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Listening vs. solving problems


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I was talking to my boyfriend today and I started to vent about how frustrated I was with how a mutual friend of ours had treated me the day before. I just wanted to feel justified in my feelings and comforted with such things as “that sucks” or “that’s so unfair”. Instead he started to give me “solutions” (that didn’t help the situation). Which only frustrated me more.

 

I had always heard that guys just want to fix problems while girls just want to be listened to, but this was my first time actually seeing it in action.

 

Just curious how many others on here have dealt with this problem before? Has your experience been that the above statement is always true that guys just want to fix and girls just want to vent?

 

Side question: Guys, when talking about your problems to a girlfriend do you want them to give solutions or just listen and confirm feelings?

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I find it very very difficult to sit and listen to someone's problems without offering a solution.

 

Some people don't want a solution. Whatever you say its like "no because of this" or "no because of that", I find that pretty frustrating - like so what am I meant to say then if you don't like any of my solutions?

 

I don't know if its a men/women thing or just a personality thing... but its definitely a thing.

 

I guess cause personally I see zero point in spending time talking over problems when you could start on the road to solving them. In the first situation I feel a bit resuntant, like you might just as well be talking to a wall.

 

But like you say, some people just want a that sucks. So I equally know hoe to bite my tongue and give them what they want.

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Clarence_Boddicker

Most of those problems can't be solved unless the person venting is willing to quit their job, end their friendship, disown family members, etc.

 

 

listening & empathizing takes more time & work then just giving out "solutions" & moving on.

 

 

For me personally, both. It also helps me simply by the fact of me talking it out with someone, instead of just thinking about it.

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My h gets agitated and frustrated when he can't help me. Usually I do want advice and solutions, but cases where he can't help, he struggles to just listen. I find women are better for that when needed.

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If you want sympathy etc call one of your female friends. If you have a problem that needs fixing then talk to your husband or boyfriend.

 

A family friend had his new car break down. He loved that car. My wife told me to offer him some sympathy because he would be upset. Instead I drove out with a tow rope and towed him home; a rather more practical and useful thing in my view.

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I can attest that it is hard for me to just listen and not give in my input or thoughts on how to go about making things better. Usually if the person tells me they just want to vent, than I will just listen and try to comfort as best as possible, but it certainly isn't something so natural to me, I'm a fixer by nature, my work and life is typically about looking at things and trying to fix or improve them somehow.

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AppleKakes

How to handle this?

 

Well, I'm gonna steal some advice from a radio show I listen to a lot.

 

Since men are "problem/solution" types...and we women just want to be hugged, held, and heard. I recommend giving him "instructions" on what to do.

 

Like, if you're upset and he starts asking what's going on, and starts giving recommendations on how to "fix" it.

 

Just look at him in the eyes, put your hands (or hand) on his face and say like "Babe, can you just hold me?"...or "Babe, it helps so much to have someone like you to just listen and let me vent"...or "Babe, it's times like this that I just need you to be there and just listen as the loving man you are...having you just hearing me out helps so much"...or "Babe, can you wrap your strong arms around me?"

 

That way you gave him instructions on what you need for him and if he's smart enough, now he knows what to do to "fix" the problem - which is just to be your sounding board and cuddle-buddy :)

 

I use this with my pets a lot...on a bad day, I just come home and ask like "can I get a hugggg?" "hugs are nice" and it feels soo sweet to just have some hugs after a long, bad day.

 

OH, BTW, you don't have to do the whole "looking him into the eyes and putting your hands on his face...I just believe that when you wanna get serious messages across, touch and staring appropriately brings the message home ;)

Edited by AppleKakes
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Thanks for all the lovely replies! Loved the video :lmao:

 

I have since told my boyfriend that I just wanted to vent and be comforted not given answers. I explained to him in the context of his work training which he's been super busy and stressed in lately. I have tried to be supportive girlfriend with "it will get better soon" and "you're doing really well so far in your program. I'm so proud". I asked if he'd rather I'd of said something like "well why don't you quit? if it's so hard" or "maybe you should be studying more if you want a higher score". And I think he finally got that "solutions" aren't always what we want to hear.

 

Moving forward I will be more clear with what kind of answer I want when venting.

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My h gets agitated and frustrated when he can't help me. Usually I do want advice and solutions, but cases where he can't help, he struggles to just listen. I find women are better for that when needed.

 

Yup, ditto. Don't know if it's necessarily a male thing, but it's definitely an INTJ thing. Damn INTJs just can't shut up and listen without getting antsy about not being able to fix the problem. :laugh:

 

OP... I don't think a partner should have to be everything to you. It's okay to have some female friends who can do the listening, as long as everything else is good between you and your partner. I'm glad you managed to work out a compromise with him, but I'd look for other outlets to vent, too.

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I was talking to my boyfriend today and I started to vent about how frustrated I was with how a mutual friend of ours had treated me the day before. I just wanted to feel justified in my feelings and comforted with such things as “that sucks” or “that’s so unfair”. Instead he started to give me “solutions” (that didn’t help the situation). Which only frustrated me more.

 

I had always heard that guys just want to fix problems while girls just want to be listened to, but this was my first time actually seeing it in action.

 

Just curious how many others on here have dealt with this problem before? Has your experience been that the above statement is always true that guys just want to fix and girls just want to vent?

 

Side question: Guys, when talking about your problems to a girlfriend do you want them to give solutions or just listen and confirm feelings?

 

Don't put much stock in gender specific with this one Plenty of guys are just listeners and avoid trying to "solve" the problem.

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OP... I don't think a partner should have to be everything to you. It's okay to have some female friends who can do the listening, as long as everything else is good between you and your partner. I'm glad you managed to work out a compromise with him, but I'd look for other outlets to vent, too.

 

Thank you and I assure you my boyfriend is not my everything. I also agree that women tend to be better at listening. I usually do go to my girlfriends for this kind of stuff, but in this case the problem was with a mutual friend of me and my boyfriend. We all play a sport together with mostly guys. None of my close girlfriends play or even fully understand the rules of said sport. So I felt like my boyfriend was the most likely to understand the situation and especially since he has told me about times in the past where he had been in similar situations.

 

Either way it's all resolved and honestly wasn't a big deal. It was just kind of funny to see the whole men are fixers thing in real life. Had always just heard about it, never experienced it. I was more curious about if others had experienced boyfriends giving advice instead of listening and if the whole belief that men are fixers, girls are listeners had any merit. And based off the replies I got it seems it does :p

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This is classic "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" stuff.

 

The book has been lauded and derided in equal measures. 'It's so true and spot-on', versus 'you can't pigeon-hole genders in this way, it's not always so'.

 

I personally think it falls somewhere in the middle.

 

I have a gorgeous and wonderful male friend who's amazing at simply listening to me, being of comfort and saying all the right things, at the right time. Sometimes, he says nothing at all, just empathises appreciatively, and gives the odd timely hug when it's needed.

He's also gay.

 

So yeah.

Somewhere in the middle..... :D

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Ninjainpajamas
I have a gorgeous and wonderful male friend who's amazing at simply listening to me, being of comfort and saying all the right things, at the right time. Sometimes, he says nothing at all, just empathises appreciatively, and gives the odd timely hug when it's needed.

He's also gay.

 

Yeah it's called not being a relationship...I can do that like a pro time to time. But day in and day out, problem after problem....unwanted solution after unwanted solution, it just builds up and eventually becomes way too much, because it's as if women don't even have the word "solution" in their mind and just enjoy endlessly talking something that bothers them which bothers you. They just want to complain...sorry, vent, about something even though the logical thing would be to...stop doing it, or don't do X or talk to X anymore...but nope can't do that! that'd be too easy! Let's keep doing the exact same thing that is causing my problem...then I'll complain about it...then you can hug me, hold me, kiss me until it's alllll better and we'll just keep doing that over and over until you lose your mind.

 

And your presence as a man is completely irrelevant, you might as well be stuffed with cotton...you serve no real human purpose, definitely not on any intellectual level other than the murmuring of kinds words and gestures of sympathy, it's like being an emotional prostitute...there's nothing in it for you, it's just your job.

 

Would you like an;

- I'm sorry

- That sounds so terrible

- That person is so so wrong, you are so right, I'm sorry

 

Saying the right things and doing the right things for women is easy to do...it just wears on your patience and it's relentless, like a little kid doing the whole "I know you are, but what am I" and it'll have this like annoying tacking effect, like tapping on the glass of an aquarium full of fish.

 

Basically this is what happens:

 

Her: "Can you believe what happened to me today...I keep parking in this parking space at work, it has nobodies name on it but this other girl at work insists that it's her parking and there's not even assigned parking, so I have as much right as her but someone puts little passive aggressive notes on my windshield and I know it's her, because she's always there if she gets there earlier"

 

Guy:"Why don't you just park...somewhere else?"

 

Her: "Why do I have to park somewhere else? she doesn't have the right to that parking...she can park somewhere else"

 

Guy: "Doesn't this seem a little petty and immature?"

 

*filtered by woman*

 

Her: And then, I go to check get my food out of the refrigerator at lunch, and I couldn't find it...so I just looked in the trash and guess what was there? my sandwich, and guess who's food was where I left mine? that's right...Tammy the parking spot whore!"

 

Guy: Shouldn't you just talk to her about this, like adults...I remember there was a guy like that and work, and what happened there was yadda yadda and that fixed the problem.

 

Her: I don't WANT your advice, stop telling me what to do!

 

Guy: Sorry, I'm just trying to help...what do you want from me then?

 

Her: I don't need your help, I just want you to listen to me and say nothing, just listen to me

 

Guy: What, just sit there and listen to you and say nothing? why?

 

Her: Because you're supposed to make me feel better, not tell me what to do or what I did wrong and defend her

 

Guy: I wasn't saying it was your fault, I was just making a suggestion

 

Her: You know what forget it....why did I even mention it

 

Guy: Oh so you're mad at me now? because I tried to help you

 

Her: Are you going to apologize?

 

Guy: Apologize for what? I didn't do anything wrong

 

Her: You did everything wrong, you made me feel worse than I did before I told you!

......

 

Guys...just keep it simple, bite your tongue, grit your teeth...roll your eyes into the back of head and go to a special place until she is satisfied with your comforting words or gestures...there's no other reason for anything else...99 percent of the time, women don't want your advice, opinion or input...and the one percent they do ask, it's just to make sure that you agree with them.

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I'm a woman and I also find it incredibly difficult to just listen without offering advice. So I guess I'm on the opposite :o As Shepp mentioned, it just seems like I'm redundant if I'm only expected to say "that sucks" or something similar. And it does get frustrating when people don't want solutions. I'm aware of this and try to work on it, but it feels awkward and unnatural.

 

I have a friend (male) who likes to talk about his problems and just be listened to. He often gets annoyed with me and vice versa. However, I find that the people who know me very well come to me with problems they want my opinion on, rather than when they just need an ear.

 

I wanted to add that I think there's different kinds of listening. When in a situation where the other person wants to vent and just be heard, yeah, it can be difficult for some people to wrap their head around that (because there are solutions..)

But in a regular conversation between people, a discussion or just any conversation I can be a very good listener and I remember many, many things about the people I care about. So I guess my point is, don't sweep every "solution focused" person into the bad listener category. It's situational :)

Edited by Stillits
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I explained to him in the context of his work training which he's been super busy and stressed in lately. I have tried to be supportive girlfriend with "it will get better soon" and "you're doing really well so far in your program. I'm so proud". I asked if he'd rather I'd of said something like "well why don't you quit? if it's so hard" or "maybe you should be studying more if you want a higher score". And I think he finally got that "solutions" aren't always what we want to hear.

 

That's great!

 

And it's so true that there are times that I just listen to my H, and he appreciates that. I believe it's harder for him to return the favor, and I accept that about him. We all have our individual strengths and weaknesses.

 

There have even been times when a male friend of my H has been going through a rough time, and needing a friend to listen, and H smoothly passed them off to me. He just can't handle it, but I can.

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I was talking to my boyfriend today and I started to vent about how frustrated I was with how a mutual friend of ours had treated me the day before. I just wanted to feel justified in my feelings and comforted with such things as “that sucks” or “that’s so unfair”. Instead he started to give me “solutions” (that didn’t help the situation). Which only frustrated me more.

 

I had always heard that guys just want to fix problems while girls just want to be listened to, but this was my first time actually seeing it in action.

 

Just curious how many others on here have dealt with this problem before? Has your experience been that the above statement is always true that guys just want to fix and girls just want to vent?

 

Side question: Guys, when talking about your problems to a girlfriend do you want them to give solutions or just listen and confirm feelings?

 

Oh. I guess this makes me a man :(

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eye of the storm

I always love the men do this women do that conversations.

 

 

In this context I am all man. lol

 

 

After many many arguments with my daughter she learned how to tell me prior to venting to tell me to not offer solutions to just listen. (it kills me) But I still cannot just give blanket "you are right/they are wrongs" because sometimes ...you are wrong and they are right. So I stick to "I'm sorry you are upset".

 

 

Helpful hint to those like me who have issues with not offering solutions, do dishes/fold laundry/assemble something while they talk. Keeps your hands busy and I find its easier to keep my mouth shut.

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Side question: Guys, when talking about your problems to a girlfriend do you want them to give solutions or just listen and confirm feelings?

If im bringing a problem to my wife's attention then its cause I value her opinion and im hoping for her advice on the matter.

 

 

...That said she often gives me the completely right and completely annoying advice of "So babe, you already know the right thing to do, you just don't like it. So your only asking me in the hope I'll talk you out of it."

 

 

It is true, by the time I voice a problem I'll have already run through and assessed like a thousand possible solutions. But its still annoying :laugh:

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AppleKakes

Woman: I have this pain in my forehead...it won't go away. It makes me miserable. I just wish it would stop!!!

 

Man: There's a nail in your forehead and you just need to remove it.

 

Woman: I didn't ask you to try and solve my pain in the forehead problem!!! You are so insensitive!!! Why can't you just listen to me!!!??!!!

 

In sum, the woman actually had a nail in her forehead and couldn't see it. Went complaining to the guy - who offered a solution - but most women just wanna be heard.

 

**curtains close, show over**

 

**"Applause" light turns on**

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Ninjainpajamas
Side question: Guys, when talking about your problems to a girlfriend do you want them to give solutions or just listen and confirm feelings?

 

Didn't see this question until Shepp replied to it.

 

I think for myself personally, when i need emotional comfort then I just simply behave accordingly. I don't do the whole venting thing but hope someone will just hold me at the end. Or send mixed signals about what I actually need and want...but I do have expectations of a partner, and their ability to be aware and comfort me without having to spell everything out...I do expect some natural understanding and intuition present.

 

For example, I don't understand how women could be with men who are not affectionate, or expressive, or can't talk about their feelings or what's on their mind or feel entirely misunderstood by them. To me, one of the most important things is to be and feel understood. So I just couldn't be with a person like that even if they were a really good person otherwise, it's not necessarily their fault they're just not on the same page, I just think there are some realistic basic needs and requirements to be happy and fulfilled in a relationship...and honestly, when you're with the right person I think those kinds of emotions are much more satiated and fulfilled than when you have to struggle to form that bond and understanding, I think in turn you feel a lot more comfortable with your own emotions and thoughts and therefore happier in your life.

 

So for myself, I just can't be in a relationship where this is a huge divide and misunderstanding of one another's needs...she has to be able to feel understood and comforted by me, and I the same for me, for it work for me. Some people aren't that well developed emotionally/internally with expression and very uncomfortable with their emotions overall, and don't really have the urge or desire to push themselves out of their comfort zone...that's just not the emotional level I would personally be looking for.

 

Most problems I'll solve myself as I'm a problem solver, most of the time I'll just be venting, if I'm stressed or struggling with decisions I think it's obvious and if she's the right fit she makes that process easier, not necessarily by giving me advice but believing in me and giving me some positive reinforcement in those moments where I am doubting myself...and when you're with the right woman she kind of picks up on these needs, and I think the same should be expected of a man.

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A lot of people, and more guys than women, don't see the point of listening to a problem unless they have the ability to fix it. I know just since being on this board, I've gotten to the point where I quickly lose patience with anyone who seeks help here and then doesn't take it and gets mad when they don't hear the answer they want to hear. So there may be an element of that too.

 

I only know one person who says she really just wants you to listen but not give feedback. And I truly don't see the point in that. I mean, you can get in your car and scream about it and get it out of your system if that's all you want to do.

 

A lot of times people just want sympathy and validation. But not everyone is going to agree with the situation to just give them that and may have some other thoughts. And of course, it's one thing if you hear about it only one time and say, "Oh, I'm sorry. I can see you're upset." But it's quite another if the situation can be fixed by taking action like not seeing the person or setting boundaries but you have to keep hearing about it over and over again without the complainant ever willing to do anything about it.

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Woman: I have this pain in my forehead...it won't go away. It makes me miserable. I just wish it would stop!!!

 

Man: There's a nail in your forehead and you just need to remove it.

 

Woman: I didn't ask you to try and solve my pain in the forehead problem!!! You are so insensitive!!! Why can't you just listen to me!!!??!!!

 

In sum, the woman actually had a nail in her forehead and couldn't see it. Went complaining to the guy - who offered a solution - but most women just wanna be heard.

 

**curtains close, show over**

 

**"Applause" light turns on**

 

Aw gee...you were beaten to it by a gnat's whisker (in thread terms)!

 

This needs to be here
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I was talking to my boyfriend today and I started to vent about how frustrated I was with how a mutual friend of ours had treated me the day before. I just wanted to feel justified in my feelings and comforted with such things as “that sucks” or “that’s so unfair”. Instead he started to give me “solutions” (that didn’t help the situation). Which only frustrated me more.

 

I had always heard that guys just want to fix problems while girls just want to be listened to, but this was my first time actually seeing it in action.

 

Just curious how many others on here have dealt with this problem before? Has your experience been that the above statement is always true that guys just want to fix and girls just want to vent?

 

Side question: Guys, when talking about your problems to a girlfriend do you want them to give solutions or just listen and confirm feelings?

 

I don't think this is a gender thing as I know myself and a few other women I know do the same thing. I would get very frustrated with my husband when he would complain about the same thing but do nothing to change it. My thinking, change the issue or accept it. But otherwise it is the definition of insanity.

 

What I have found, when I am venting on an issue, is active listening. I want noises made that show the person is listening, questions, and a general "how does that make you feel" suffices.

 

Sometimes I want solutions but I will argue the solutions. Occasional I just want "that arsehole!" :laugh:

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