Do you ever feel like your husband is not listening to you? Does he always try to “fix” your problems instead of trying to hear you? Nearly every day I have someone ask me why his or her partner won’t listen to them.

What typically happens is a partner tries to immediately solve the others problem before really listening and validating. They focus immediately on trying to solve their partner’s problems when she/he comes to him to talk. Most want their partner to listen and validate their struggles rather than trying to solve them.

I am the first to admit that I too have had this tendency. I unfortunately learned this lesson by personal experience. I recall early in my marriage that I tried too hard to simply “solve” my wife’s problems. My wife is a talented high school teacher. The incredible effort and time she puts into her work has always amazed me. When she would come home after a long day and vent some frustrations from the day, I would try to quickly “solve” her problems. I remember thinking that the best way I could help her was to tell her how to fix whatever was inducing the stress. She looked at me one day and said “Jonathan, I am not one of your clients”. I learned more in that moment about marital communication than I had in any book or research study I had ever read.

I learned that all my wife wanted from me was to listen to her. From that time on, I tried to focus instead on listening to her and validating the stresses she experienced. The conversations became so much more beneficial for both of us. I hope she no longer felt alone in her stresses, and had a healthy forum to get things off her chest. I had the opportunity to better understand her stresses so that I could better appreciate all she does, and could better focus on validating her trials. In the many years since, I have tried to focus on listening and validating. I have found that by doing so the problems may begin to feel more “solved” for her than when I just tried to “solve” them. In addition, I can try to help her not feel alone in the difficulties.

So what if your partner does not listen to you? Or, what if he just tries to simply solve everything? Tell him what you want him to do. Most people are good at telling others what they don’t want, but don’t effectively communicate what they do want. I find that as I educate most men on this in marriage counseling, they can be fairly receptive to the following guidance. Tell him this is what you need:

I just need you to listen to me. When I come to you with a problem or I just want to talk, I don’t expect that you will need to fix it for me. I just want to feel heard and feel that you are trying to understand what I am going through.
Please don’t try to give me advice unless I specifically ask for it. When you jump to advice, not only do I not feel heard, I also feel that you are trying to show that you know better than me. Then I still feel stressed about the problem and I feel you are trying to show me how much smarter you are than me.
If you can try to understand what I am going through, that will help solve my struggles more than unsolicited advice.
There will be times I need your advice, but please wait until I ask for it.

I don’t know if the way I have communicated these things aligns with how you might say things, but the points communicated are what is important. If you don’t feel heard, if you feel your husband is always just trying to “fix” things, share with them what will be more helpful. It may be a great conversation, or it may be a bit anxiety provoking to address it. In either case your relationship will feel closer if you feel your husband is trying to understand whatever troubles you experience. You won’t have to feel alone in those trials anymore. If you don’t know how to approach it, give this article to your husband to read.

I am really grateful my wife helped me understand how to better help her. I hope your husband feels that same gratitude as he learns to better listen and validate your struggles. As a result, you should be better able to weather the storms of life together because you will understand each other. Only then can anything ever really be “solved”.