accountability buddies<\/a>, I just figured that as my husband he should be capable of reading my mind and therefore he understood and appreciated my motives. \u00a0But it turns out that – SPOILER ALERT \u2013 husbands aren’t capable of reading their wives minds (\u2026and it\u2019s only taken me ten years of marriage to figure that out).<\/p>\nNot only did my husband not understand or appreciate my motives, but being a man he\u2019d just been assuming the entire time that he did know what I\u2019d been thinking, which it turns out, was totally wrong. It turns out \u2013 SPOILER ALERT \u2013 husbands shouldn’t assume they know what their wives are thinking\u00a0 (…and its only taken him ten years of marriage to figure that out).<\/p>\n
Come to find out, both our perspectives of what was happening all those years was completely wrong, but because neither of us talked about what we\u2019d actually been thinking and feeling with one anther, we spent years being frustrated and upset about something that wasn\u2019t even the case. In talking about it, we learned that we had both been interpreting things from two totally opposite perspectives that both stemmed from having only the knowledge of how we each personally were feeling rather than the knowledge of what both of us felt. I\u2019ll illustrate:<\/p>\n
As I would walk him through my list of items each morning –<\/p>\n
From my perspective:\u00a0\u00a0 Here I was sharing my list so I could let him see that I was excited to make him proud of me that day. Yet as I went through my list he acted detached, bored, and frustrated as if to say \u201cwhy do I need to know this and why would I even care?\u201d which left me feeling that my husband simply didn\u2019t care about me and that nothing I did would be enough to make him proud of me.<\/p>\n
From his perspective:\u00a0 As I walk through my list he is feeling anxiety because he isn\u2019t sure what he can do about all the things on my list – he can tell my list is a big one that makes a heavy burden for me to carry – and he starts feeling like he\u2019s failing as a husband because he he doesn’t know how to take any of that burden off his wife\u2019s shoulders.<\/p>\n
As I would ask him what was on his list for the day –<\/p>\n
From my perspective:\u00a0 As I asked what\u2019s on his list he seemed annoyed and irritated I was asking him to share it, which left me feeling like he didn\u2019t care about me enough to want to share his goals with me.<\/p>\n
From his perspective: By me asking him what was on his list he felt I didn\u2019t trust him to spend his time wisely and didn\u2019t view him as a capable adult.<\/p>\n
So many times over the years I\u2019d been thinking he didn\u2019t really care about me – and he\u2019d been thinking I didn\u2019t really trust him. We had both been hurting about things that weren\u2019t even the case…and all it took was one open honest conversation to completely clear up those misconceptions and feel like we were on the same team again. And we’ve had a hundred other experiences similar to this one that have all taught us this one valuable lesson:<\/p>\n
Wives – he can\u2019t read your mind! Husbands – don\u2019t assume that you can!\u00a0 Talk to each other!<\/p>\n
Be open and honest about everything you both think and feel. Never allow hurts, fears, misconceptions, or frustrations to go on for days, weeks, months,\u00a0 and years.\u00a0 Get back on the same team! TALK TO EACH OTHER!!! TALK A LOT! TALK OFTEN! TALK ABOUT EVERYTHING!\u00a0 \u00a0#soworthit\u00a0 #trustme<\/p>\n
~Amy Rees Anderson<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My husband and I have had several experiences this last year that have taught us both an invaluable lesson – it is critical that spouses talk to each other…openly and honestly…about everything…all the time. We decided to share one of the experiences that helped us learn that in the hopes that if other couples are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6672,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[18045,395,18065,18067,18070,18062,18046,6451,18068,76,18052,18072,18055,18056,35,11,18066,53,18054,18051,18048,13071,544,129,1193,2976,18064,18047,18050,416,7006,18061,18053,18060,18059,18071,18069,18063],"class_list":["post-9397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-accountability-buddy","tag-amy-rees-anderson","tag-appreciate-the-other-persons-perspective","tag-avoid-divorce","tag-dont-assume-you-know-what-your-wife-is-thinking","tag-explain-yourself","tag-family-member","tag-fix-it","tag-fix-your-marriage","tag-goals","tag-great-motivator","tag-husbands-dont-assume-you-know-what-your-wife-thinks","tag-knowing-they-are-paying-attention","tag-look-forward-to-making-someone-proud","tag-love","tag-marriage","tag-marriage-problems","tag-motivation","tag-not-wanting-to-disappoint","tag-not-wanting-to-disappoint-someone","tag-pressure-of-knowing-someone-will-hold-us-accountable","tag-push-yourself","tag-relationships","tag-responsibility","tag-responsible","tag-rollin-anderson","tag-say-how-you-feel","tag-someone-to-hold-us-accountable","tag-someone-to-hold-us-accountable-to-our-goal","tag-spouse","tag-talk-to-each-other","tag-understand-one-anothers-perspectives","tag-we-challenge-ourselves-more-when-we-want-to-impress-someone","tag-we-have-to-talk-to-each-other","tag-why-you-need-to-communicate-with-your-spouse","tag-wives-he-cant-read-your-mind","tag-you-have-to-talk-to-each-other","tag-your-husband-cant-read-your-mind"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9397"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9397\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9406,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9397\/revisions\/9406"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}