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female
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anonymous
writes: Hi, lately I feel my boyfriend hasn't been listening to me. I don't know how else to encourage him to stop being distracted or be interested in what I have to say. I just feel like nothing I say is considered important to him, and I feel like I can't trust him or feel closer to him unless I feel he takes what I ahve to say seriously. I ahve talked to him about this before, but he keeps on slipping, and I don't know how to gently remind him he is still being distracted by other things or just not being tuned in on me...is there anything else I can tell him to help him get rid of this bad habit? thanks a lot Reply to this Question
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female
reader, anonymous, writes (23 January 2007): hey girl im goin through the samething that's why im on these web sites tryin to find advice,but i really can relate to that.my advice to you is to keep pushing him and letting him know hey what i have to say is important,and honey im sorry to break it to you but if you don't have trust you don't have anything.
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female
reader, Wendyg  +, writes (3 July 2006):
 Maybe ask him if he still wants to be in the relationship ? Maybe jolt him into talking to you. Not being in your situatuion and now knowing how the two of you were before is a bit hard to know what to advise, as it seems we here are maybe missing the point. If you really feel that your not being heard and your not as close then you need to take steps to remedy that before it becomes a bigger thing altogether! Is it that he cant be bothered ? Is it that he is just taking you for granted.. Perhaps he just thinks if i ignore her long enough she will get fed up and stop.. is this the only problem that the two of you have or is it more deep rooted than that ? Maybe sit and talk again and explain that you are feeling isolated and that you feel like he couldnt give two hoots if you were in the room talking to him or not! maybe that will get a response... maybe you need a heart to heart lay it all out and see if you are both heading in the same direction... try and find out why he really cant be arsed with you... is it becuase hes bored.... is it because he doesnt want the relatinoship but its easier to sit in it ? I dont know what goes on with the two of you but if you dont nip this now its just going to get bigger.. but remember we as woman do get paranoid over the slightest of things and something that can normally seem straight forward we can turn in to something huge! Talk to him, see at what point he stops listening, and see if you can see where it is that he stops listening is a certain subject or is it in general, is he like this with other people, is he tired, is he stressed, is there something hes not telling you ? if all else fails ask him outright what he wants from the relationship, and you may well see where you are headed from there.
Good luck
Take care x
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reader, anonymous, writes (2 July 2006): This is verified as being by the original poster of the questionI understand what you are saying, but I disagree. I've been a quiet person all my life and now that I have trusted him enough to tell him my thoughts and feelings, it sounds like he doesn't care. I feel liek this would be the minimum requirement in anyrelationship for both parties to be able to listen wellwhether it be male or female. I don't feel ahving a male mind automatically makes a male less capable of listening than a female. I'd say females do practice that more and become better at it, but I think both sexes ahve the same capability to be good lsiteners. I think you aren't born being a good listener. You work at it and develop more skills to be a better listener. I don't feel just because he is a man I ahve to talk to him about guns or be a one stop Spike channel. I feel that when you get involved with a person you wnat to feel like your ideas and thoughts are valued and important no matter who you are. I'm not a weapon's specialist in Iraq, so all I have are my experiences. I just want a thoughtful response. I'm not asking for fireworks or confetti--I feel like I've been getting less than is normal from him and that is what I had a problem with. Thanks
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female
reader, Wendyg +, writes (30 June 2006):
I think your trying too hard, and expecting him to listen, when i suspect he is, your just expecting him to come out with a radical comment about what you just said and he cant think of one straight away so just replied as if to say yes i heard you. Bev made some very valid points, and i suspect that more often or not your actually not talking about anything much and hes not really interested. He feels your just talking at him like many men do. The more you go on the more men will just hmm and nod their heads. I dont think its all him, i think half of its you. Sometimes men just dont want to talk... they would just rather sit in silence and not have to think about anyone else, us females probably have 100 million things in our heads that will come out at a hundred miles an hour, and men just think oh there she goes again and just switches off. Its more over the quality of the conversation, if hes used to you just sound biting off he will just get bored, men dont feel the need to always talk about things they are quite simplistic and the silence to them is an intimate thing as they are quite happy to be there with you and be comfortable not saying anything. I know that my man sometimes just wishes that when his tv programmes comes on I would just shut up! I know i do it but i forget i do it, and it always seems that when he wants to watch something i remember something that i should have said.. he is not listening to me then just hmm and drifting off as hes quite happy to watch the tv. Its these times that i just enjoy the silence and mull it over in my head and realise it was probably a waste what i was going to say anyway and dont bother. You dont have to constantly talk to him, men just see it as your going on and on and they just in the end dont really listen and they just think its the same old thing. Stop focusing on his reaction, your now just looking for him to not listen and to drift away. Think do you really need to have this conversation and will he really know what im on about and will he want to respond.. remember less is more.
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male
reader, Yos  +, writes (30 June 2006):
 I call that 'being absent'. I've done it, I think every man I know has done it at one time or another. You can talk for 5 minutes getting nods and 'yes', and yet you somehow know that not a word you have said has sunk in. It's like the person is physically there, but mentally not.
It's probably about him not you. He could be slightly depressed or something could be bothering him (work, money, relationship, etc). It's very normal male behaviour just to clam up and mull over stuff rather than want to talk about it. Which can be unnerving to be around, especially as a woman.
But that's only half of it. The other half is what I would call 'living in the moment'. You can go through your whole life with the volume turned down, not really connecting or engaging. Men are taught as boys to not really show emotion, its something we have to unlearn as we get older. That can take a long time or not happen at all. And it's easy to slip back into behaviour based on this: just disconnecting from your emotions and becoming 'absent'.
It's hard to say what to do about this. Life might just need to slap him round the face with a wet fish in some way or other. Something needs shaking up. You could do something like going on holiday to a wild place (I mean Patagonia not Brixton), or take up dance classes, or meditation or tai chi, or just doing some things that are way out of your comfort zone and your regular life. A short sharp shock to the system might snap him out of it.
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reader, anonymous, writes (30 June 2006): This is verified as being by the original poster of the questionI understand what you're saying, and I appreciate your response but I don't expect my boyfriend to be one of my girlfriends, but I still feel that we should be able to talk consistently and easily with each other, much like best friends which we usually do a lot, but lately his responses ahve become less like they used to be,and I felt that more often it's become more difficult whether to tell he's interested in what I'm saying because I only receive "hmm"s and "really?" from him. Usually we can talk about anything with each other and be able to engage each other, whether it be weapons in Iraq or relationships between his friends or stuff like that--I think I might ahve thought this was a signal of a breakdown in communication and a possible detriment to our relationship which I definetly want to avoid. I don't bore him by discussing the shades of colr in my friend's clothing, which I wouldn't think would be as intersting to talk about nevertheless hear someone else talk about, but I just wnated to make sure he was listening to me and still tuned in as we usually are.
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female
reader, Bev Conolly  +, writes (30 June 2006):
 I have this mental image of him tuning you out in his mind because he feels you talk too much, and you racheting up the banter because you feel he's not listening! It's a vicious circle.
First, you need to back off and stop nagging at him. If the problem is that he's not listening to you, then yapping about your issues with his lack of attention isn't going to be a very helpful angle, now is it? He'll only tune that out, too.
Please don't think I'm putting you down, but in your letter you come across as young and quite emotionally needy and you need to address that problem in yourself before you can even think of "fixing" anything to do with your boyfriend.
Do you talk because you're nervous, or because you think you have to fill in the silences? Are you assuming that Talk=Love, and more of one equals more of the other?
Furthermore, you don't seem to realise that men and women communicate in different ways. Women use conversation as a form of intimacy, but men usually don't. He may well "take you seriously", but he mightn't believe he has to rebut every point you make in order to do so.
Therefore, your expectation that he have meaningful conversation with you so you can "trust him" is about as unfair as him expecting you to bond by kicking a ball around on the football field with him. It's an unfair, gender-based demand on him and won't feel natural.
Yes, of course couples have conversations with each other, and intimate ones at that. But most men don't want to talk about everything they saw today, and every thought they had about it, and what their friends thought of what they thought... Those are female conversations and just don't translate very well in a male mind.
Men enjoy discussions that go somewhere, like how to win at chess, or why tigers have stripes, or why petrol engines are better than diesel ones, or what to buy you for Christmas. Generally speaking though, they want conversations to *end* at some future point, and I get the feeling that yours don't.
So reflect on the types of conversations you're having. Are they about the sorts of things that men think are boring (feelings, opinions, gossip)? Does he try to engage you in discussions that focus on definite topics?
If he can talk with you about the military hardware used in Iraq, or about why cats are superior to dogs, then you know that he's trying to be a good partner and have conversations with you. If he tunes out because you want to discuss the plot of a movie he hasn't seen or whether your sister should wear aqua or ultramarine to her best friend's wedding, then you need to accept that most guys just can't do that.
Don't be afraid of silences, either. One point that I'd like for you to understand is that, when you say less, the things that you *do* say tend to matter more.
Remember, your boyfriend isn't a girl with a penis. He has a whole different brain to you, and a whole different cultural outlook. So don't expect him to act like a girlfriend and you'll find the problem will practically resolve itself.
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