# My wife will not listen to anything I say



## hydrolaw

I come to you today with a problem that, I feel, has come to a boiling point within our relationship. Simply put, she will not listen to me, or at least it would seem that way. It doesn't matter what the topic is. I can understand her not taking my advice. I understand that a woman needs her partner to listen to her talk about the things she feels she needs to talk about, actively listen to her, and give no advice on how to solve the problem right away. Eventually my brain tends to take over in a week or so and I dole out some advice. I can deal with my advice not being taken; she doesn't have to listen to me. However, I find it exceedingly difficult to deal with when someone who is not me gives her the exact same advice which she then gleefully accepts. 
Also, she tries to analyze my feelings constantly, and when I tell her how I am feeling she seemingly ignores it and repeats the question several times. For example, I didn't get a lot of sleep last night and I was visibly tired when we left the house to go to lunch. She asked me when we were getting into the car if I was tired. I replied that I was indeed tired and didn't get a lot of sleep the previous night. During our half an hour at the restaurant she asked me a total of three times if I was ok. For the sake of clarity I was minorly annoyed by our daughter messing with utensils and moving things around on the table while we were waiting for our food. She was also meowing like a cat at such a volume that if I were another patron I would have been annoyed. I told her to stop making the noise in a calm manner, not raising my voice above table conversation level 3 to 4 times. Then when she tells our daughter to please be quiet she says something along the lines of "don't do that you're going to annoy daddy and no one likes it when daddy is annoyed". This also happens at a frequency that is infuriating. It is at least a daily occurrence. She never simply repeats what I say, which I believe is important given that the other parent agrees so we show solidarity between us and to enforce consistency from parent to parent, she always makes it into a "Don't do that it will upset daddy" thing. And by upset it isn't like I spank my child, I refuse to do so. We give verbal warnings prior to administering a time out that is 1 minute in length for every year our daughter is old. That is the most severe punishment she evers sees. I am also the one who looks up all this parenting advice and does any research about anything child rearing related at all. Then when I talk to my wife about what I read to see if we should implement the things the advice suggests, it is either added or not. That is fine because we need to agree. We often change things up to better suit our daughter, but we never implement anything that is limiting or controlling. My biggest concern as a parent is first fairness then consistency. My wife has stated that she agrees with this 100 percent. Then when it comes time to implement our parenting philosophy, she falls flat. Consistency is non existent. She will sometimes reprimand our daughter for doing something she shouldn't and other times she doesn't. Sometimes our daughter will ask for my wife to do something that she doesn't want to do, the first couple of times she says no, but eventually she always gives in. She then becomes annoyed by her and she can't seem to figure out why our daughter annoys her so much sometimes. To further that problem, since I am the one who is consistent in telling Mika no and her mom constantly gives in I feel that Mika has taken to her more than me. When I try to do things with her when her mother is home she says "no mommy's turn". If her mother is home I don't even get to read her bedtime stories. I am a very involved dad so this upsets me greatly. Even during bath time she only wants her mom to give her baths then my wife will get upset every now and then that it seems like she is the only one doing anything for Mika. I am at my wits end. I admit that I am bothered by this more so on days when I am tired than when I am not, but it bothers me all the time nonetheless. Please help.


----------



## that_girl

I HATE when people don't listen to your advice but then say they got advice from someone else and it's the same shet you told them.

My husband did that for the 6 months before he left me. It's like he didn't trust me and I do believe it was a sign that I was not important to him and/or he didn't want me to be important to him. This built resentment in me and we basically stopped talking after a while.


----------



## savannah

It seems this is more of a mis-communication??? To me it seems that you and your wife are not able to directly convey your communications?

Women in general alway do tend to "ask" questions like "are you okay" to men, because merely of the silence. I tend to do this A LOT only because my husband often sits quietly seemingly puzzled but says nothing to convey his thoughts...

Remember, women are very in tune to "feelings" and we like it when we HEAR what one is thinking, especially from our husbands.

Try to chat with her a bit more, good day, bad day, tired day-- Just chat....

You will find a more open wife if she can see you are willing to "talk" to her openly at any given moment, not just when your discussing an issue.

Good Luck! Hope it helps...


----------



## hydrolaw

Oh believe me I talk to her a lot. When she comes home the first thing we do is talk about our days, what's new, etc. This isn't for lack of talking. The "are you ok" would not bother me so much if it were not compounded by the lack of listening to what I have to say in other areas.

As for the other thing, could you just tell your daughter, "Mommy is busy doing ... so can't do that with you right now. You need to do it with daddy"

I do that. Although, I shouldn't have to stop what I am doing to answer my daughter for her mother who is sitting less than a foot from her. I should have furthered this by saying that if my wife is reading a magazine Mika can ask her ten times the same question and she simply won't respond. Then if I offer to do it instead sometimes she does, sometimes she throws a fit. During bath time and story time I do put my foot down every once in a while and do it, but the thought is still there that she didn't want me to do it in the first place. This really hurts and I can't help but think that if it were not so one sided who is enforcing what they say and the other parent giving in to anything that this would not be such a problem.


----------



## jjnack

hydrolaw said:


> I come to you today with a problem that, I feel, has come to a boiling point .............


I know this has been over 4 years but but i just registered just to comment on here by saying WOW! i feel for you...and that i feel saddened by the fact that he did not get any solid advice. If you are reading this then i hope all is well with you and that you got the help you were looking for. And if you did (and you are seeing this) please do share and update us one how things went. Even if you didnt get the help you were looking for, and update to your situation would still be nice


----------



## browser

jjnack said:


> I know this has been over 4 years but but i just registered just to comment on here by saying WOW! i feel for you.


Hope it was worth your time. It wasted mine.


----------



## Relationship Teacher

d


----------



## jimrich

Yes, it's very humiliating to be DISOBEYED after giving "constructive advise"! IMO, there is little or no FRIENDSHIP there so nobody is inspired to RESPECT each other. I'd recommend putting some FRIENDSHIP and KINDNESS into the family.


hydrolaw said:


> I come to you today with a problem that, I feel, has come to a boiling point within our relationship. Simply put, she will not listen to me, or at least it would seem that way. It doesn't matter what the topic is. I can understand her not taking my advice. I understand that a woman needs her partner to listen to her talk about the things she feels she needs to talk about, actively listen to her, and give no advice on how to solve the problem right away. Eventually my brain tends to take over in a week or so and I dole out some advice. I can deal with my advice not being taken; she doesn't have to listen to me. However, I find it exceedingly difficult to deal with when someone who is not me gives her the exact same advice which she then gleefully accepts.
> Also, she tries to analyze my feelings constantly, and when I tell her how I am feeling she seemingly ignores it and repeats the question several times. For example, I didn't get a lot of sleep last night and I was visibly tired when we left the house to go to lunch. She asked me when we were getting into the car if I was tired. I replied that I was indeed tired and didn't get a lot of sleep the previous night. During our half an hour at the restaurant she asked me a total of three times if I was ok. For the sake of clarity I was minorly annoyed by our daughter messing with utensils and moving things around on the table while we were waiting for our food. She was also meowing like a cat at such a volume that if I were another patron I would have been annoyed. I told her to stop making the noise in a calm manner, not raising my voice above table conversation level 3 to 4 times. Then when she tells our daughter to please be quiet she says something along the lines of "don't do that you're going to annoy daddy and no one likes it when daddy is annoyed". This also happens at a frequency that is infuriating. It is at least a daily occurrence. She never simply repeats what I say, which I believe is important given that the other parent agrees so we show solidarity between us and to enforce consistency from parent to parent, she always makes it into a "Don't do that it will upset daddy" thing. And by upset it isn't like I spank my child, I refuse to do so. We give verbal warnings prior to administering a time out that is 1 minute in length for every year our daughter is old. That is the most severe punishment she evers sees. I am also the one who looks up all this parenting advice and does any research about anything child rearing related at all. Then when I talk to my wife about what I read to see if we should implement the things the advice suggests, it is either added or not. That is fine because we need to agree. We often change things up to better suit our daughter, but we never implement anything that is limiting or controlling. My biggest concern as a parent is first fairness then consistency. My wife has stated that she agrees with this 100 percent. Then when it comes time to implement our parenting philosophy, she falls flat. Consistency is non existent. She will sometimes reprimand our daughter for doing something she shouldn't and other times she doesn't. Sometimes our daughter will ask for my wife to do something that she doesn't want to do, the first couple of times she says no, but eventually she always gives in. She then becomes annoyed by her and she can't seem to figure out why our daughter annoys her so much sometimes. To further that problem, since I am the one who is consistent in telling Mika no and her mom constantly gives in I feel that Mika has taken to her more than me. When I try to do things with her when her mother is home she says "no mommy's turn". If her mother is home I don't even get to read her bedtime stories. I am a very involved dad so this upsets me greatly. Even during bath time she only wants her mom to give her baths then my wife will get upset every now and then that it seems like she is the only one doing anything for Mika. I am at my wits end. I admit that I am bothered by this more so on days when I am tired than when I am not, but it bothers me all the time nonetheless. Please help.


----------



## MattMatt

You appear to have married my wife's spiritual sister. 

She pulls those kind of stunts and tricks, too.


----------



## browser

MattMatt said:


> You appear to have married my wife's spiritual sister.
> 
> She pulls those kind of stunts and tricks, too.


She resurrects zombie threads too?


----------



## jjnack

MattMatt said:


> You appear to have married my wife's spiritual sister.
> 
> She pulls those kind of stunts and tricks, too.


I don't think its a "trick". Trick would means it’s a conscious decision, and that would in turn mean it’s premeditated. A conscious premeditated decision for a lot of women is like a man’s fav celebrity fantasy...something to think about but never do.


----------

