Perfectly said!

@Pamir

I’ll be sure to check it out, thanks!

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Welcome to the 177th Carnival of Healing. This is the first time I’m hosting it and have enjoyed collecting the multimedia conten…

I think we set ourselves up for failure by making two boxes and putting males in one and females in the other. If we try looking at each human on an individual basis, its quite possible that we’ll discover commonalities that would never have been revealed otherwise. You might even discover that your husband has some “spiderweb” thoughts of his own! =)

@Zachariah: I would never want to have fewer ideas or less creativity as I don’t think a reduction in either would cause me to immediately be more present in my relationships. In a way, it’s as if I’m developing the ability to take all of the busyness in my life and set it aside to make room for communication that is effective on multiple levels. It’s not easy. I mess up often. But I’m learning and it’s worth it! =)

Henie: You’re right! It’s important to not allow a medium to take over the value of the conversations it’s meant to enable. That said, I have no problem with getting an email from the next room. Especially if I’m in the middle of a project, I appreciate that the email allows me to remain mostly “in my zone” while a face-to-face conversation about eating dinner would probably throw me out of focus.

I think this shows up in communication between men and women a lot. One thing my husband and I recently discussed was this reality: Women connect emotionally though language. We talk to relate, to understand a situation or ourselves, just to connect. Men, however, use language to share information. It’s typically not an emotional process for them. They will spend more time thinking, processing, and then give their answer. This is just a difference between how men and women relate. Women’s conversations are like spider webs. Men’s conversations are usually linear.

This has interesting implications, like when I talk to my husband (usually going through at least five points before I arrive at my main issue), and then I ask a question, and then he sits there. I too feel he is not “present” in the conversation. It makes me feel like he is not connecting to me. He’s not relating to me. It escalates. I think he is Ignoring Me.

But often, he’s actually just thinking. Processing. And then I start bugging him. Did you hear me? Well, what do you think? Etc. Because for me, if I wanted to answer a question of his, I would just start talking to figure out my answer. That’s not the way he works.

So we decided this week to try something. When I bring up a conversation, and ask him something, instead of me bugging him for an answer or begging him to be “present” in the conversation (which distracts his thinking process), he will respond to me verbally – “let me think about that” – so I know I was heard and that he will get back to me.

It’s worked like a charm so far!

But I think the most important thing about all this is communication. Talking about your perspectives and working on how to work things out for yourselves- that’s a maturity that will be so amazing for any relationship.