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Debora123
Guest
Bahaha!!
Yeah, we always have quite a bit of fun discussing those… I’m not gonna lie.
BTW, I always thought you were a woman… sorry if I’ve ever referred to you that way in the past…
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Yeah, we always have quite a bit of fun discussing those… I’m not gonna lie.
BTW, I always thought you were a woman… sorry if I’ve ever referred to you that way in the past…
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anp1215
Guest
I laughed a little while reading this thread because of all the “women are like this” and “men are like this” posts. I think I must be a man, because I tend to fit the man “stereotype.” hahaha
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LucyLight
Guest
You are creating an extreme situation. I was talking about one spouse ignoring the other, not one spouse “forcing” the other to talk to them. I also didn’t say that discussing things will move the relationship towards holiness. What makes the couple holier is being generous with each other. If my husband felt loved by me in a certain way and I only gave him the minimum and made him work for that all the time, that wouldn’t be very generous of me.
You are right about guys persecuting their peers for expressing themselves though. This is one way that marriage benefits men, they have someone who actually wants to hear what they have to say and understand them.
Just in case your reading this Mr Debora 123Bahaha!!
Yeah, we always have quite a bit of fun discussing those… I’m not gonna lie.
Im not talking about you, you sound like a very generous guy.
Or anyone else’s situation specifically, I’m just speaking in general.
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S_Elizabeth
Guest
Well, we’ve been married for 8 years this month and I have to agree that there are some pretty clear differences in how the sexes communicate.
I learned early on, that if I asked “what are you thinking” and he said “nothing”, he probably wasn’t thinking of anything. It’s been said that women are more into multi-tasking than men are and I believe that. If I’m sitting on the couch watching tv, I could be thinking about something at work, then the kids, then what to make for supper, then back to my show. When my husband sits on the couch watching tv, I really believe most of the time he is just enjoying the show. So I don’t believe that because he’s not overly talkative that there’s something wrong, IMO.
What has worked for me, is to engage him in things that he’s interested in. My husband loves to hunt & fish, he likes his job (most of the time), he likes working around the house. So, if I want to get him to open up, I’ll ask him about the project at work, or ask him to tell that favorite hunting story again, etc. If your husband is into fantasy football, ask him how it’s going. If he’s into reading, ask him about that book that he’s been reading. My husband doesn’t really like to talk about emotions or feelings, so let him talk about what interests him. It’s a start to more communication which may make him more open to discussing the things that you want to discuss.
I learned early on, that if I asked “what are you thinking” and he said “nothing”, he probably wasn’t thinking of anything. It’s been said that women are more into multi-tasking than men are and I believe that. If I’m sitting on the couch watching tv, I could be thinking about something at work, then the kids, then what to make for supper, then back to my show. When my husband sits on the couch watching tv, I really believe most of the time he is just enjoying the show. So I don’t believe that because he’s not overly talkative that there’s something wrong, IMO.
What has worked for me, is to engage him in things that he’s interested in. My husband loves to hunt & fish, he likes his job (most of the time), he likes working around the house. So, if I want to get him to open up, I’ll ask him about the project at work, or ask him to tell that favorite hunting story again, etc. If your husband is into fantasy football, ask him how it’s going. If he’s into reading, ask him about that book that he’s been reading. My husband doesn’t really like to talk about emotions or feelings, so let him talk about what interests him. It’s a start to more communication which may make him more open to discussing the things that you want to discuss.
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Serap
Guest
No one is “in the wrong”. It’s marriage and in a marriage, the 2 people have to figure out the best course of action, given both their love languages and personality types.
Love is patient…
Love is kind…
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Serap
Guest
Lucy, I completely disagree with your perspective on this simply b/c it would not work in my marriage. Is it not ok for Aecton to disagree with you as well?You are creating an extreme situation. I was talking about one spouse ignoring the other, not one spouse “forcing” the other to talk to them. I also didn’t say that discussing things will move the relationship towards holiness. What makes the couple holier is being generous with each other. If my husband felt loved by me in a certain way and I only gave him the minimum and made him work for that all the time, that wouldn’t be very generous of me.
You are right about guys persecuting their peers for expressing themselves though. This is one way that marriage benefits men, they have someone who actually wants to hear what they have to say and understand them.
Just in case your reading this Mr Debora 123
There are many ways to cook an egg just as there are many ways to bring about communication in marriage. There is no right or wrong, so long as there is no verbal abuse.
You do what works in your marriage and we do what works in our marriage. No judgements are necessary on either spectrum.
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Serap
Guest
I find this works with my husband also. My hubby hates talking about emotions. I get him to talk about how he feels in other ways. If he’s talking about his favourite hunting story…after the story, he may throw in how he’s feeling about something in a “matter of fact” way.
Mary_Gail_36
New member
What I find interesting though is the premise that since men tend to have some characteristics and women *tend *to have other characteristics, then they must be universal.
I’m introverted, and sometimes I don’t feel like talking. I guess lots of times I don’t feel like talking. I’m not stonewalling (which is not a nice behavior by the way) I’m just being quiet.
I assume in the vast differences among men, there are some who are introverted and don’t say much sometimes. It doesn’t mean that the wife has nagged him into silence.
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shainski
Guest
I just want to point out that “the woman” was the OP.
Most of the time when people come looking for advice - they have the most control over what they themselves do. So advice should be pointed to what that person can do to make the situation better.
If her husband had created such a thread, the advice would be directed toward what HE could do to make the situation better.
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BettyBoop416
Guest
My husband is a real “guy” guy. He has a high stress job (trial lawyer), a time consuming second job (National Guard pilot), and a physically demanding hobby (olympic style weightlifting). He’s constantly on the go. It’s a red letter day whenever we have the time to sit down to dinner together. If he ever told me that he wanted to have a heart-to-heart about his “feelings and emotions,” I’d know that his body had been taken over by aliens.
Seriously, most guys just aren’t wired that way.
Seriously, most guys just aren’t wired that way.
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Serap
Guest
But on the whole, men and women are wired differently. I too and introverted, but I am still way more open with my feelings that hubby is. I too sometimes stonewall hubby when I’m feeling flooded.What I find interesting though is the premise that since men tend to have some characteristics and women *tend *to have other characteristics, then they must be universal.
I’m introverted, and sometimes I don’t feel like talking. I guess lots of times I don’t feel like talking. I’m not stonewalling (which is not a nice behavior by the way) I’m just being quiet.
I assume in the vast differences among men, there are some who are introverted and don’t say much sometimes. It doesn’t mean that the wife has nagged him into silence.
“Women are from Venus; Men are from Mars” and the list of books about this subject, goes on.
There are always going to be exceptions, but Debora asked us a question about her hubby, who seems to fit the “average guy” profile.
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choose_to_love
Guest
@Deb: well, that’s just great! any way I can spin that as a compliment?
any way I can spin that as a compliment?
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Actaeon
Guest
First, on the humorous side of grammar, I should hope that you DO decry woman oppressing chauvenism, since that sort of thing WOULD be wrong. (I think what you meant to say was that you never decried (anything as) woman oppressing chauvenism).
I was using hyperbole when I said that we’ve had repeated attempts to categorize advice decried AS woman oppressing chauvenism, because there’s a valid reason to why people are saying to for Debora to analyze root causes and be the one to initiate actions… more on that below.
What I want to say is that while hyperbole is a perfectly valid debate tool, I generally discourage it’s use because it can cause a sort of “red herring” logical fallacy… so I do, in fact, apologize for throwing in some hyperbole there.
Let me point out something to you: we are ONLY talking to Debora here. It’s rather impossible to give advice to her husband for his part since he is not here discussing the matter with us. Surely you can see, then, why most of the discussion is tailored to what Debora can do to analyze the situation and begin to remedy it. In fact, we can’t even really tell her what to say to her husband, because “someone online told me that you NEED to consider my needs and talk to me” is an argument that has probably helped no situation ever.
Second, human behaviors have root causes. A guy who is generally a good, caring guy does not just wake up and decide that he’s going to be cold and withdrawn… there’s SOME motivating factor there. Just telling a guy in that position that he’s wrong for not caring about your needs is not going to make that root cause go away, nor is it going to promote a charitable satisfaction of their issue. Finding a means TO understanding what is causing a change in behavior, however, might allow that cause to be isolated and delt with in a constructive way. For example, if the root cause was stress over finances and possible rejection of a job, it could be as simple as meeting the emotional need of feeling needed and accepted to open the guy back up to talking… in that case, telling the guy that “You’re wonderful and I’m impressed by you whatever the air force decides” will go much farther than “Someone online said you’re wrong to not be talking to me, so what is your problem”
His behavior is a response to some sort of stimulus… and he may be responding poorly, but it’s a bit presumptuous to say that he’s wrong without understanding what the motivating cause for his change in behavior is.
Furthermore, you’re wrong that the ONLY information we have is in the OP… precisely because Debora has chosen to come back several times to defend her husband when people have blown his behavior out of proportion AND when some of us have been members of this forum for SEVEN YEARS and happen to have seen debora speak highly of her husband in the past. You see, some of us know that her husband is a decent guy and that this behavior is out of character for him. It’s not your fault that you don’t have that historical perspective, but stating that advice is cowtowing to the guy who’s simply flat out wrong is, well, let’s just say it lacks perspective on what Debora has previously revealed about her spouse.
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Actaeon
Guest
I don’t think anyone has asserted that all guys behave in a particular way, or that all girls behave in a particular way either. What we’re speaking of is generalities that have to do with social norms and conditioning.
As my physics professor was fond of saying, generalities are generalities precisely because they are GENERALLY true, even if not universally. (this in a discussion of the fact that murders commited by poison are overwhelmingly commited by women rather than men).
being an introvert and expressing emotive language are two entirely different things (although depending on your personality type, you can be an introvert who easily expresses emotions to close friends, or an introvert who suppresses emotive language and speaks more comfortably in terms of rationality. We’re not talking about bulk communication here, we’re talking about expressing emotive language.
The other thing to be considered, though, is social conditioning. While personality type might be thought of as native behavior, social conditioning creates what is called “learned behavior”, and social conditioning for males GENERALLY suppresses expressing emotive language. So if we understand that a guy is suddenly distant, and we isolate that he probably doesn’t want to discuss a problem emotively before he has a solution to the problem, then we are left with analyzing what the root cause of behavior change is and then seeking to understand why people modify their behaviors in a certain way in response to certain circumstances. In that regard, we can begin to change the social conditioning to reflect more constructive behaviors
Simply telling someone who is stressed and having a conditioned response that they are wrong to respond that way, or that they’re exibiting “not very nice” behaviors is not going to overcome years of social conditioning that tells a person that their behavior is the way society EXPECTS them to respond to a situation… so yes, care is warranted. And you’ll note that no licensed psychologist is ever going to start with accusatory language like “your behavioral response is wrong” or “you’re not being very nice”.
Again, we’re not talking about bulk volume of speech, but type of speech used in context of social conditioning towards an acceptable response. When we see a change in behavior from normal (whether introverted or extroverted) to emotionally reclusive, we can presume that something caused that change… not necessarily the wife “nagging” him, and in Debora’s situation, I don’t think she has been “nagging” him into silence (and I don’t think anyone has asserted that she has)… but it IS entirely possible that nagging from this point forward COULD be very unproductive, since it will not address what is causing the root issue anyway (and he may be reticent to speak emotionally isolate the root cause and discuss it, especially given a hostile environment in which TO discuss it).I assume in the vast differences among men, there are some who are introverted and don’t say much sometimes. It doesn’t mean that the wife has nagged him into silence.
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Debora123
Guest
Hmmm this has made for some very interesting discussion and views. Keep it up guys!
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Serap
Guest
you started it smart alec!!!
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Debora123
Guest
Haha, I naively didn’t realize it was going to turn into a debate. Though I should have known… this is CAF after all!you started it smart alec!!!
Interesting though!
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Serap
Guest
well I can’t accuse you of being a “troll” looking for trouble b/c you and I have quite a history of supporting eachother on CAFHaha, I naively didn’t realize it was going to turn into a debate. Though I should have known… this is CAF after all!
Interesting though!
It seems like yesterday you were a new new newlywed
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Debora123
Guest
Yep! Yes we do. We besties, guuuuuurl!!! Lol.well I can’t accuse you of being a “troll” looking for trouble b/c you and I have quite a history of supporting eachother on CAF
It seems like yesterday you were a new new newlywed
And yeah, I can’t believe I’ve been on CAF for 2 whole years now.
I’ve definitely learned a lot. It took a while, but I think I’m just NOW finally learning how to be more charitable when having discussions with people on here who have different views than myself. It’s made me an overall more “tolerant” person when having a discussion with people in real life. Especially now that everyone’s been talking politics.
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Actaeon
Guest
Yes, it most certainly is CAF… though I must say that in seven years it has become a more civil place as rules regarding charity have been enforced and contentious posters have been kicked out. The apologetics forum used to be a bit of a wild west, but these days it’s mostly answer questions from fellow catholics who are talking to another person not present… in a way, that feels a bit more distant and I participate there much less regularly now, because I never know how what I say is going to be conveyed to the person (protestant or atheist) who is on the other end of the conversation, and it tends to grind down to waiting for the other person to tell us what the response was… it’s turned into this:Haha, I naively didn’t realize it was going to turn into a debate. Though I should have known… this is CAF after all!
Interesting though!
OP) I was in a debate with a protestant and he said X, how do I defend this?
Replier1) Say Y
Replier2) Say Z
OP) okay, I sent him a response and now I’m waiting to hear back
Replier3) say A
Replier4) Have you heard a response yet?
OP) (2 days later) finally got a response, and he said B, how do I reply
REPEAT ALL
So I say bring on the contentious subjects and let’s keep it interesting! Though, of course, we should all remember that CAF is not real life and not take anything on here personally…
Incidently, out of curiosity, since hearing back from the air force, has your husband’s behavior changed again?
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