A big part of life coaching for men involves resolving communication issues between guys and their girlfriends or spouses. It’s quite often the case that his reason for listening in the first place is to try to assess the problem, arrive at a solution, offer her said solution (and even help her to implement it) so that she will no longer HAVE the problem, and will thus regard him as a hero.
And guess what? It fails hard.
Instead, she complains that he isn’t listening, and further, is invalidating her because he’s not understanding her feelings. This is confusing for him. His methodology is to fix the problem, because until it’s fixed he feels bad. Why would he want to talk about his bad feelings when he could FIRST fix the problem?
In HER methodology, the feelings are overwhelming. She needs someone else to hear them. To feel what she feels. To understand her pain. When he over-talks her, she becomes more upset. As a life coach for men, I work with guys in this area, helping them learn how to listen to her without trying to fix anything. I literally say “JUST LISTEN”. Invest the time. Invest the energy. Don’t actually DO anything that might seem useful. It seems ridiculous when I type this out, but it’s precisely where the communication breakdown occurs. Ask any woman and she’ll tell: she doesn’t want her problems solved; she wants a partner who will understand what she’s going through. It’s this understanding that gives her the energy to emerge from her funk and reinvent herself in a positive way. And trust me, that’s what you want.