Crossed Wires

The other night, Solomon and I had finished putting the kids to bed, so we came to the living room, sat down on the couch and looked at each other. We had made no plans for what we wold do that night, but we try to spend some time together after the kids go to bead, as I think most parents do. So I decided (in my own head) that we could talk and catch up on how we were doing (for me that means emotionally more than physically). Instead of telling these thoughts to Solomon, I just decided to get the ball rolling by telling him about me and how I was feeling, (having found this, in the past, a totally workable way to do things with my girl friends) expecting that he would reciprocate and tell me all about himself. I talked for a while, leaving what I thought to be nice little pauses intended as invitations to Solomon to tell me about something he was feeling. This of course is the best way to do things (I thought) because it puts no pressure on Solomon to share if he doesn't want to, but creates an atmosphere of sharing time, that is obvious, and so makes it easy to share if he so wishes.

So after about 20 minutes of me talking, and feeling increasingly frustrated by the fact that Solomon is saying nothing, yet not wanting to force him to share, I decide to gently ask him how he is doing, and comment at the same time how I'd love to hear about his mental state and not just his physical state (we had just gotten over sickness in the house, and Solomon was just over a nasty cold and cough). So then Solomon says that he thought I wasn't done telling him about me, and was waiting until I was done. Well we both laughed about that when we got it all sorted out!

So turns out that the whole talking to get things going only works with women. Solomon figured I needed to talk myself out before saying anything, after all he would be interrupting if he didn't wait! I love Solomon, he is such a good listener. He has even become almost perfect with not offering advice or trying to fix things. It cracks me up that after almost 9 years of marriage, I still miss-communicate with him! But hey, it would get boring if there weren't still something to work on!