Because

My wife and I recently completed a three-Saturday workshop to help us improve our communication skills.  You’d think after 37-years of marriage we should be teaching the course but the truth of the matter is there’s still much more for both of us to know and apply in our daily lives.

Pay attention to the apply word because it’s the important of the two words “know” and “apply”.

So of the many things I learned is what’s key for us middle-aged men is to show understanding about what our dear wives are sharing with us.  They don’t want us to solve their problems or to fix something.  Maybe later they’ll accept our problem solve or fix, but only after we’ve shown understanding.

This is hard for me to understand at times but it’s true.

And what do our wives want besides us showing understanding of their feelings and concerns?

They want to know ours?

Yikes!!

Why won’t just telling you what I think be good enough?  How about some events and facts to round out my sharing?

But share my feelings and concerns?   OK maybe I’ll privately do it but don’t tell anyone, especially my fellow middle-aged macho men.  They might think I’m a sissy.

I’m a work-in-progress and haven’t yet reached the noon hour in a lifetime journey of developing my emotional intelligence.  I hope to arrive there before my lifetime journey clock strikes midnight.

One woman in attendance shared her frustration with her husband’s frequent answer to questions she asks him when she wants to have an emotionally-intimate conversation.

What she shared his answer was made me chuckle, and I had to agree with her how his short and simple answer would leave her emotionally unfulfilled.  His answer reminded me of me when my wife asks me how I’m feeling and I reply with a deeply-expressive “Fine.”

And what was my fellow middle-aged man’s short and simple answer to his wife’s emotionally-loaded question?

His answer was “Because.”

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum