What if you don’t listen and don’t read maps?
Then you may not partake of the nuts and berries, nor of the Wooly Mammoth
I've got two take-aways from this thread so far:
1) Some of your missuses* need girl friends.
2) A few of you are hooked up with childish narcissists and you're putting up with far too much crap. Resigned to the spare room for two days? Maybe it'll improve after she hits puberty.
(* - How is "missuses" not being flagged by spellcheck?)
Here’s a third take away
3) Some of you may struggle to maintain long term relationships
🤣
Fair.
Whatever you do, you MUST keep the communications open. If either of you stops discussing and rolls over agreeing to things in the interest of a quiet life you are heading for bad decisions and catastrophe. Stand your ground, be reasonable, consistent and supportive and keep talking.
That's what I've learned, but too late.
Normal... Mrs b NHS midwife, I just sit and hopefully nod at the right time whilst not really listening just allowing her to vent on the days events and wait until she nods off after her tea.
Just be an ear to listen to whilst not actually listening😏
How often? Most nights, Monday to Friday. About 10.45pm, just as I turn my bedside light off and roll over to go to sleep.
Not sure if she needs to vent, is trying to piss me off or making sure any romantic intentions I may have been having get deflated, but it works for all three options.
Blimey
Am I just a robot that doesn’t feel the need to rant like that?
No, you're fortunate to not have a shitty job.
maybe I’m just not used to her perspective but the negativity really brings down the mood in the house, to the extent that i feel an internal groan (I feel terrible about this) when I hear her keys in the lock as I know I’m about to be subjected to a 20 minute rant
Mate - she's clearly having a difficult time. And you're just thinking about your own state of mind? Seriously? She needs your love, sympathy and support not your disapproval. Good grief!
My wife does this too, by the way - and I listen, I offer sympathy, and I let her do it then try and think of ways to cheer her up. Maybe a joke, a distraction, a hug, whatever's appropriate. And yes, it is annoying to listen to but I do what I can for her because I want to be a good partner and she needs sympathy.
Male and female brains are NOT wired differently.
Nature vs nurture.
This! I think you're married to the same person as me!
Just listen and finish it with "it'll all be okay" and a hug and you'll be golden.
I like a moan also, but my excuse is that I'm a Brummie.
Mrs TJ and I have both had very stressful jobs. Neither rant to the other much at all. Occasionally when either of us needed support or help sorting out the what ifs or even to vent but not every day. I would find that very destructive indeed.
Both of us would sometimes say - "bad day? Tell me about it" when the other looked under pressure
I thought men - generally - use more grey matter and women - generally - use more white matter. But then I'm no brain expert.
What I would say is that IMO women and men are not meant to live together 24/7, time apart definitely helps them appreciate each other more.
If you're going to ignore and just nod, for God's sake make sure you have a buffer in your head so that you can remember the last couple of sentences. Then when she says "you're not listening! What have I just said?" you can repeat parrot-fashion.
Next time she goesto work stick oneof these to the outside of the front door.
gnusmas
Full MemberShe doesn’t any more 🤷♂️
IGMC
No need to get your coat Alan
My wife never unloaded she would just sort the problem she had. She only told me the funny stuff 🙂
So much of this sounds so familiar.
Most days when I get home, I get a detailed account of what has wound her up and annoyed her. Sometimes it's so detailed and long-winded that I lose track of what the rant was about in the first place. I've learned the hard way not to offer suggestions or solutions, but just to listen and try and be supportive.
Once she's offloaded and calmed down, she generally asks how my day was and it has to have been remarkably good or bad for me to reply with anything other than a 'fine' or 'okay'. I try to leave work at work, and commuting on the bike helps to calm things down so that I generally feel pretty chilled by the time I get home and don't feel like talking about work.
Many years ago, I had a copy of 'men are from mars...' literally thrown at me by an exasperated girlfriend. I didn't read all of it, but it did help me to understand why she found it annoying when I tried to offer solutions to her problems. Ironically, if she had read it then maybe she could understand why I sometimes couldn't help doing it.
Never, ever, no good comes from rants and rows. She's a suboptimal map reader but we have Waze.
Quite amusing to read some male perspectives on this, certain replies stand out of those people who if I had the possibility of being in a relationship I would and others I feel sorry for their partners. I have to say I think men and women’s brains being wired differently is utter rubbish, that’s like us going back to saying we need men’s and women’s bikes when we all know that every person is proportionally different, there’s no mould we get poured into you know. I think it’s more what we have seen as we grow up has decided that generally speaking women rant and talk a lot and men don’t bother and bottle it up, hence men’s suicide rates and men not going to drs to say ‘something is wrong’. Maybe you all need to learn to talk and rant!
I don’t really rant, mostly because I like my job and where I work and so therefore don’t have any steam to let off but I can certainly rant about little things I find super annoying. Like my new flat neighbours who think it’s okay to sit on the communal back step and smoke rather than actually going outside. The other reason I don’t really rant is I’m not given the opportunity to do so. The dog hasn’t yet learnt to ask and right now the only other person I see at the weekends is my fella and our conversation goes... (me) how was work this week?, (him) amaaaaaazing *dripping in sarcasm*. The art of conversation is completely lost and I never get a ‘how was yours’ back. But I did get a free MOT, four new tyres and food cooked every weekend for me so I have to adjust my language skills to know that that’s his reply!!
Mr Pea and I both let off steam with a work-related rant from time to time. It can be quite helpful - let it out and forget about it. We do totally different jobs and can’t offer each other specific advice but that’s not the point of it.
If I found myself ranting every day though, I would be asking myself if I was in the right job, or looking for a different way to let off steam about it.
She likes to wait until I’m starting episode 1 of a new series, or the start of a film – you know, the important part when they lay out the story for you, then suddenly the phone holds no interest for her and she’ll rant and rave at me for 15 mins. If I dare pause whatever I’m watching, that’s apparently rude.
Snap! Although I think the reason she objects to me pausing the TV is because she was hoping she could run the clock down on whatever cycling I was watching. Nope! You're getting every second of Sean Kelly's congested droning 😀
*pats vickypea and golfchick on head*
I agree with Golfchick that it’s a myth that there are significant differences between the brains of men and women. The idea that there are differences comes from social conditioning not from physiology or neurology.
I suspect that there are some differences in the way men and women think and some of that is structural / physiological but the overlap is greater than the difference.
I also think tho that some of the psychobabble discussed here is bunkum. For example recent archeology shows that women were warriors and hunters
@gnusmas Hope it’s all going well and it’s good that you can make a barbed comment about Lyanda (Hope the spelling is correct I’m on the phone in hospital so checking back is a pain).
Back OT listening without offering solutions is the skill chaps don’t get taught. On the job training then becomes a fraught experience.
I haven't read all the replies but my wife used to work with some challenging kidsw, she would ciem home every day wracked and careworn, and needed to upload.
I love her dearly and my job was, and is, to man up and support her.
It isn't difficult, cooking, wine, chocolate, tea, a sense of humour, life is shit, help each other.
There are no reliable scientific data to conclude anything more than insignificant structural differences between male and female brains. As much as some people like to divide us into pink versus blue we’re not really that different.
As you mentioned Tj, the overlap is so great that there can be bigger differences between men (or between women) than between men and women.
I’ve got some male friends who like a good rant and wear their heart on their sleeve, and some who are minimal with their words and don’t talk much about feelings. 😊
I think that if you can look around at what’s presently happening in this country and you’re not in a constant state of rage then there’s something wrong with you
I just let it all wash over me and don't really get affected by it. If I didn't I'd probably go mad....
*pats vickypea and golfchick on head*
I think that deserved some recognition. 👏👏
We have "whingeoclock" in our house, gets a fair amount of use 😕
OK, so I used to be the ranter, admittedly I was in the wrong job, well actually the wrong company, where I was constantly 'fighting' them. It was a way of getting my side across, a purge, just to be heard.
Think about if you're having an argument where the other person doesn't engage - you need to have your say.
If it's everyday, there is likely an underlying bigger cause and the rant is a symptom.
I still have my moments but after some frank realisations, try to limit work talk (good and bad). The husband doesn't know who or what I'm talking about so it's not fair to jabber at him and I try and curb it if I start going off on one.
Maybe a gentle discussion (not mid or post rant!) about your concerns that your partner is in a position to have to do this and is there anything you or they can do to change the circumstances or necessity. Also an honest dialogue about the effect it has on you; they likley do not realise and its not about guilt but if it brings both of you down, you can't help each other.
Is there another outlet? A journal or even a vlog/dictaphone, can be private but it's just sometimes about havi g a medium of getting out of your head
The husband doesn’t know who or what I’m talking about so it’s not fair to jabber at him and I try and curb it if I start going off on one.
In our house we appreciate that neither of us knows or much cares about the details. But the process of articulating it is actually beneficial. Sometimes I don't much listen to her when I can tell it's the same as usual, but often I do, and I point out where her boss (the target of 80% of it) or the rest of management (the target of 20% of it) are clearly out of order, based on my experience of lots of jobs. She listens to me and does the same where she can.
So we half-listen to each other's rants. It's not always great fun but it's time we give freely and willingly. It's a service - like washing dishes or something. We both benefit.
I’ve got some male friends who like a good rant
One thing I miss about going into work is that I quite often found myself pacing around the office like a caged timer, shouting at clouds. It's not quite the same on my own in the living room and it scares the cat.
Dont get ranted at... my other half prefers to give me a detailed review of everything I have done wrong that day supported by blaming me for all the things that went wrong in her day that i have no control over.
Its ****ing wearing.
oldmanmtb2
Free Member
Dont get ranted at… my other half prefers to give me a detailed review of everything I have done wrong that day supported by blaming me for all the things that went wrong in her day that i have no control over.Its ****ing wearing.
That sounds toxic. Get out.
I long ago learned that practical advice doesn’t help (unless in accordance with what she’s already doing), the value I bring to it is solely listening sympathetically and nodding in all the right places.
Women are from venus, men are from Mars.
My GF got a copy and since then we tend not to get so wound up.
I don't do my usual of offering a way to help.
We seem to be working more as a team recently. It's against the world. She's slowly coming round to my way of thinking that you need to look after yourself before others. Selfish, maybe, but it's my way of coping.