My Husbands Talking

  • Thread starter Thread starter momof2angells
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
I had to check to see if my wife wrote this. I don’t think she is on this forum - and I don’t think I talk to her all that much while we are on the road because she nods off rather quickly.

As a guy who likes to talk, it is nice to have someone to listen to us.
 
Potentially he’s an ‘extrovert thinker’, someone who thinks as they speak and needs to speak in order to think.
 
He has said that actually. I’m blessed to be such a partner to him. Thank you.
 
So i know about this because I am one too and I constantly worry about dominating conversations. I think the trick is self awareness:
  • Just because this is his preferred method of communication, it doesn’t mean he can’t control it
  • He should show appreciation for your patience
  • He should let you interrupt him, without getting grouchy, if he’s going on too long and doesn’t realise
  • You should take it as a compliment because it means you stimulate his mind to make him want to think
 
That’s me. I have to verbally say stuff to remember. Even if I’m driving home I’ll repeat my list of tasks or errands. I’ve been a chatterbox since the age of four according to my family. Making long winded sermons and such…😁
 
I’m a single person, so I’m not sure I’m one to talk. But what about simple communication with him. Would it be a bad idea to say something to him like,

“Honey, I love you to pieces, but I really like some quite time now and then. Do you think you could be a little quieter some time. I really value a little bit of silence now and then.”

(something like that.)

I’m just curious. Is that acceptable in a marriage or would that not go over well?
 
Edward_H said:
Maybe think a bit about what marriage is for…it’s to get us to heaven.

Our spouse’s defects so to speak are means of “sanctifying us”…like a forge…helping us to become more…more generous, more patient, more loving. Hard to do…but holiness is hard work.

So imagine marriage as an “obstacle course”, each day we become “ever more each day the image of Christ” if we take advantage of these trying moments.

Imagine if Jesus came into your car, and felt so “at ease” that He was a non-stop-talker…we’d be in rapture the whole time.

If you can remember that Jesus is inside of your husband…then it can become easier to be very patient, and not just patient, but attentive, hanging on every syllable, and more than that, being very happy to be there.

So raise the bar on this, as you raise the cross that God gave you to carry to bring you AND your husband home to Him.

Be the best, especially when it’s very very hard. Smile with Jesus.
Click to expand...
Is talking at one’s spouse nonstop likely to get one to heaven?

I think the OP needs to be able to get a word in now and then, just for the sake of the relationship.

“Conversation” is supposed to be like a tennis game, not like carpet bombing.
 
Me and my wife are both confrontational people and don’t tend to sulk, so she just tells me to shut up and i tell her not the interrupt me. It works for us.
 
By the way, I think at some point a lot of middle aged guys get very chatty.
 
You’ve misunderstood the point, looking at it half-way, a bit too self-focused.

Marriage calls - daily - for heroism, self-donation, “kenosis” in the Greek, self-emptying.

Ideally, the love (and read this as costly happy sacrifice) that one spouse gives to the marriage…assuming a lively prayer life, frequent and good use of the Sacraments, a life of “practicing” all the virtues, will “spill over” into the marriage, and spur on growth in the other spouse to be likewise.

But “looking for” such reciprocity, however, is already to miss the point, and to fall back into “self-seeking”

Jesus loved us with a pure love, not demanding or hinting or “conditionalizing” His love, waiting for us to give in like manner.

And we need to use the “means” that the Church gives us to learn how to love with the very heart of Jesus.

So I reject your point.

By the way…people “half-understand” the idea of unconditional love.

We need to love GOD, and others…without placing conditions on our self-gift.
 
Last edited:
Edward_H said:
You’ve misunderstood the point, looking at it half-way, a bit too self-focused.

Marriage calls - daily - for heroism, self-donation, “kenosis” in the Greek, self-emptying.

Ideally, the love (and read this as costly happy sacrifice) that one spouse gives to the marriage…assuming a lively prayer life, frequent and good use of the Sacraments, a life of “practicing” all the virtues, will “spill over” into the marriage, and spur on growth in the other spouse to be likewise.

But “looking for” such reciprocity, however, is already to miss the point, and to fall back into “self-seeking”

Jesus loved us with a pure love, not demanding or hinting or “conditionalizing” His love, waiting for us to give in like manner.

And we need to use the “means” that the Church gives us to learn how to love with the very heart of Jesus.

So I reject your point.

By the way…people “half-understand” the idea of unconditional love.

We need to love GOD, and others…without placing conditions on our self-gift.
Click to expand...
I disagree. Part of our job as spouses is (nicely!) helping our spouse to be a better husband or wife to us.

We don’t have to be gritting our teeth and thinking of Jesus on the cross every time we take a drive with our spouse–it is possible to speak up and say, “Honey, I need a few minutes of quiet to think about something,” or “There’s something I need to talk to you about in a minute and it’s important, so I need you to talk to me about it, not just go back to talking about your thing.”
 
See my first point, already bolded, recopied here: “So raise the bar on this, as you raise the cross that God gave you to carry to bring you AND your husband home to Him.”

But the improvement comes indirectly.

As one of the points in the "Optimist International’ creed says “to give so much time to the improvement of yourself that you have no time to criticize others”

We give up too soon on ourself, and start looking after others.

One of the best expressions of mortification is a smile.
 
Last edited:
Edward_H said:
We give up too soon on ourself, and start looking after others.
Click to expand...
It’s OK for husband and wives to talk to each other and tell each other how they feel about things that the other person is doing.

It is possible to do that lovingly and respectfully, and in fact the earlier you do it, the easier it is to do it lovingly and respectfully. It’s after the other person has gotten on your last nerve that things are likely to blow up.

As St. Paul says, we need to speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15).
 
“…That joke, that witty remark held on the tip of your tongue; the cheerful smile for those who annoy you; that silence when you’re unjustly accused; your friendly conversation with people whom you find boring and tactless; the daily effort to overlook one irritating detail or another in the persons who live with you… this, with perseverance, is indeed solid interior mortification.”

St Josemaria
 
Edward_H said:
One of the best expressions of mortification is a smile.
Click to expand...
Another issue is–does our spouse actually wish to cause us pain?

If they don’t, perhaps they’d appreciate hearing from us, so that they can stop causing us pain.

It’s actually charitable to assume that our spouse is not a bad person and is not bent on hurting us.

(And if our spouse is a bad person and is bent on hurting us, that’s a whole 'nother conversation.)
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top