7 Reasons Men Tune Out The Women They Love, And Women Do The Same
Peopleimages.com | Canva How many times has your partner suddenly taken advice from someone else, advice you've been giving them for months, and acted like it's brand new? It's frustrating, confusing, and honestly a little hurtful. But it happens more often than most couples want to admit, and it doesn't necessarily mean your partner doesn't value you.
Communication in relationships gets complicated the closer you are to someone. Men tune out the women they love for reasons that aren't always obvious, and women do the exact same thing. Once you understand what's really going on beneath the surface, it becomes a lot easier to stop taking it personally and start actually hearing each other again.
Here are 7 reasons men tune out the women they love, and women do the same:
1. You get so comfortable that you stop really listening
Our kids typically behave better for strangers than they do for us. When we are too comfortable with the people around us, it can become far too easy to treat their words casually and to ignore the importance of their concerns or thoughts. Research shows that the less we know about someone, the more we tend to like them.
As familiarity deepens, we gradually shift our focus from appreciating positive qualities to detecting flaws and inconsistencies. Over time, that comfort can quietly flip from warmth into taking someone for granted, and their words start to carry less weight simply because they're always there.
2. Their voice blends into the background
When you hear things all day, every day, from the people around you, those important words can simply get lost in the mix. Relationship counselor Susan Derry says that selective hearing is one of the most common communication patterns she sees.
It can make couples feel like they're having the same conversation on a loop. The painful irony is that the more familiar someone's voice becomes, the easier it is for our brain to filter it into background noise.
3. You're reacting to history, not just what they're saying
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When you talk to a stranger or listen to a person on television, you aren’t as prone to identifying hidden meanings and undercurrents as compared to listening to a loved one or a close co-worker. When someone close to us talks, their current words are interpreted in the context of all our past experiences.
So, it’s natural for us to draw connections between their current thoughts and what happened last week: “You’re just bringing this up so you can say ‘I told you so’ about what happened at the grocery store!”
According to psychologist Dr. Kristin Davin, once couples get locked into negative communication patterns, they stop processing what's actually being said. Instead, they're reacting to the whole accumulated weight of their relational history, which only makes it harder for either person to feel genuinely heard.
4. It's hard to respect advice that feels hypocritical
When your doctor tells you to stop drinking or smoking, you listen... But what if you knew that same doctor had received a DUI the weekend before? Would that make you less likely to acknowledge the wisdom in their words?
When someone close to you tells you not to do something, and you know they don't follow that advice themselves, it's normal to simply discount their words as hypocrisy. Studies have shown that once someone forms an initial opinion, there's a strong tendency to seek out evidence that confirms that view and dismiss anything that challenges it.
In relationships, this means we're often more receptive to advice from people whose lives seem to reflect what they're telling us. When a partner preaches what they don't practice, the brain files it away as hypocrisy before they've even finished the sentence.
5. Being too close can blur the actual problem
When we talk to strangers about problems, many of us cut to the chase and get right to the heart of the matter. When experts like psychologists and advice columnists respond to questions, they’re responding to little snippets of people’s lives, and it’s easier for them to ignore those pesky distractions.
But when we share problems with people close to us, we sometimes overfocus on the big picture and extraneous details that cloud the issue at hand. When that happens, it can be difficult to either listen to or give good advice because it doesn’t address all the complicated little details we're stuck on.
Licensed marriage and family therapist Mary Kay Cocharo explains that when conflict arises, both partners pull on their emotional "survival suits." The resulting dynamic has everything to do with how well each person can contain their own reactivity, not how much they actually care about each other.
6. Sometimes you're not looking for advice, you're looking for validation
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What is confirmation bias? Sometimes, instead of truly communicating, we go “shopping” and hunting for the things we want to hear, for the advice we think we need.
When we think we’re ready to tell that boss to forget about it, we go to that feisty friend who walked out of their last job after cussing out their boss. Think you want to break up with your partner? Why wouldn’t you go to that friend or figure who tells you to “dump them already”
7. If emotions are high, nothing is getting through
Those people close to us might be sharing important information and alternative viewpoints, but when we're still worked up and our blood is still boiling, it’s just not the right time to talk. Sometimes our words might fall on deaf ears simply because it’s too soon for us to truly hear them.
So, if you've been frustrated, wondering why it seems like men never listen to women (or vice versa), what can you do about it?
If you're ready to acknowledge that the reasons above make sense and that sometimes not hearing or being heard isn't a reflection on you, your partner, or your relationship, here are some suggestions for overcoming these obstacles:
Recognize that when you have something important to say, it’s equally important that you create a “listening environment.”
This isn’t a Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood thing. It’s about creating a quiet, focused, distraction-free space where the person you'll be speaking with has the time and frame of mind to let your words in. This listening environment is just as much internal as it is external. If you are the one being spoken to and you are still upset and upset, acknowledge that by saying something along the lines of, “I’m not in a place to listen right now. Can we regroup when I am?”
If there are things you simply cannot hear or do not want to hear, you need to own up to that.
You can tell your partner something like, “I’m not in a place where I can hear criticism about this right now. I’ve worked on this for hours, and if you point out the tiniest thing, even if you are correct, I think I will just start crying. Can we regroup when I'm calm and able to listen?”
If you want to be heard, you need to start listening.
If you think someone doesn’t listen to you, your first response should be to listen to what they have to say. The main reason people don’t listen is that they believe others just don’t understand.
If you want to be heard, if you want your words to matter, and you want to help the people around you, then start by closing your mouth, opening your ears, and listening until you do understand. When you both feel confident that you fully understand the situation and the concerns around it, that is when your pithy wisdom and questions can make the most difference in the life of someone you care about.
Dr. David Ley is a clinical psychologist in practice in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
