H

usband: How can you tell me now that you’ve been feeling alone and unhappy for the past decade? I’m shocked!

Wife: I tried so many times to tell you about things that made me unhappy but you had an answer for everything. You’ve always defended and explained yourself instead of trying to understand and respond to me. So eventually I just stopped talking.

Husband: What are you talking about? We disagreed sometimes — so what? A person has a right to give his own viewpoint doesn’t he?

Wife: See? You’re doing it right now. You’re not interested in understanding what I’m trying to tell you. You want to prove that people can disagree. You always want to prove that what I’m saying is wrong that what I think is unimportant.

Husband: That’s ridiculous! I’m a good father I’m a responsible husband I buy you gifts and tell you I love you. What more do you want? Most women would consider themselves very fortunate to have a husband like me!

Wife: You see? This is how it always goes! Listen I know you’re a good husband in so many ways. But I’m very lonely. I can’t share my real self with you because you don’t listen.

Husband: That’s nonsense! Give me just one example of how I don’t listen!

Wife: Like when we bought our first house. I told you I didn’t like the location. You just talked over me explaining why we needed to buy it.

Husband: What? Are you still talking about that? That was 18 years ago! And I explained why we had to buy it and you said okay in the end.

Wife: I give up eventually. Even now you’re just trying to prove me wrong instead of trying to understand me. If you don’t try to understand what I feel then there’s no way for you to address those feelings — and that’s exactly why I feel alone and unhappy.

Husband: I think you’re just spoiled and unappreciative.

On Trial

This dialogue demonstrates one of the most common marital errors: Making one’s spouse one’s judge. When the spouse is the judge (instead of Hashem) then it becomes imperative to prove one’s innocence in “marital court” or at least to prove the correctness of one’s point of view (and the error of the spouse’s point of view). A person must choose which goal to pursue in a conversation: Proving his or her innocence (or correctness) or getting closer to his or her spouse. The two goals are mutually exclusive.

Closeness and happiness is enhanced by the kind of communication in which marriage partners strive to understand rather than to educate each other. We see in the above example that the wife feels lonely after many years of unsuccessfully trying to get her husband to address her thoughts and feelings.

When she tells him this he feels attacked and “on trial.” In his mind he must now prove his innocence. He tries to do so by defending his actions (“A person has a right to his own viewpoint...”) and citing his excellent spousal behavior (“What more do you want?”). In the end he shuts her down completely by calling her names.

Marriage-Minded Communication

This husband could have taken the marriage-minded route instead. Here he would have focused on listening in order to understand. He would have asked his wife for examples — not in order to prove how wrong she was but in order to really understand her complaint. Then he could have applied the Triple-A Marriage-Magic Formula: Acknowledge Apologize Address.

Similar to the process of teshuvah this method allows a marriage to move forward continually becoming closer and more harmonious. Using it the husband would have sounded something like this:

Acknowledge: So you’re saying that I haven’t been listening to you and taking your thoughts and feelings into account. I’ve been too busy trying to get you to listen to me.

Apologize: I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize I was doing that. I see now how that could leave you feeling unheard uncared for and alone.

Address: I don’t want you to feel that way. I want to do a better job of making you feel heard and cared about. I’m going to really try to fix this and I’d appreciate any help you can give me.

When the conversation isn’t about who’s right or wrong it can be about sharing and caring. The Triple-A Approach to handling complaints is easy to use when you stop making your spouse your judge.