My husband and I have a great relationship. I vent and he lets me. I know he doesn't listen to everything I'm venting about, but he gets the highlights and offers sane solutions - most of the time.
Recently we have been participating in a marriage Bible study at church and while we don't love the one we are doing, it has its good points. Last night, while our pastor is on vacation, a church member filled in for him. Rather than follow the one we are in the middle of, he decided to do a "lesson" from another study, rather than try to follow something he wasn't as familiar with.
The study last night was really geared toward men and was about how to listen to your wife. One of the things we discussed was how women answer a question/approach a problem with 4 types of responses, beginning with emotional. It went on to say how men should learn to patiently listen through all 4 responses before deciding what their wife's response is. My husband was one of the men who thought they listened well - since he has so much practice with me venting.
As we left the church, he asked me how I thought this study compared to the other one we are doing. I replied, "Well, I think this is a good one too, but ....." at that point he pulled out his phone and started listening to his voice mail. I stopped talking for about 5 minutes before he realized I had stopped. He dropped the phone, looked and me and said, "I'm sorry, what did you say?"
