Ah. Now I understand.

[LovebirdsFlying]

Many of you have noted that many of my threads about my husband have a similar theme. Communication issues.

Well, we just spent a week with his mother. I'd met her before, but she lives two states away. The first time I met her was at our wedding, and I'd never spent longer than a day or two with her. That's only once every couple of years. So I really didn't know her all that well. After spending a week with her, I've noticed so many of the same communication hiccups.

• You say XYZ, and she'll respond as if you said YZX. Almost, but not *quite* the same thing. And there is no way you're ever going to get XYZ communicated. As far as she's concerned, you said YZX, and we've already covered that ground.
• You can say something, and she'll acknowledge it. Then five or ten minutes later she'll say the same thing as if it's her own discovery, and you didn't say a word before.
• The conversation can be on a different topic now, and she'll try to connect it with an earlier topic, wondering what one has to do with the other. It doesn't.
• She'll sometimes cut into the middle of your sentence to answer what she thinks you're about to say, when you were actually going to say something else.

Yes, she's kinda sorta older, but she's not that old, and she's still got her mind. She's newly in remission from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, which may or may not have affected anything.

No, I never said a word of criticism, either to her or to my husband.

But wow, now I get it. Apparently it's just a family quirk. And it's not even a Mars/Venus thing, because this is his mother. They both have the same way of processing words and ideas. I just have to learn to work around it.

OK.

 

[faroukfarouk]

Many of you have noted that many of my threads about my husband have a similar theme. Communication issues.

Well, we just spent a week with his mother. I'd met her before, but she lives two states away. The first time I met her was at our wedding, and I'd never spent longer than a day or two with her. That's only once every couple of years. So I really didn't know her all that well. After spending a week with her, I've noticed so many of the same communication hiccups.

• You say XYZ, and she'll respond as if you said YZX. Almost, but not *quite* the same thing. And there is no way you're ever going to get XYZ communicated. As far as she's concerned, you said YZX, and we've already covered that ground.
• You can say something, and she'll acknowledge it. Then five or ten minutes later she'll say the same thing as if it's her own discovery, and you didn't say a word before.
• The conversation can be on a different topic now, and she'll try to connect it with an earlier topic, wondering what one has to do with the other. It doesn't.
• She'll sometimes cut into the middle of your sentence to answer what she thinks you're about to say, when you were actually going to say something else.

Yes, she's kinda sorta older, but she's not that old, and she's still got her mind. She's newly in remission from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, which may or may not have affected anything.

No, I never said a word of criticism, either to her or to my husband.

But wow, now I get it. Apparently it's just a family quirk. And it's not even a Mars/Venus thing, because this is his mother. They both have the same way of processing words and ideas. I just have to learn to work around it.

OK.

Poets are poets, and engineers are engineers.

(I think you're probably a poet in the way you think...)

 

[Little Lantern]

• You say XYZ, and she'll respond as if you said YZX. Almost, but not *quite* the same thing. And there is no way you're ever going to get XYZ communicated. As far as she's concerned, you said YZX, and we've already covered that ground.

• You can say something, and she'll acknowledge it. Then five or ten minutes later she'll say the same thing as if it's her own discovery, and you didn't say a word before.

• The conversation can be on a different topic now, and she'll try to connect it with an earlier topic, wondering what one has to do with the other. It doesn't.

• She'll sometimes cut into the middle of your sentence to answer what she thinks you're about to say, when you were actually going to say something else.

I know a woman like this-- actually a husband and wife! The only difference is the second point.
With the folks I know-
You can say something, and he/she doesn't acknowledge it. Then five or ten minutes later he'll/she'll
say the same thing as if it's their own discovery.

So frustrating-- but thank you for giving me hope that I may not be mentally off after all!

 

[jacks]

I know this sound simplistic, but could they possibly be hard of hearing? Often this causes perplexing communication issues. I hear very poorly and have to guess at what has been said. So maybe I'm responding YZX to XYZ or repeating what had been said. Just a thought.

 

[LovebirdsFlying]

I know this sound simplistic, but could they possibly be hard of hearing? Often this causes perplexing communication issues. I hear very poorly and have to guess at what has been said. So maybe I'm responding YZX to XYZ or repeating what had been said. Just a thought.

I have wondered about that possibility. Hubby drives for a living, so his hearing is given a rudimentary testing periodically. He thinks because he always passes that there is nothing wrong with his hearing. It's not an in-depth test. Just a very basic one. But try telling him that.

 

[faroukfarouk]

I have wondered about that possibility. Hubby drives for a living, so his hearing is given a rudimentary testing periodically. He thinks because he always passes that there is nothing wrong with his hearing. It's not an in-depth test. Just a very basic one. But try telling him that.

So do you think that a lot of road noise has impaired your husband's hearing a bit?

 

[LovebirdsFlying]

So do you think that a lot of road noise has impaired your husband's hearing a bit?

No. I think a lot of silliness goes on that he's learned to tune out so he can concentrate on driving. So he got used to tuning things out, and he forgets to turn his listening ears back on when he gets home.

 

[faroukfarouk]

No. I think a lot of silliness goes on that he's learned to tune out so he can concentrate on driving. So he got used to tuning things out, and he forgets to turn his listening ears back on when he gets home.

Oh so it's more tuning out, than hard of hearing...

 

[ValleyGal]

I wonder if there is an audio version of dyslexia, and this is more common than we think.

 

[OK Jeff]

Or sometimes my mind is running and my ears only pick up fragments. Not that it isn’t partially my fault, but it happens to me.

 

[LovebirdsFlying]

I wonder if there is an audio version of dyslexia, and this is more common than we think.

There is something called Auditory Processing Disorder, but I'm not qualified to diagnose. And I'm not sure this is that.

 

[Glowing]

Good for you for figuring it out! At least now you know where he is coming from, and this will help you move forward in the future.