My young teenage daughter and her friends have a problem…
It’s a problem that most wives also have with their husband. As such, this article may very well help you improve your marriage.
The problem sounds something like this:
Girl: [calls boy on phone]
Boy: [answers with a slow, drab, deflated, non-energetic tone of voice] Hullo?
Girl: [with high energy and excitement] chatter…chatter…chatter…so what are you doing?
Boy: [same low-energy tone of voice] Nuthin!
Awkward silence ensues. So girl tries again.
Girl: chatter…chatter…chatter…so, what did you do today?
Boy: Not much!
Awkward silence ensues. So girl tries again.
Girl: chatter…chatter…chatter…tells funny story…delivers punch-line.
Boy: [with total lack of energy or excitement] That’s funny.
Awkward silence ensues…and you get the point.
It’s even worse when my daughter and her friends try to have a text message exchange with these boys. When text messaging, it’s like the ONLY thing the boys know how to say is LOL or some other 2-4 letter acronym…and that does NOT make for an interesting conversation.
Well, after a few months of trying to figure out how to have a conversation with guys, my daughter and her friends came to me with the announcement that guys do not know how to talk…and asking me how they were supposed to talk with boys when they won’t talk.
Now, just so it is clear, the boys I am describing here DESPERATELY want my daughter and her friends to like them. And yet, with each and every telephone conversation and text message exchange, these boys cause my daughter and her friends to be less and less “impressed” with them. With each “conversation” my daughter and her friends feel motivated to move on to “more interesting” boys.
Now, to make sure we are together…you might think I am just telling you a story about my daughter and her friends…but I am not…
I am talking about you and your wife!
Your wife WANTS to have interesting conversation with an interesting man!
But too often, a husband’s communication skills have never progressed much past the guttural grunts and sounds of the boys I used in the example “conversation” above.
When a husband “converses” with his wife in this short, abbreviated, conversation-killing, energy-draining way, it does NOT impress his wife or turn her on towards him.
In fact, it sometimes makes her wish she was with ANOTHER man who she could enjoy the pleasure of an intelligent, interesting, and inspiring conversation with…
ANOTHER man she could talk with…without having to carry the entire conversation…
ANOTHER man who had enough substance to him that she could share something more than a one-sided conversation with him.
Of course, she would probably never admit to thinking these kinds of thoughts but I promise you that she does.
So, how do you become a man who can carry on an interesting conversation with his wife?
1. Step out of the small, little world of your mind…that’s consumed with all your agendas, worries, fears, insecurities, and so on. Realize there is a whole big world that exists and it is filled with wonderful people to interact with…WHEN…you get out of the narrow confines and walls of your own mind.
2. Make the choice to be talkative. You CAN be talkative IF you want to be…so CHOOSE to be talkative with your wife.
The typical husband has a “mental guard” in place that causes him…usually for no real reason that he is conscious of…to shut down and not be very talkative when he is around his wife or other women that are attractive to him.
For many guys, this guard was installed somewhere between the ages of 10 – 13 and it has been firmly in place ever since.
In many cases, it is nothing more than a bad habit for a husband to not be talkative with his wife.
3. Take whatever your wife says and “recast” it with a new preface…something like:
* “Tell me about…”
* “I’m really curious about that. I would love to hear all about…”
* “That’s something I don’t know very much about. I would really like to hear all about that…how it works…why it works…what the factors are…so, explain to me…”
By recasting whatever your wife has said with a preface like one of these, you give yourself the directive to TRULY CONVERSE with your wife…to open up and expand upon what you say…and thereby give her the pleasure of REAL conversation.
4. Being interesting takes preparation. NOWHERE in life can you be a success if you are unprepared or ill-equipped and it’s no different in the area of your marriage relationship.
So, DO NOT come home from work unprepared or ill-equipped. Instead, before you leave your workplace, take 10-15 minutes to find 3 – 5 new and interesting subjects and/or stories to talk about when you get home.
With the information that’s available on the internet, there is no excuse for a man to not have something interesting to talk about with his wife and children during his evening at home with them.
Once a man has prepared himself, then it is easy for him to segue into one of his subjects or stories when the right time comes. The next thing he knows, he will have just given his wife the pleasure of 10 to 30 minutes of pleasurable conversation with him…multiple times throughout the evening.
Of course, a husband can ignore, deny, and reject what I am saying here. He can take the viewpoint that his lack of interest in talking with his wife is HER problem not his…and that’s fine…he can do that. But if he does, then he has no right to be upset when he discovers his wife is having long, ongoing conversations with another man on the phone, at the office, or online.
Copyright 2018 by Calle Zorro
Here is a related point:
By the time he has been married for a few years, the typical husband’s interactions, attitudes, and responses towards his wife are more or less like throwing a wet blanket on her.
When he walks into the room, his wife immediately feels a dark cloud … she immediately feels the oppression of her husband’s negativity.
Consider this “tweet” that a woman sent me:
“Wow! So happy to tweet with you. You are AMAZING! I hope my tweets UPLIFT you, INSPIRE you, and help you to create a BLISSFUL day!”
Is there any way to not notice all the happy, positive, bubbly energy that is associated with this tweet?
Well, that tweet is representative of what a wife wants to feel when she interacts with her husband. But too often, what she feels instead is the exact opposite of uplifting, inspiring, amazing, and blissful.
So, how can you use the ideas in the above article and in this comment to improve your relationship with your wife?
Sure bet that non-verbal husband will get real chatty…. trying to talk his wife out of leaving him.
Great advise as usual Calle!
I myself was never one for small talk (it’s awkward, much of it is pointless and achieves no lasting result, and is largely blind since you’re groping about trying to find something the other person finds interesting, and hopefully is a topic you have something substantial to say about).
However useful you say good conversation and compliments are for maintaining a marriage, a large portion of the internet (and dating culture) claims that interesting/intellectually stimulating conversation (at least when men initiate it with women), at least in regards to dating/courtship, is a sure ticket to the dreaded “friendzone” (in which the woman never sleeps with the man). Hence the rise of the pick-up artist community, because “friends can chat all they like, but can’t make the transition to lovers unless you use the right words/gestures/attitude.”
I have to wonder what you’d say to these people. Maybe you’d tell them that someone who doesn’t regularly and genuinely intellectually stimulate you isn’t going to be good life-partner material?
Must be a Female in charge of this place ,encouraging men to do this and that . I’ll tell you something ever since my wife had her hysterectomy and lost her hormones ,shes not too pleasent herself . A matter of fact i swear this is not my wife , havent had sex in about six years ,wont try to make it better by taking replens or what ever, had several arguments over this . only reason im not gone is i believe in being true to the Vows i gave in marriage . 43 yrs. and deffinitely counting . use to be i couldnt even touch her in bed then i told her im done , now she lets me rub her back every night . keep in mind shes not doing mine .
Really, this is something. My wife won’t let me know anything. She hates sex and I try to talk to her about how I can fulfill her sexual needs better but she says she’s not wired right for it. She won’t talk and the sex really is lame. I make sure she has the big O first then me every time but she honestly hates sex. This is coming from a wife with over 125 sexual partners. Your telling us men that we have to be mind readers. Women need to let us know and not shut us men out.