The Sex & Conversation Series, Part 3: “If My Spouse Loved Me, They Would WANT To Do What Warms My Heart!”

When He Has Downtime, A Man Would Rather Watch TV Than Listen To His Wife

Yeah. Gulp. To all the women reading this, take deep, calming breaths. This is a hard one to hear. I promise there’s encouragement soon, but first, in order to build a healthy and truly grateful understanding of men and marriage, we need to know the real deal.

Most men I have asked, have said that all else being equal, they would rather do a whole lot of other things to relax than listen to their wife. Watch TV, work out, play video games, read the latest news, etc. Listening in the way we women need (“Tell me all about it”) is important, but it doesn’t always come naturally for a guy. And it certainly isn’t relaxing at the end of a long day. It takes work. It takes intentionality.

So ladies, why is it hard to hear that our spouse has to make this effort? Well, because we’d much rather that he would just want to do it, right? Our subconscious thought is, “If he really loved me, he would love to listen!” We’d love for our life partner and best friend to be absolutely eager to hear about the issues in our lives and connect with us in that way. It’s disappointing – even a little sad – to hear that our man can love us but still need to force himself to ask how our day was. Not that he doesn’t care, but it has to be a habit that he develops.

Now, there are some exceptions to this, of course. But many of us have an expectation of wanting on his part that simply may not be realistic.

But guess what – we’re not the only one with an unrealistic expectation.