about 20,000 words/day) more in a 24-hour period than men (about 7,000 words/day), they’ve finally come to the conclusion that both men and women spew out approximately 16,000 words daily (let’s just hope this article isn’t that long).

But the most precious portion of the aforementioned article was towards the end … a segment called "Lost in Translation: What He Really Hears When Your Lips are Moving". I liked and agreed with it so much, I’m going to share it.

WHAT HE REALLY HEARS WHEN YOUR LIPS ARE MOVING

Woman says: "Ugh, my boss is horrible. I had the worst day."

Woman means: "I really need to vent about my day."

He hears: "Tell me how to fix my relationship with my boss."

Woman says: "Hey, can we talk?"

Woman means: "I have something important to tell you."

He hears: "You screwed up, buddy."

Woman says: "Oh, those shoes don’t go with that belt. Why don’t you wear the brown ones?"

Woman means: "I just want to help you look good."

He hears: "Aw, the widdle baby can’t dwess himself!"

Woman says: "Let’s straighten up in here."

Woman means: "Let’s straighten up in here."

He hears: "I resent that you’re a pig."

Woman says: "I’m so sorry you had such a rough day. You must feel terrible."

Woman means: “I want you to know I empathize with you."

He hears: "I feel sorry for you, you sad sack of a man."

Woman says: "Do you think that woman’s hot?"

Woman means: "Tell me that I’m hot."

He hears: "DANGER! DANGER! DANGER! DO NOT ANSWER!"

Huh?!

Did you know that "a man’s ability to process language and understand what’s being said begins to diminish in their 30’s, but a woman retains this ability until menopause and many times years thereafter." <<Source: By Bryan Stipe; Why Men Never Remember and Women Never Forget by Marianne J. Legato, M.D.>>

"Linguists, those folks who study the nuances and history of the spoken word, i.e., communication, say that in general, men focus on hierarchy and women on connection. In other words, the boys use their talk to negotiate their status within a group while we girls use talk in a more constructive manner – to negotiate closeness.

For instance; when a man offends his woman, to simply say "I’m sorry" would usually be good enough for an apology means (to the woman) that the guy cares that he let her down; he cares about her.

Guys, on the other hand, feel that if a woman wants or asks for an apology that it is a demand that he publicly humiliate himself. What he does not understand is that apologizing is NOT a sign of weakness a woman will use against him (just because that is what another man would do).

So, when we say to our guys "Why won’t you apologize?" and are so hurt that they didn’t even think to do it, what they are hearing is 'I caught you in an error and I’m going to rub your nose it it."' <<source: Deborah Tannen, Ph.D., professor of linguistics at Goergetown University and author of You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation>>

It is interesting to note that a psychologist will view this just a little differently: "For a man, stress triggers a reaction in the action center of the brain. So, when you talk to him about a problem, he’s so intent on taking action to fix it that there’s no way he can actually hear your point of view. But if you tell him that the solution is just to listen, he can relax." (“LoveColumnist.com - Love, Relationship & Dating Advice”)

The psychiatrist, on the other hand, insists it’s a matter of "men being hardwired differently from women due to results from brain-imaging studies." The fact that women have more blood flow to the parts of their brains that produce and interpret language aren’t a surprise to me. But this fact means there are more interconnections for a woman between the emotional center and the verbal center of the brain; men have less well-defined connections here.

No wonder it feels like the ’men are from Mars’ thing is true!

The biggest difference between how men and women process stress is that in a woman, stress produces a reaction in the emotional center of the brain and TALKING stimulates the production of serotonin to RELAX THE BRAIN, so she’ll instinctively talk in order to feel better. (“Marriage Science – Ken Blount Ministries”)

The husband who insists that his wife is harping, negative, complaining and critical if anything she says goes over the 45 second mark in a conversation is not only "not getting it" but is refusing to learn how to care about the one he claims to love.

Why? Because he is still on the "love is an emotion" level of boyhood versus the "love is an action" level of manhood. Just talk to some of the married women you know, and you’ll be shocked to see that there are a frightening number of men out there still in emotional infancy, clinging to the Peter Pan Syndrome of not wanting to grow up.

The sad thing about these relationships is that they’re doomed to failure if the man refuses to make the choice to grow. It has absolutely nothing to do with trying to make the guy into something he’s not; it has EVERYTHING to do with trying to love him, engage him because you need & love him, and empower him to be all he really can be.

And gents … just a word of historical caution: "If you and your woman disagree about who said what when, chances are she is right ~ studies have shown that women are better at recalling the spoken word than men."<<Source: Bryan Stipe, lifestyle.msn.com/relationships>>

So don’t "try" to become a better communicator; JUST DO IT.

Because "there is only do or don’t do… there is no try" <<source: YODA>>