Do men actually tune out the voice of the woman in their life?

Question

My wife swears that I have learned to tune out her voice (at a certain pitch) completely. I say it's because she's mumbling and I can't be bothered trying to puzzle together what she's communicating, so I wait until she's more exact and gets to the point (she's usually upset by then).

Seriously, do you think men start completely tuning out (versus ignoring) the voice of the woman in their life at a certain time in the realtionship?

What's your experience?

Answer 1

yes they do
men are used to getting to the point
without any of the extraneous details
women generally do not.

listen to Dr Laura or any female based self help talk show
and the common thing you quickly notice is how women ramble on without getting to the point.

a man could be deep into playing Company of Heroes 2 or Call of Duty 4 and would key in the key words only to his spouse's / GF's problem and not skip a beat in the game action yet still solve what ever problem a women thinks she may have.

women also tend to think their problems are in dire need of solving right there on the spot and are more important than anything else, such frequent "crying wolf" gets a man to habitually tune out a women out of sheer necessity, his sanity banks on it.

women communicate on the emotional, not logical, plane and they think to communicate they must inject all emotional aspects for you to understand a given problem.

men don't , they learn early on to problem solve by stripping a problem down to it's core and then solving it from there,
hence why you can selectively tune it and out while a women rambles on

Answer 2

I do believe men do ignore that certain pitch that is irritating or just plain uninteresting. I don't believe in yelling but sometimes I wonder if they truly understand the urgency of the situation or even care to complete it one day (within a year, hopefully).
As a woman I too tune out a lot (perhaps a little too much).
I tune out my husband when he talks about farming, hunting, hockey, golf etc. it just doesn't interest me at all. However that seems to get me in trouble also, especially when he throws in a very important meeting or message, that I miss completely and then get grilled upon later.... hmm..

Answer 3

Yes I think so. I can always tell when my husband has had enough talk. He has different tune-out modes. There is the watching sports tune-out, the leave me alone I'm trying to think my own thoughts tune out and the overall I'm too busy so shut up tune-out. The problem is I get my feelings hurt so I need some extra babying sweet talk to make-up for it and let me know that he still loves me dearly but just tunes out sometimes. I think I do it back to him but not as ofter. Maybe I just talk more. He has me thinking I do. Good luck anyways

Answer 4

I agree with dragonfire, my boyfriend used to do it all the time, and we have been together for 6 years and he still does it. Sometimes the thing is believe it or not when you start a conversation or start talking your spouse/Bf already knows what you are going to say because most likely you have mentioned it before, so therefore they don't listen to all fo what you are saying, they only tune in to the key words. Like my boyfriend he can be playing his XBOX 360 and i start talking to him asking him questions, he doesn't respond so i think he is ignoring me, but then he will tell me answer that pointed out the key topic that i was trying to make, also i have learned that the best time to talk to your spouse is when he is not playing his video game or watching his sports, or doing anything that is important to him, you have to remember that is his personal time, but remember he is listening to you but also paying attention to what he is doing, so only the key words will come through to him, don't get mad just wait for a response and he will give it to you.

Answer 5

LOL
I am pretty sure my dear husband has learned to tune out my voice. And I think it is very much because I do have to work through my thought process out loud to get to where I am at the point of what I am saying (at times). At which point he may key into my voice and then perhaps respond with something other than "Huh? What did you just say?"
It's a crap-shoot I tell ya.

Answer 6

I think they tune out the women (plural) in their life...well at least in my dad's case. He and my mother raised two daughters...very feminine, outspoken daughters. We started to notice that he was oblivious when we would walk into the room to talk to him, or start talking after a long period of silence. So he went and did what every good man does (after being nagged to death by a group of caring women), he went to the doctor. The doctor said he has perfect hearing and is actually better than average for a man in his mid 50's. We have decided its selective hearing. Especially since he listens to and hears my husband quite well.

I think it was just his defense mechanism against being around women all the time. Oh, he was also an elementary Music teacher...more time around women...for the most part.

Answer 7

As with anything that you become comfortable and familiar with, you sort of get used to it. It becomes background noise at times. You have to work hard to not let your relationship become too comfortable otherwise you will tune out your significant other. And get yelled at for doing so. My wife doesn't yell anymore, she gets gets hurt and sad and won;t talk for three days. I don;t do it on purpose, but when she starts talking about something when I'm really tired or don;t have the mental energy to keep up, I do tune her out. It's never on purpose, but she believes it is.

Answer 8

i read that for some reason men find it extremely easy to just tune out of a womans voice as opposed to a mans voice. Its a male characteristic. And yes, but i just tend to tune out of most women... mam,sister, friends.. cousins... i dont even do it on purpose!

Answer 9

I know that my husband does that to me ALOT! It absolutely drives me crazy-- we have been married for 15 years, so you would think he would know that it drives me bananas and make an effort to listen when I am talking, but he doesn't, and it is usually about something important, to do with real life stuff; whereas when I tune him out it is only about stuff that I couldn't care less about, like some random documentary he watched on TV. It sucks that men do that to their wives, when most of the time, the wives are only trying to keep the husbands posted on important details of their life together. ARGH!

Answer 10

Yep. Just as you learn to tune out a leaky faucet or your kids running around like they're crazy. It's a sort of coping mechanism. Yes it annoys the snot out of all of us wives, but honestly as long as it's not being done maliciously i.e. ignoring your wife, it's not that bad.