Do you think you listen, really listen, to your spouse or loved one? Most of us would say yes. We’re not intentionally lying or exaggerating to make ourselves sound better. We genuinely believe we are thoughtful and understanding enough mates to pay attention when our significant other talks. We’re not unloving jerks. We do all kinds of things for the person we care about. Certainly, we’re sensitive enough to do something so small, right? Wrong. It is actually surprising how little we listen even when we think we are.

Anybody who’s ever tuned out a stream of conversation to better concentrate on a task, then tuned back in just in time to nod at the finish knows how easy it is to fake listening. But nodding in all the right places and giving distracted answers when called for isn’t really listening. It isn’t applying the mind and emotions to the information we’re taking in. I’m not saying real listening is always easy to do. Sometimes we get busy. We have distractions. We’re being dragged in several different directions. But it’s worth our while to just stop once in a while, take a breath, and focus on what’s important. Like our relationships with other people, particularly our relationship with our other half.

It’s a fact that there’s not much more damaging to a relationship than a lack of communication. We frequently blame that lack on someone else’s inability to explain their wants and hurts to us. However just as often, it isn’t the unvoiced feelings that go unaddressed. It’s the unheard ones. How can we deal with a problem if we’re unaware of it? Yet, how can we be aware of it if we aren’t paying enough attention to understand what’s going on? Or worse, what if our loved one has learned our habit of tuning out and so doesn’t even bother to tell us things anymore? He/she knows we won’t listen, so what’s the point?

The thing we need to realize when we tune our loved one out is the message we’re sending. If they are aware of out lack of attention (and sooner or later they’re going to be aware of it) they may not be reading it as we mean it—that we’re busy and just don’t have time to listen. To them our inattentiveness says this: I don’t care about you. This is something we need to remind ourselves of often. Maybe it’ll give us the added motivation to learn how to listen and not just to hear.

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