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Learning to Listen More, Trying to Fix It
Less
Crises are opportunities to learn more about
love and life. Carlin and I have been dealing with
a crisis that began on March 20, 2023 when she
slipped on a wet sidewalk and called me. “I
fell. I need help. I’m near the corner of
Mendocino and Redwood.” Luckily she was
only a few blocks away and I got to her quickly and
with help of a neighbor who happened to be an EMT
we got her in the car and to the ER at Howard
Hospital, which was only five minutes away.
In Part 1
I described the initial stages of the partial
hip-replacement surgery and the small stroke that
occurred during surgery that caused some memory and
speech problems. In Part
2, I talked about the intimacy and exhaustion
that comes with 24/7 home health care. Being a
Caretaker was a new role for me and in Part
3, I described the deepening of our love that
has occurs once I wholeheartedly embraced the
calling.
Here, I want to talk about the challenges of
letting go of the “fixer” role that has
been so much a part of my identity for so long. As
a therapist and marriage and family counselor one
of the main complaints I hear from women is
that
“he doesn’t listen to me.
He always wants to fix me before I can even tell
him how I’m feeling. He makes it all about
him, when I need him to tune into me.”
Like most challenges as a therapist, I’ve
found it much easier to help other men become
better listeners than to make the changes in my own
relationship. I learned my “fixer” role
early. When I was five years old my father was
hospitalized with what was called “a nervous
breakdown,” which I didn’t understand. My
uncle Harry went to visit my father every Sunday
and my mother wanted me to go with him. It
didn’t occur to me to ask why my mother
didn’t go, but being the dutiful son I was at
the time, I accompanied him.
“Why do I have to go,” I asked, in a
shaky voice, holding back my tears.
“Your father needs you,” he told me.
His voice was serious and his eyes told me I had an
important job to do.
“What’s the matter with him?” I
wanted to know.
Silence. In our family we didn’t talk about
such things.
I went with my uncle for a full year trying my
best to fix whatever the problem was with my
father. Like most children, I felt somehow
responsible for my parent’s pain, that it was
my job to fix it. In my childhood fantasy, I feared
if I didn’t fix my father and be the
“good little man” my mother expected me
to be, I wouldn’t survive. If I could fix
things, everywhere would be happy and our lives
would return to normal and I could be a kid again.
Many of us are forced to give up our childhood at a
young age and become the “adult” to
parents who are dysfunctional in one way or
another.
It’s Not About the Nail: You Always Try
and Fix Things When I Really Want You to
Listen
There is a Youtube video that has always given
me a laugh, appreciation, and insight. It’s
Not About the Nail helps us better understand
communication, listening, and the ways men often
get so focused on fixing things, we don’t take
time to listen. What I’ve learned about
listening from this short video and how I can apply
it to being a better husband.
- When my wife is upset, in pain, or
unhappy, I immediately go into “fix
it” mode.
It hurts me to see someone I love in pain and I
feel I must make the problem go away. Whether I had
anything to do with the problem or not, I feel it
is my duty to fix it. Although the problem may be
minor or serious, if I don’t fix it quick I
think something terrible will happen. I act like it
is a life-or-death event that only I can fix. There
isn’t time to hear her feelings. I must act
now.
What I need to remember to do: Take a
deep breath…and then take another deep breath.
Take at least three, before I open my mouth. There
is a book I recent bought and am reading called
STFU: The Power of Keeping Your Mouth Shut in an
Endlessly Noisy World by Dan Lyons. In the
introduction, Dan speaks truth to my fix-it-mode
mind.
“I’m telling you this as a
friend, so please don’t take it the wrong
way. But I want you to shut the fuck up.
Learning to shut the fuck up will change your
life.”
It has certainly helped improve my relationship.
Sometimes I have to, literally, bite my tongue to
keep my immediate reaction to say something
helpful. But with practice, it gets easier.
- From my perspective, the problem seemed
obvious, and the solution self-evident.
Not only with clients I have seen over the
years, but with my most intimate relationships, the
problems the woman was dealing with seemed
obviously harmful to her. The solution to her
problem seemed obvious to me. I just had to give
her the solution or solve the problem for her and
everything would be fine. Often the solution I
offered had to do with treating me nicer or for her
to stop doing something which was obviously
wrong.
I was sure I knew best and if she would just
accept the logic of my solution, everything would
be fine and she would thank me for my wisdom. This
perspective never seemed to work. Too often I
assumed the reason it didn’t work was because
she was…pick a word, too– emotional,
stubborn, foolish, confused, resistant, etc.
What I need to remember to do: Let go of
my obsession to be right, so that I will be loved.
I need to let go of my inflated ego that tells me I
know best and if I tell her the right answer to her
problem she will thank me in the long run. That
approach rarely works for children and never for
adult women. Even if the problem is obvious and
removing the nail will help, my repeatedly telling
her will only bring the response, “It is NOT
about the nail.” And it really is not about
the nail, it is about listening and respecting the
one you love.
- Though I would deny it, there is big part
of me that believes that men know best.
Like everyone I grew up in a society that has a
bias in favor of one sex–during my formative
years it was usually men—and under stress I
usually default to my male biases. I still am
influenced by my childhood T.V. heroes who were
almost all males and shows like Father Knows Best.
Consciously, I know that is hog wash, but deep down
inside I carry the responsibilities of the world on
my shoulders and if I don’t know best I better
“fake it, ‘til I make it.”
What I need to remember to do: There are
certain things I am better at doing and certain
things Carlin is better at doing. But life is
complex, problems have multiple causes, and
solutions work best when we figure things out
ourselves or we ask for help and are willing to
listen to the person who gives us the advice we are
asking to receive. When I am convinced I know best,
I don’t wait to be asked, I just jump in and
give her the benefit of my manly life experience,
as though her womanly life experience didn’t
count. Learning to listen to my wife requires that
I quiet the voice in my mind and tell it to just,
please, S T F U.
©2023 Jed
Diamond
See Books,
Issues
+ Suicide
* * *
Wealth can't buy health, but health can buy
wealth. - Henry David Thoreau
Jed Diamond
is the internationally best-selling author of seven
books including Male
Menopause, now
translated into 17 foreign languages and his
latest book, The
Irritable Male Syndrome: Managing. The 4 Key Causes
of Depression and
Aggression. For over
38 years he has been a leader in the field of men's
health. He is a member of the International
Scientific Board of the World Congress on
Men’s Health and has been on the Board of
Advisors of the Men’s Health Network since its
founding in 1992. His work has been featured in
major newspapers throughout the United States
including the New York Times, Boston Globe, Wall
Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, and USA
Today. He has been featured on more than 1,000
radio and T.V. programs including The View with
Barbara Walters, Good Morning America, Inside
Edition, CBS, NBC, and Fox News, To Tell the Truth,
Extra, Leeza, Geraldo, and Joan Rivers. He also did
a nationally televised special on Male Menopause
for PBS. He looks forward to your feedback.
E-Mail.
You can visit his website at www.menalive.com
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