Step #3: Listen without becoming defensive
Here’s a truth to tuck into your back pocket and pull out during your next conflict. When your wife wants to talk through a conflict, she probably sees it as a joint-problem solving session—not an attack on you.
It may feel like an attack on you, and that is why this is a skill you need to build. Resist the urge to believe she’s criticizing you. Our research shows that when most women bring up a problem, they’re not thinking you’ve failed. And that the most important thing you can do in that situation is to press through any (understandable) defensiveness by recognizing that your wife genuinely wants to work on a problem with you rather than point a finger at you.
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