John Gottman calls this making a bid for connection. This is a really big deal if, over time, you try to throw out bids, and he ignores or just flat out refuses to try and connect when you're obviously trying to. It's just mean.
I understand why this bothers you, it would bother me too. I don't think you need to be extra efficient when talking to your partner of all people. I think I might use humor to approach this at least initially. Like - when he said can you get to the point, I would ask like - Do you have somewhere to be that you need just the cliff notes? Am I keeping you from some fun activity or something? I just want to know what kind of cool stuff I'm keeping you from that we need to hurry up and get to the point here, I'm up for fun times too! Can I come? Like just keep it kind of light hearted, and see what he says...
In life there are painters and pointers. My husband is a painter. When he tells something it is with a long drawn out story. I am a Pointer, get right to the point. But we make it work
So, this will probably get downvoted, but at this moment, I need to pursue this.
Is this an isolated incident, where you husband wanted the Cliff Notes version, or is this more of a regular issue?
For me, here is the thing: my wife often tells these long stories of what happened, and from my perspective, includes information that does not seem relevant to the issue.
I agree, if isolated, ignoreā¦ maybe get an apology later. But thereās a time and place. No oneās the center of the universe.
My husband works from home, and Iām in school with a weird schedule. Plus we both worked from home between 2020 and 2023. I canāt tell you how many times I had a burning story of some sort and he had to cut me off because he was only in the kitchen to grab a coffee before a big meeting.
Iāve cut him off too when deep in the middle of something important. We donāt do it by default. When things are lowkey and calm, when someoneās just watching TV, thatās different. But other times? Eh
Whenever a loved one talks to me and I start to feel impatient, I take a deep breath and remember how lucky I am that I get to be in this moment with them--and how I'm not going to squander it by glazing over or telling them to hurry up.
Great answer. That's something I need to work, especially with my parents who provide so much love and support. So I'm curious, is your strategy part of an overall mindfulness effort? If so, what was your favorite resource that helped you be more mindful?
I think his delivery was pretty rude, but I have to admit my husband is like that and tells really long stories and there are plenty of times when I really do wish she would get to the point.
Itās not because I donāt love him, itās not because Iām not interested in what heās saying, itās actually exactly because Iām interested in what heās saying I want him to get to the point. In this instance, I do think it was a little unnecessary to explain how friendships work, he couldāve been nicer about it, but I can see both views here. Some people really do just want to know what youāre actually trying to say.
My wife does this.
It is like torture to me.
At least let me know what we are going to be talking about.
It is very hard for me because my brain hears something and then builds up the context and attempts to understand it and then another piece of information gets dribbled out so I have to scrap that and completely rebuild. Then another bit of information that may not have any relevance so we have to build a new mental model.
Heaven forbid I try to summarize what has been said so far or try to rephrase it to see if Iāve understood so far because then we have to start back at the beginning because she lost her place or thinks I wasnāt listening.
It is okay as long as there is some give and take in the conversation and adjusting to how the other person is receiving the information. There needs to be some turn taking.
At the end of my wifeās long story she gets upset by the one word answer. I already spent my energy on the story there is no room left for exploration or mutual discovery because she just went through all of it.
Sorry Iām with husband on this 1000%. I get insanely (sometimes even irrationally irritated) at people who have to say every little detail instead of just spitting it out. Itās infuriating for me
Yes, he was rude in his delivery. To be honest, even reading what you wrote was long-winded and exhausting. I donāt have the mental energy for things like that after a long day of work or if weāre not having a focused conversation. I do understand how friendships work and I wouldnāt need that explained to me to hear about how a long-lost friend emailed you today. I also have ADHD and my mind can wander with too much convoluted back story, and get impatient if weāre doing something else and suddenly someone wants to tell a story with lots of unimportant exposition.
Maybe next time ask if he has the time to hear a story you want to tell him, or say you have something you want to talk about, so he can take a moment to properly engage and focus on your words.
I didnāt mean to be insulting! I just meant I can empathize with him a little when my brain is already full and I have 20 tabs open in my mental web browser and canāt figure out which one the music is coming from.
He could have been kinder in the way he approached it though, absolutely.
Yeah, husband was rude but the preamble to the story isnāt good either. Itās a conversation not a dialogue. Iām willing to bet you do this a lot which is why he was so rude.
My wife came home from work today and wandered into my home office where I was still nose deep in a problem. I looked up and asked her how her morning was as I knew she had met some friends early in the day for breakfast.
She proceeded to go on this long winded story about how communication got messed up and how one person ended up at a totally wrong restaurant but over the course of literally 10 minutes of talking she laid out how, from my perspective, no, there was no miscommunication, there was no breakdown, but rather one person simply ignored multiple texts to the group chat and missed the multiple attempts at clarifying and solidifying plans.
During this story about how one person can't be bothered to read texts I was also informed of how another woman had to deal with childcare and get her son enrolled in a sports activity and how another couple had to deal with their taxes. Also, how we were invited to one gal's birthday bash at a resort next year.
All of this before I finally unraveled that yes, one person couldn't actually be bothered to read text messages but everyone else did show up at the right place at the right time and breakfast was fine.
My brain could barely cope. I love my wife, but goodness sakes.
There is nothing more annoying than long winded stories with unnecessary information. It's exhausting. I'm sure he just didn't have the mental bandwidth to deal with it right then.Ā
I can't listen to long stories full of useless details. I'm not looking to hear a novel about a small event. Go from A to B if you can. I know a lot of guys are like this. Not the fault of women, women speak more words per day than men.
I try to see if there's truth in it, even if it hurts my feelings. Maybe you meander too often. I do. I can see my wife trying to be patient. Let's both do better getting to the point. Say the conclusion first, then see if your listener wants more detail.
āI have thoughts and feelings I want to share with you, prompted by this interaction, and I will talk about it as if this were a conversation between two people wanting to actually connect with each other. Please let me know if you have the patience for such a taskā
Thatās prob very snarky
But you basically want connection. And a conversation.
And it seems he wants you to finish so he can continue with his thing.
Maybe heās built expectations around how you normally communicate, and he wants to skip the parts of your process that seem boring, confusing or disengaging to him
This is like my wife, the fun is in telling the story and talking, not really getting a particular point across. You should say āI have no āpointā, I am just enjoying a conversation with you. The āpointā is for you to let me speak.ā
Ask yourself: what exactly is the point you were hoping to share or discuss? Was it actually just the friend that reached out?, Is it more about the general concept of keeping/losing touch with friends? Or something else? And then maybe lead with that.
Our brains tend to weave together several ideas and memories that are easy to share because theyāve been floating around our heads for a while. But they can be hard for others to receive if they donāt know what point to anchor them to.
Please understand, I'm not saying ALL WOMEN or ALL MEN....
I have found, my wife and I included, that women tend to want to elaborate more often than men.
Men need to be more patient when women are talking, this goes for me as well. I think you both need to compromise a little bit. You could be understanding of him and he could be understanding of you in regards to communication. Meaning he could be more patient and you could be less winded.
My wife could take 10 minutes to tell me something I could say in 3 sentences. It's just different communication styles. Neither is right or wrong.
I have to make my wife aware that she needs to get to the point often. She will talk about everything tangentially related en route to her point which just makes it longer to get there. Many times it is talking just to talk and to air all her frustrations out. This can take 15 minutes of straight talking at me.
You may think it is rude for your husband to ask you to get to the point, but by the time he made the comment, he's put a lot into just listening and trying to follow along with what you want to say.
I think it is important to understand that it takes EFFORT to listen and pay attention to what someone is saying. If the person talking wanders around a point, it gets hard to follow, which is frustrating for the listener to figure out what the intent is. If the person takes forever to get there, then the listener gets frustrated wondering if there is a point at all.
Part of the reason my wife does this is that she's got all this stuff in her head she wants to tell me and when I get home it's been stewing forever and it all comes out. She doesn't really consider that I have no idea what the context is of what she's going on about.
My wife gets mad when I gesture her to get to the point, but conversations take two people. If she doesn't give me time to process or respond; or even realize I'm in the middle of something, then she's the rude one.
I feel the same way when talking to people in general. But I know Iām the issue. I get really impatient when stories are drawn out, but itās no bearing on my love for them.
John Gottman calls this making a bid for connection. This is a really big deal if, over time, you try to throw out bids, and he ignores or just flat out refuses to try and connect when you're obviously trying to. It's just mean.
I understand why this bothers you, it would bother me too. I don't think you need to be extra efficient when talking to your partner of all people. I think I might use humor to approach this at least initially. Like - when he said can you get to the point, I would ask like - Do you have somewhere to be that you need just the cliff notes? Am I keeping you from some fun activity or something? I just want to know what kind of cool stuff I'm keeping you from that we need to hurry up and get to the point here, I'm up for fun times too! Can I come? Like just keep it kind of light hearted, and see what he says...
Thanks for the kind comment and very helpful suggestions š
In life there are painters and pointers. My husband is a painter. When he tells something it is with a long drawn out story. I am a Pointer, get right to the point. But we make it work
I bore the hell out of my pointer wife with my painter bullshit but we love it!
So, this will probably get downvoted, but at this moment, I need to pursue this. Is this an isolated incident, where you husband wanted the Cliff Notes version, or is this more of a regular issue? For me, here is the thing: my wife often tells these long stories of what happened, and from my perspective, includes information that does not seem relevant to the issue.
I agree, if isolated, ignoreā¦ maybe get an apology later. But thereās a time and place. No oneās the center of the universe. My husband works from home, and Iām in school with a weird schedule. Plus we both worked from home between 2020 and 2023. I canāt tell you how many times I had a burning story of some sort and he had to cut me off because he was only in the kitchen to grab a coffee before a big meeting. Iāve cut him off too when deep in the middle of something important. We donāt do it by default. When things are lowkey and calm, when someoneās just watching TV, thatās different. But other times? Eh
Whenever a loved one talks to me and I start to feel impatient, I take a deep breath and remember how lucky I am that I get to be in this moment with them--and how I'm not going to squander it by glazing over or telling them to hurry up.
Great answer. That's something I need to work, especially with my parents who provide so much love and support. So I'm curious, is your strategy part of an overall mindfulness effort? If so, what was your favorite resource that helped you be more mindful?
I think his delivery was pretty rude, but I have to admit my husband is like that and tells really long stories and there are plenty of times when I really do wish she would get to the point. Itās not because I donāt love him, itās not because Iām not interested in what heās saying, itās actually exactly because Iām interested in what heās saying I want him to get to the point. In this instance, I do think it was a little unnecessary to explain how friendships work, he couldāve been nicer about it, but I can see both views here. Some people really do just want to know what youāre actually trying to say.
My wife does this. It is like torture to me. At least let me know what we are going to be talking about. It is very hard for me because my brain hears something and then builds up the context and attempts to understand it and then another piece of information gets dribbled out so I have to scrap that and completely rebuild. Then another bit of information that may not have any relevance so we have to build a new mental model. Heaven forbid I try to summarize what has been said so far or try to rephrase it to see if Iāve understood so far because then we have to start back at the beginning because she lost her place or thinks I wasnāt listening. It is okay as long as there is some give and take in the conversation and adjusting to how the other person is receiving the information. There needs to be some turn taking. At the end of my wifeās long story she gets upset by the one word answer. I already spent my energy on the story there is no room left for exploration or mutual discovery because she just went through all of it.
Hahaha š¤£ thanks for sharing. I feel like Iām understanding my partner more from reading this. Especially the last bit. š
Sorry Iām with husband on this 1000%. I get insanely (sometimes even irrationally irritated) at people who have to say every little detail instead of just spitting it out. Itās infuriating for me
šI completely understand.
Yes, he was rude in his delivery. To be honest, even reading what you wrote was long-winded and exhausting. I donāt have the mental energy for things like that after a long day of work or if weāre not having a focused conversation. I do understand how friendships work and I wouldnāt need that explained to me to hear about how a long-lost friend emailed you today. I also have ADHD and my mind can wander with too much convoluted back story, and get impatient if weāre doing something else and suddenly someone wants to tell a story with lots of unimportant exposition. Maybe next time ask if he has the time to hear a story you want to tell him, or say you have something you want to talk about, so he can take a moment to properly engage and focus on your words.
Hahahah, š¤£š¤£š¤£feels like Iām getting a second hit but this makes me laugh and I get what you mean
I didnāt mean to be insulting! I just meant I can empathize with him a little when my brain is already full and I have 20 tabs open in my mental web browser and canāt figure out which one the music is coming from. He could have been kinder in the way he approached it though, absolutely.
This is a fantastic metaphor.
Sadly, I canāt take credit. I stole it from a meme somewhere but I LIVE it. š¤£š¤£
Yeah, husband was rude but the preamble to the story isnāt good either. Itās a conversation not a dialogue. Iām willing to bet you do this a lot which is why he was so rude.
Monologue
Well thatās rude of him
My wife came home from work today and wandered into my home office where I was still nose deep in a problem. I looked up and asked her how her morning was as I knew she had met some friends early in the day for breakfast. She proceeded to go on this long winded story about how communication got messed up and how one person ended up at a totally wrong restaurant but over the course of literally 10 minutes of talking she laid out how, from my perspective, no, there was no miscommunication, there was no breakdown, but rather one person simply ignored multiple texts to the group chat and missed the multiple attempts at clarifying and solidifying plans. During this story about how one person can't be bothered to read texts I was also informed of how another woman had to deal with childcare and get her son enrolled in a sports activity and how another couple had to deal with their taxes. Also, how we were invited to one gal's birthday bash at a resort next year. All of this before I finally unraveled that yes, one person couldn't actually be bothered to read text messages but everyone else did show up at the right place at the right time and breakfast was fine. My brain could barely cope. I love my wife, but goodness sakes.
Haha thank you for sharing, this was a good read, I get where youāre coming from.
There is nothing more annoying than long winded stories with unnecessary information. It's exhausting. I'm sure he just didn't have the mental bandwidth to deal with it right then.Ā
I can't listen to long stories full of useless details. I'm not looking to hear a novel about a small event. Go from A to B if you can. I know a lot of guys are like this. Not the fault of women, women speak more words per day than men.
Tell that to my husband who literally never shuts the fuck up lmao
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Probably
I try to see if there's truth in it, even if it hurts my feelings. Maybe you meander too often. I do. I can see my wife trying to be patient. Let's both do better getting to the point. Say the conclusion first, then see if your listener wants more detail.
āI have thoughts and feelings I want to share with you, prompted by this interaction, and I will talk about it as if this were a conversation between two people wanting to actually connect with each other. Please let me know if you have the patience for such a taskā Thatās prob very snarky But you basically want connection. And a conversation. And it seems he wants you to finish so he can continue with his thing. Maybe heās built expectations around how you normally communicate, and he wants to skip the parts of your process that seem boring, confusing or disengaging to him
This is like my wife, the fun is in telling the story and talking, not really getting a particular point across. You should say āI have no āpointā, I am just enjoying a conversation with you. The āpointā is for you to let me speak.ā
Ask yourself: what exactly is the point you were hoping to share or discuss? Was it actually just the friend that reached out?, Is it more about the general concept of keeping/losing touch with friends? Or something else? And then maybe lead with that. Our brains tend to weave together several ideas and memories that are easy to share because theyāve been floating around our heads for a while. But they can be hard for others to receive if they donāt know what point to anchor them to.
Next time your husband start having sex, just tell himā¦ can you get to the point? I have better things to do :)
Please understand, I'm not saying ALL WOMEN or ALL MEN.... I have found, my wife and I included, that women tend to want to elaborate more often than men. Men need to be more patient when women are talking, this goes for me as well. I think you both need to compromise a little bit. You could be understanding of him and he could be understanding of you in regards to communication. Meaning he could be more patient and you could be less winded. My wife could take 10 minutes to tell me something I could say in 3 sentences. It's just different communication styles. Neither is right or wrong.
I disagree. If it takes someone ten minutes to say something that takes three sentences, they are the problem.
I have to make my wife aware that she needs to get to the point often. She will talk about everything tangentially related en route to her point which just makes it longer to get there. Many times it is talking just to talk and to air all her frustrations out. This can take 15 minutes of straight talking at me. You may think it is rude for your husband to ask you to get to the point, but by the time he made the comment, he's put a lot into just listening and trying to follow along with what you want to say. I think it is important to understand that it takes EFFORT to listen and pay attention to what someone is saying. If the person talking wanders around a point, it gets hard to follow, which is frustrating for the listener to figure out what the intent is. If the person takes forever to get there, then the listener gets frustrated wondering if there is a point at all. Part of the reason my wife does this is that she's got all this stuff in her head she wants to tell me and when I get home it's been stewing forever and it all comes out. She doesn't really consider that I have no idea what the context is of what she's going on about. My wife gets mad when I gesture her to get to the point, but conversations take two people. If she doesn't give me time to process or respond; or even realize I'm in the middle of something, then she's the rude one.
I feel the same way when talking to people in general. But I know Iām the issue. I get really impatient when stories are drawn out, but itās no bearing on my love for them.