# Men--help me please



## yellowstar (Jun 18, 2012)

I feel like husband shares just the basics of his workday. I wish he would tell me what else is going on in his head but unless something slightly major or major or annoying comes up, he doesn't say much else. I know his coworkers from other events but he keeps a mostly work relationship with them (which I like because after a close friendship with one girl I felt uncomfortable, husband eventually backed off). 

So I read in here that guys are simple, don't treat them like females and ask him to share his feelings about everything. Fine. I want more intimacy (physical we're pretty good) but more emotional intimacy. So from what I read on here, it sounds like forget that, just wear something cute and bake him cookies and that'll make him feel happy more than anything. 

Well husband gave up sweets for lent. So I can't do that. I'm pregnant and don't feel so 'cute' . What else??
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## tuckin14 (Feb 22, 2013)

Everybody is different. You didn't say what he does, or whether he likes his job. He may find it uninteresting. Maybe there are significant complexities to his job, and he doesn't want to try to teach you enough to understand what he actually does.

To digress for a moment, I'm in the opposite situation. I would like to tell my wife a lot more, but she finds it really boring. It's pretty strange too, because she is studying to leave her profession and enter mine, yet she has no interest in the details of what her future career is like.

With no offense intended, are you able to understand?

At my last job, I might have said "We had a team meeting, and we revised the deadlines for some of the projects, so I will have to work late and work this weekend to get caught up."

Or I might have said "We had a team meeting. Everyone had their deadlines moved up, but the developers need the sample data complete to do their unit testing. I have about 8 datasets to complete by Monday. A few are easy, but some have 20 or 30 fields to be populated. Let me tell you the really frustrating part though. Every time I create a dataset, I have to run a 25-minute test. You wonder why I work so late and yet have time to do things like write you letters, well, I do it while I'm running this antscript test. I have to run that test because if I make a mistake and don't find it, I not only break my own code but I can make all the overnight tests run on the entire solution invalid. So I run this test and let's say I get an error. It won't tell me which of the 30 fields gives me the error. So I have to look at the code to figure it out, or the data, sometimes I have to populate the fields one by one - running the 25-minute test each time - until I find the one which, when I add it, causes the error."

How would you feel if you heard that?

If your answer is "Well, I want a middle ground" - then you are not asking for intimacy, you are creating an extra layer of work for him, "Tell me exactly as much as I want to know, no more, no less, and if you get it wrong in either direction I'll be annoyed with you."


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## VermisciousKnid (Dec 27, 2011)

OP, until you came here you were ready to treat your H like a female? Would you have been okay if he decided to treat you like a guy? 

When my wife vents about work she gets in to the personalities, how this one is a byotch, and that one is crazy, and the other one acts like the queen bee, etc. I have the same whackos at my workplace but I don't talk about them at all. Why the difference? They are background noise to me that I'm able to tune out. My wife seems to absorb all of their nonsense and then needs to talk about it. I have a filter. She doesn't. 

So even if he does talk about work, it could be a dry, nuts and bolts conversation that you aren't really looking for. The example from tuckin14 could happen. No juicy tidbits in there.

This also strikes me as one of those situations where women pose a vague question and expect a specific type of answer. You could ask more pointed questions and get what you're looking for, like "Who's the best worker?" or "Who's the biggest suck up?". Then you would get his feelings about those people.


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## yellowstar (Jun 18, 2012)

tuckin14 said:


> Everybody is different. You didn't say what he does, or whether he likes his job. He may find it uninteresting. Maybe there are significant complexities to his job, and he doesn't want to try to teach you enough to understand what he actually does.
> 
> To digress for a moment, I'm in the opposite situation. I would like to tell my wife a lot more, but she finds it really boring. It's pretty strange too, because she is studying to leave her profession and enter mine, yet she has no interest in the details of what her future career is like.
> 
> ...


He likes his job but most of the time there isn't anything particularly exciting going on. A few times, then he'll tell me. Or if there are some changes happening he'll tell me. 

I can understand up to a point, we're both in the sciences and I don't know his field that well but definitely to a certain point. He does tell me when I ask specific questions but lots of times I won't know enough to ask specifics. 

Also what vermiscious knid said is kind of what happens...

If I share, it'll be including details of so and so, X is annoying, Y is so helpful etc. He kind of 'tunes' it out to background noise UNLESS it's something more major.

So I guess what you're saying is, it's normal. I think because we had some past minor issues with him being closer with one of the females it annoys me that there isn't much to say. When that happened in the past (you can find my other posts) at first he backed off, but then continued being friendly with her but wasn't honest with me about it. When I eventually found out I was really upset he lied and since then he's completely kept it a 'work' only friendship. I honestly don't know if I had anything to be upset about or not, it seemed just like a friendship, but I was pregnant with our first at the time and not in a place of 'just letting it roll off my back'. It took time but he realized their friendship was not one I was comfortable with while it took awhile, he has backed off of it. 

That aside, I guess maybe there just isn't much to share. It's hard because I'm temporarily a stay-at-home-mom with kid and new baby when he/she arrives so my work is kind of 'on hold' for the moment. I'm a social butterfly so when I come home I have lots to talk about, husband is more reserved.

I just wish he'd share more with me in general, what he's thinking, what he likes, dislikes, but he seems to be more 'simple'? Either simple or just doesn't share his more inner thoughts...

I don't know. Maybe I just have some unrealistic expectations and feeling kind of 'blah' because I do not like how I look pregnant


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## Dawn of Man (Feb 22, 2013)

Are you sure you need him to share more with you, or would you rather be able to share more with him, and have him as an active listener?

From what I understand women, in general, prefer to be the talkers and establish emotional connections with those who know how to listen.


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## yellowstar (Jun 18, 2012)

Dawn of Man said:


> Are you sure you need him to share more with you, or would you rather be able to share more with him, and have him as an active listener?
> 
> From what I understand women, in general, prefer to be the talkers and establish emotional connections with those who know how to listen.


He actually is a good listener and has gotten better at being a more 'active' listener. Thanks for reminding me of that.

It's more of what is going on in HIS head. Maybe in the past, many years ago, when he did I would get upset about some of what he said so maybe he stopped or learned to filter better. But now, especially in the past few years, our communication has gotten a lot better, I wish he would open up a bit more.


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## tuckin14 (Feb 22, 2013)

It doesn't sound so much like you want to know about his worklife, as that you want to feel you're able to watch over him so he doesn't do anything naughty. And also, that you feel a bit isolated so you want to kind of have something interesting to talk about.

Reading another post, I am kind of reminded that my wife tells me relatively little about the nuts and bolts of her work, but a great deal about the personalities and the interactions.

I think you need to find something to share that might not be his workplace. If that really is what you want to know about, do you have resources to learn about the details of his profession, to make the conversations more meaningful?


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## pb76no (Nov 1, 2012)

Well, if he's anything like me (unlikely as it may be), then only major things "stick" in his head, so that's all there is for him to tell you. But you start out your post saying he only gives the basics of his workday, then you progress into wanting to know what he likes, dislikes, etc.

One step at a time. First, it doesn't sound like you are really interested in the "basics of his workday". Reading between the lines it sounds more like you want to know if there is anything you need to worry about - something similar to his past female friendship. Unlikely he'll volunteer something like that. So you want him to talk, hoping he might let something slip that would raise a red flag?. 

Second, for what he likes, dislikes, etc - I'm generalizing and using my own personal traits - but we don't generally just "open up" like that. I'll answer specific questions - like do you like x or do you dislike doing xyz. Perhaps you could start with "I just love when abc happens - what about you?".

As a P.S. - when I've had a bad day at work, most of the times I don't want to talk about it - at least when I first get home. Later in the evening, I might talk about it though. If he seems particularly upset or happy when he gets home, try not asking anything right away. Then later that night say "you seemed a bit upset when you got home, do you want to vent about work?".


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## just_about_done (Feb 6, 2013)

If he's like me he just leaves it all at work. Especially if he's just doing a job and doesn't really love his work. Work is work and home is home. If there is something particualary interesting that happened, I might talk about it or I might not. Some people deal with workplace stress by talking about it, some people keep it all bottled up, and some people (like me) leave it at the door.


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## VermisciousKnid (Dec 27, 2011)

yellowstar said:


> I just wish he'd share more with me in general, what he's thinking, what he likes, dislikes, but he seems to be more 'simple'? Either simple or just doesn't share his more inner thoughts...
> 
> I don't know. Maybe I just have some unrealistic expectations and feeling kind of 'blah' because I do not like how I look pregnant


"More simple". Don't go down that road. Silence doesn't indicate simplicity or lack of feelings any more than volubility indicates intelligence or deep feelings. Yet I see women make that mistake often because they don't get how differently men process things. With women, it's processed verbally. With men it's below the surface. You can't see it but it's there. I think you should ask your H more pointed questions instead of hoping that it will all flow out of him naturally in a XX style. Eventually he will get better at expressing himself.


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## yellowstar (Jun 18, 2012)

just_about_done said:


> If he's like me he just leaves it all at work. Especially if he's just doing a job and doesn't really love his work. Work is work and home is home. If there is something particualary interesting that happened, I might talk about it or I might not. Some people deal with workplace stress by talking about it, some people keep it all bottled up, and some people (like me) leave it at the door.



This is what he says all the time, he leaves it there. Unless something major going on, he just leaves it there. He said he's happy when he comes come so he'd rather not talk about work :scratchhead: These male/female differences thing is crazy. :lol::scratchhead:


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## Dollystanford (Mar 14, 2012)

Well in my marriage it was the opposite - I rarely talked about work and yet he used to come home and give an hour long diatribe about his day, good or bad

Of course he left out all the stuff about contacting other women on the internet during work time

Him telling you more isn't going to help you get over your insecurities because he'll only tell you want he wants to


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## Homemaker_Numero_Uno (Jan 18, 2011)

tuckin14 said:


> Or I might have said "We had a team meeting. Everyone had their deadlines moved up, but the developers need the sample data complete to do their unit testing. I have about 8 datasets to complete by Monday. A few are easy, but some have 20 or 30 fields to be populated. Let me tell you the really frustrating part though. Every time I create a dataset, I have to run a 25-minute test. You wonder why I work so late and yet have time to do things like write you letters, well, I do it while I'm running this antscript test. I have to run that test because if I make a mistake and don't find it, I not only break my own code but I can make all the overnight tests run on the entire solution invalid. So I run this test and let's say I get an error. It won't tell me which of the 30 fields gives me the error. So I have to look at the code to figure it out, or the data, sometimes I have to populate the fields one by one - running the 25-minute test each time - until I find the one which, when I add it, causes the error."
> 
> How would you feel if you heard that?


I would tell you to write a text parser so you could run the log output through it and have a printout that says exactly where the error occurred, would parse that and send it back to another program to print out statistics on the field/s in question. The you'd have time to watch more YouTube videos and IM me about them. :rofl:

I'm a woman, by the way.

I have the same issue, I cannot talk to any guys or women I know about my work, unless I work with them, or have worked with them. The highlight of my 2012 work life was a day spent with computational linguists on a rare visit to a job site for a data kick-off meeting. 

I would rather keep my conversation to movies. It goes a lot better. And if I start talking about work, it doesn't make me feel like being INTIMATE, it makes me feel like I need to log onto remote compute to implement that great idea I got for solving a problem, that was caused by talking about - WORK!

I did date a guy briefly I was going to work for, and who understood the nuts and bolts of what I do, but we talked about work all the time. Namely his business, and it's not like I could actually charge him for some of those hours with a straight face. And I found myself wanting to talk about movies, and Mongolia, and to go out dancing...but all we ever did was talk about work, after the initial pursuit and catch that is.


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## Homemaker_Numero_Uno (Jan 18, 2011)

Dollystanford said:


> Well in my marriage it was the opposite - I rarely talked about work and yet he used to come home and give an hour long diatribe about his day, good or bad
> 
> Of course he left out all the stuff about contacting other women on the internet during work time
> 
> Him telling you more isn't going to help you get over your insecurities because he'll only tell you want he wants to


Otherwise known as constructive narrative...painting the picture of what he wanted you to see his work environment as, so you wouldn't see what was really there. Any time someone starts giving you random, inane information that's not really interesting and you didn't ask for, suspect an act of constructive narrative. The creative kind, designed to camo.


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## yellowstar (Jun 18, 2012)

Dollystanford said:


> Well in my marriage it was the opposite - I rarely talked about work and yet he used to come home and give an hour long diatribe about his day, good or bad
> 
> Of course he left out all the stuff about contacting other women on the internet during work time
> 
> Him telling you more isn't going to help you get over your insecurities because he'll only tell you want he wants to


Good point, thank you  I trust him 99% so it's probably more me and my insecurities. I'm afraid if I don't get over my insecurities I will eventually ruin us.


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## just_about_done (Feb 6, 2013)

yellowstar said:


> This is what he says all the time, he leaves it there. Unless something major going on, he just leaves it there. He said he's happy when he comes come so he'd rather not talk about work :scratchhead: These male/female differences thing is crazy. :lol::scratchhead:


Yep. When it comes to work, when I'm done I'm done. Sounds like he's the same. So find something else for him to talk about. What are his hobbies? See if you can get him talking about those. Take an interest in those. I'm not saying do them with him, just learn a little about them so you know what questions to ask to prompt him. 

If he likes building model planes, for example, you could say "Hey, are you going to work on the Spitfire tonight?" Rather than "Are you going to work on your planes tonight?" Small difference, but the details are where you can maybe hook him into some conversation that lights his furnace.

That's what you're probably looking for anyway. The conversations in which he's passionate about something. That doesn't seem to be his work, so why would you want him to talk about that?


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## yellowstar (Jun 18, 2012)

just_about_done said:


> Yep. When it comes to work, when I'm done I'm done. Sounds like he's the same. So find something else for him to talk about. What are his hobbies? See if you can get him talking about those. Take an interest in those. I'm not saying do them with him, just learn a little about them so you know what questions to ask to prompt him.
> 
> If he likes building model planes, for example, you could say "Hey, are you going to work on the Spitfire tonight?" Rather than "Are you going to work on your planes tonight?" Small difference, but the details are where you can maybe hook him into some conversation that lights his furnace.
> 
> That's what you're probably looking for anyway. The conversations in which he's passionate about something. That doesn't seem to be his work, so why would you want him to talk about that?



Yeah you're right. After reading this a few things came to mind...the other night I started talking to him about cars (because of a friend's conversation) and he was really into that. That was a lot different reaction than when I talk to him about 'to do list' or what I did that day (unless it was something particularly interesting). I know what he likes, movies, cars, UFC, food, house projects etc...maybe I need to keep that in mind when I talk to him and wonder why there isn't much else for him to say :smthumbup:


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## VermisciousKnid (Dec 27, 2011)

Homemaker_Numero_Uno said:


> I would tell you to write a text parser so you could run the log output through it and have a printout that says exactly where the error occurred, would parse that and send it back to another program to print out statistics on the field/s in question. The you'd have time to watch more YouTube videos and IM me about them. :rofl:


If only it was as trivial as writing a parser. It sounds like some kind of ETL process that has to munch on dirty data and doesn't give good debugging - no useful info in the log. That's why he has to go back to the code to see what failed. Anyway, If it was all in the log he could just pipe it in to grep or sed or awk with regular expression matching and skip writing a parser all together. 

By the way, I'm a man.


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## JCD (Sep 2, 2012)

yellowstar said:


> Yeah you're right. After reading this a few things came to mind...the other night I started talking to him about cars (because of a friend's conversation) and he was really into that. That was a lot different reaction than when I talk to him about 'to do list' or what I did that day (unless it was something particularly interesting). I know what he likes, movies, cars, UFC, food, house projects etc...maybe I need to keep that in mind when I talk to him and wonder why there isn't much else for him to say :smthumbup:


My wife started talking to me about the stories I write and the characters in them.

Suddenly, the guy who barely talks to her can't shut up.

Pick your targets wisely. You find what he wants to talk about, he'll talk.


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## whitehawk (Aug 14, 2012)

yellowstar said:


> I feel like husband shares just the basics of his workday. I wish he would tell me what else is going on in his head but unless something slightly major or major or annoying comes up, he doesn't say much else. I know his coworkers from other events but he keeps a mostly work relationship with them (which I like because after a close friendship with one girl I felt uncomfortable, husband eventually backed off).
> 
> So I read in here that guys are simple, don't treat them like females and ask him to share his feelings about everything. Fine. I want more intimacy (physical we're pretty good) but more emotional intimacy. So from what I read on here, it sounds like forget that, just wear something cute and bake him cookies and that'll make him feel happy more than anything.
> 
> ...


I think the guys a simple thing's total bs myself, everyone's different They do need the right combo though to feel like it more so than women l think.
My W never talked about anything meaningful unless I sort of pushed on something or got it started.
It was work or my daughter or bills 24/7. But one way to get her into good stuff was go to bed early like 7 or 8 , give us both a chance to unwind , play around and talk too. We'd often talk all night then.

If your pushing it all the time it'd just become a chore to him and he'll want to even less.
But you should try some early nights together , like well before your both gonna be too tired to bother anyway. Like a good couple of hours still left.
Just lay around together , ask him stuff , talk about stuff, play if you want , we did that for yrs and yrs and it was really the ony time you'd get to me , anything much out of her other than daily bs.


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## Jasel (Jan 8, 2013)

Maybe you need to find something to talk about that actually interests him? Not everyone wants to talk about the day to day of their job, especially if it's not a job they particularly enjoy. 

I don't mind what I do but after an 8 hour shift, especially a bad one, I really don't want to have to come home or hang out with friends and recap my work experience for the day.

But maybe your husband is just how he is and you shouldn't take it so personally? I mean it doesn't sound like he's emotionally checking out on you or anything that just sounds like part of his personality. Was he like that when you married him??


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## Homemaker_Numero_Uno (Jan 18, 2011)

VermisciousKnid said:


> If only it was as trivial as writing a parser. It sounds like some kind of ETL process that has to munch on dirty data and doesn't give good debugging - no useful info in the log. That's why he has to go back to the code to see what failed. Anyway, If it was all in the log he could just pipe it in to grep or sed or awk with regular expression matching and skip writing a parser all together.
> 
> By the way, I'm a man.


If it's on a computer in human-readable form and he can deduce information from the log and then go back to the code/output and find the problem, this is in the realm of automated exception reporting. He could also write the code to spit out markers or printouts of the variables or stats in a separate file/output in the processing, and encode these instructions with a "trial run" flag that could be turned on/off in the parameters. You can also use the run time computer to flag where stuff is happening, along with some well-timed 'waits' in the code. Sort of like syncopation...by controlling when stuff happens (i.e. like at what stanza in an orchestral piece) you can just go back to the log file at that specific time...instead of using line numbers...use time markers. This is especially suitable for parallel processing apps where there's a lot going on. If one process drops the ball or doesn't throw it, and the others keep going... so if he's on Unix he can also issue calls to command line queries to check on processes and their data files (empty, etc...)

Just saying, if a human can read and interpret output, so can a computer. Once you've built these tools the next step is to make them generic, or at least add some parameters so you can use them again.

But yah, I used to save this stuff for Unix pizza lunch, every last Friday of the month at the university...


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## yellowstar (Jun 18, 2012)

Jasel said:


> Maybe you need to find something to talk about that actually interests him? Not everyone wants to talk about the day to day of their job, especially if it's not a job they particularly enjoy.
> 
> I don't mind what I do but after an 8 hour shift, especially a bad one, I really don't want to have to come home or hang out with friends and recap my work experience for the day.
> 
> But maybe your husband is just how he is and you shouldn't take it so personally? I mean it doesn't sound like he's emotionally checking out on you or anything that just sounds like part of his personality. Was he like that when you married him??



We met in college but even then he just didnt say much of what was going on with him unless it was particularly interesting.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## 28down (Feb 26, 2013)

I know I don't want to talk about work, rather hear about her and her day!


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## WasDecimated (Mar 23, 2011)

yellowstar said:


> I feel like husband shares just the basics of his workday. I wish he would tell me what else is going on in his head but unless something slightly major or major or annoying comes up, he doesn't say much else. I know his coworkers from other events but he keeps a mostly work relationship with them (which I like because after a close friendship with one girl I felt uncomfortable, husband eventually backed off).
> 
> So I read in here that guys are simple, don't treat them like females and ask him to share his feelings about everything. Fine. I want more intimacy (physical we're pretty good) but more emotional intimacy. So from what I read on here, it sounds like forget that, just wear something cute and bake him cookies and that'll make him feel happy more than anything.
> 
> ...


I don't believe that all guys are that simple. I think everyone is different with respect to how they communicate. Some people are more comfortable talking about shallow stuff and not so much the deep feelings...men and women.

I was always the communicator in our marriage. I do admit there were times in the past when I had a lot on my mind…work related stuff. But that was few and far between. My XWW was always trended to the quiet side. I used to look forward to coming home and sharing my day with her. She, our children and our home were my sanctuary. Sometimes I just wanted to vent about the days frustrations and sometimes I wanted to share the day's triumphs. I always wanted her to share her days with me mostly because I couldn't be with her physically…that way I could still be part of her day in some way.

I feel that emotional distance may be genetic to some extent although some of it could be learned as a coping mechanism. XWW grew up with an alcoholic and philandering father. He was also very emotionally unavailable, not only to her but to her mother and sister as well. Her mother was the opposite. She was always open and talkative. Unfortunately, XWW inherited that emotionally distant trait from him and as time would tell…the drinking, cheating and lying as well.

You are right to want and crave more emotional intimacy. Emotional intimacy is the most important connection that a couple has and is necessary for any long term relationship. It is the glue…so to speak. Communication keeps you close. Wearing something cute and baking cookies is fine…especially wearing something cute! Guys will respond to this but does it help you with what you need…emotional connection? It's all about satisfying each others needs. Knowing what his needs are and he knowing what yours are. If he gives you more emotional intimacy then you feel like wearing more cute stuff and making cookies for him…mutual compromise. The real trick is getting him to understand this without him feeling pressure.

On a different note, I know you are pregnant and don't feel so cute right now. I remember when my XWW was pregnant with our children. She took on a new beauty that was simply indescribable. One of my favorite pictures of her was at a wedding when she was pregnant. I will always fondly remember those days. There is nothing more beautiful then the woman you love carrying your child.


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