Men seem incredibly thick. They rarely realize until it is too late that there is a serious problem in their marriage. Their ignorance is amazing, but the reality is that husbands often need to act as if they are thick and ignore some of what their wives say. If a husband took seriously everything his wife says in these emotional outbursts, the marriage might have been over long ago. For instance, a woman might get somewhat abusive during such a time, or do other hurtful, out-of-character things. The husband must learn not to take these hurtful words or actions too seriously. In his willingness to overlook the offense, however, he often goes too far. Yes, the words werent meant the way they sounded, the outburst was excessive, but in learning to cope with the pain by ignoring the incident, husbands can miss the fact that behind it all was a genuine concern.
The solution is for a wife to wait until she is in an obviously good mood, ensure she has her husbands full attention, and then lovingly but carefully explain how significant this matter is to her. This approach is likely to have more impact than a dozen temper tantrums. It may still, however, take several attempts on the wifes behalf for the husband to grasp the importance of the matter. Despite what many women seem to assume, husbands do not have the magical ability to climb inside a wifes mind. They might think men are thick, but maybe if women were as skilled and perceptive as they imagine, they would realize when they are failing to communicate and find solutions.
Suppose Carol is highly embarrassed whenever Bob, her husband, wears colors that clash. Whenever she mentions this to him, Bob just looks blankly and continues wearing offensive combinations. Imagine the confusion if Carol were unaware that Bob had never in his life been able to see color and, like Carol, he was barely aware that the way he sees the world is vastly different from the way Carol sees it. Carol would think he was being thoughtless by not dressing how she wished. She would be annoyed and maybe even feel unloved. Bob wouldn't have a clue what the fuss was about and would think Carol was being unreasonable. And, in fact, Carol would be acting unreasonable, but she would not realize it because she assumes Bob sees color like she does. If she understood he had no concept of color, Carol would gladly spend hours trying to explain it to him. Even then she could never get Bob to see things her way. He could gain only the vaguest idea of color, but after patient explanation he would at least understand that for some mysterious reason it's important to his wife.
Women who have devoted little time to exploring the depths of their husbands mind and emotions, frequently make mistakes of this magnitude. They expect their men to instantly know what it is like to have feelings that are totally foreign to anything their husbands have ever experienced. There are a range of things in which we need to recognize that the difference between the sexes is so vast that at times it's virtually impossible to see things from the other's perspective.
For both husbands and wives, accurate communication is an enormous challenge. We delight in many of the differences between the sexes. We must therefore bear with the difficulties that these differences sometimes present.
Some wives have the perfectly understandable tendency to let hurts and problems fester until finally blurting them out at an emotional time when the pressure becomes too great to keep the problem suppressed any longer. Then, when her emotions settle, the wife is all sweetness maybe even apologizes for the incident and little mention is made of the problem for weeks until it erupts in another emotional outburst. What makes this pattern such a source of confusion is that the wife feels sure she has accurately communicated her concerns, whereas she has actually left her husband with no idea of how significant the matter is to her. What to him initially seemed to have all the appearance of a crisis apparently evaporates when his wife is in a better mood. He concludes it must just have been her hormones talking.