Does Your Husband Shut Down When You Ask Questions? Here’s Why

Let him know you need to “Think out loud”—but try to affirm his thoughts first

The most important starting point is to help your husband understand how you need to process things. At a non-emotional time (not when you’re in the middle of an intense discussion), explain that when you hear his conclusions for the first time, you need to discuss them in order to think about them. Let him know that when you ask questions or throw out alternatives you are in no way picking his suggestion apart, but simply thinking it through externally in the way he has already thought it through internally.

So from then on, once he hears you say, “I just need to think out loud for a minute,” it is on him to believe that that is what you are doing and set aside any potential knee-jerk negative emotion that might arise from it.

But if you want to be sensitive to your man’s vulnerabilities, it is on you to do that in a way that is respectful of the thought he has put in. And one key way to do that is to affirm him before you start processing. So when your husband says, “Let’s do this,” instead of starting to ask the first thing that comes to your mind, consider always saying something like, “Oh, that’s an interesting idea” or “Thanks for tackling that,” and talking through one or two positive points about his idea before asking questions. This will help signal, right up front, that you aren’t second-guessing him. Then you can say, “I need to think out loud for a minute. You cool with that?”

One caution: if you find yourself rolling your eyes about the idea that he is “so oversensitive” that he needs his ego stroked, you’ve missed the crucial emotional point underneath it all. Remember, he doesn’t have an ego in the way you think: He wants to do well but has a deep self-doubt. Just as we want our man to be aware of and tender with our own vulnerabilities, this is our chance to do the same for him.

As you can tell, navigating all of this is about mutual respect. Him respecting your need for curiosity and verbal processing, and you respecting his desire to do well by you. We just have to start with recognizing how the other person sees it. So give it a try, have some conversation do-overs if you need to, and enjoy the benefits that come from a greater understanding of each other.