"You don't listen." Wait... or DO you?

Rewind twenty years...

John and I are eighteen years old and freshly married. We are having an argument. What about - oh, who the heck knows. But, there's one thing I do remember from this night, other than the fact we'd also recently gotten a waterbed.

But, I digress.

John was going on about something and I was listening to whatever it was he was talking about... without saying anything.

He later was agitated because I was not saying anything. He thought that because I was not going back and forth with him that I was not listening to what he was saying and thought that I was not putting forth effort to help resolve whatever the issue was at that time.

My response was that I did not want to interrupt him while he was talking and by the time he was done I forgot what it was that I was going to say.

(And I'm not saying anything bad about my husband here, he just gets on a roll sometimes when he is passionate about something, as many do.)

His response? "Interrupt me then."

I listened. And I obliged.

Fast forward ten years...

John can't finish a thought out loud without me putting in my two cents.

Ahhhh... Evolution. Sometimes it just really doesn't go the way we imagined it would.

Fast forward another ten years to today...

Sure I do still interrupt sometimes. But, it is more balanced now and I make a conscious effort. And now when John is talking, he will stop periodically and ask my thoughts.

Point of the story:

1) Sometimes we need to just shut up.
2) Sometimes we need to speak up.
3) Sometimes we need to just shut up, so our spouse can speak up.

Live. Love. Learn.

Misty Lynn