I could see it in her face.
She sat across the table from me at the coffee shop, her coffee cup untouched, the contents slowly cooling.
Tears stood in her eyes while words poured from her mouth like a river that’s been dammed up too long. Her desperation seemed to fuel this onslaught of explanations. An unstoppable force in the moment.
He doesn’t listen.
He doesn’t understand.
I talk, but he’s doesn’t hear me.
I could hear the hurt working it’s way out of her mouth, her troubles filling the air around us with her long held pain, thickening the room with bitterness. What could I offer her? What could I say that would make any of this even a tiny bit easier?
Truthfully I knew there was nothing I could say that would fix her situation. And I’m not sure there was anything she could do to fix her situation.
So, I sat quietly and listened. I opened my hands and held the broken words that tumbled from her mouth and validated her hurt by sitting in proverbial ashes with her. Because sometimes that is all we need—someone to simply sit beside us, covering themselves in our own grief, and wearing it like it’s theirs. (Romans 12:15)
Exhausted from talking, my friend apologized for her clumsy explosion. But I urged her to never apologize for her hurts. Sometimes you need to explode messily in a public place while trying to keep your voice just above a whisper so the proprietors don’t ask you to leave. I’ve done it before myself.
But, this is not just one particular friend. This is more than dozen friends I’ve talked to in just this exact type of setting over the last 10 years of being a pastor’s wife. She is not one woman but many. She–they– have spoken words that I’ve heard a dozen different ways but which communicate one solid truth: “My husband doesn’t listen to me.”
I can’t fix that problem. It’s beyond my capabilities or sphere of influence to address her husband’s inability or unwillingness to hear her. But, what I can offer in exchange for her transparency is a listening ear, a promise to be slow to judge, and a safe place for her tears.
It saddens me that so many marital troubles boil down to one glaringly, problematic issue: listening. It’s seems such a simple thing, really. Sit down, make eye contact with that other human being your promised to love and cherish for as long as you both shall live, and listen to what they have to say. But, it’s harder than that practically. We sit down to hear our spouse’s complaint or struggle, and we preemptively coat our eardrums with defensiveness in case any of the forthcoming muck has potential to fall back on us. What we really need to do is make sure that the beginning of our conversation starts with humility and complete ownership of our crappy inability to put the other person first in our marriage. It’s deceptively simple but woefully difficult to do. If we could all just admit that we are way too self-focused and take some ownership of that selfishness, we might actually find ourselves in a position to hear what the other person is saying to us about the things that hurt them, scare them, confuse them. I think truly listening involves taking ownership of what the other person is saying to you. Recognizing what’s been said, helping your spouse dissect the problem, realizing you might actually have something to do with it.
I see a similar struggle to listen in non-marital relationships. Have you ever had relationships that were always distinctively one-sided? I like to call them one-way-street relationships. I might open my mouth to talk about something going on in my life, but in the end the conversation is always hi-jacked, derailed, and sucked into the other person’s current misery. Yeah, let’s talk about that awkward subject soon.
Next post: the art of listening, part 2.
{I can’t help but insert here that I am undeserving and thankful for a husband who faithfully listens to all of my messy explosions. He is the absolute best. The more I talk with others about this tension in marriage, the more I understand the gift that he is.}
-gm
P.S. As a little shameless self-promotion, there is a song that inspired this post. I wrote the song “Hear Me” earlier this spring, and it will appear on my upcoming EP. Stay tuned for that.
Glenna Marshall is married to her pastor, William, and lives in rural Southeast Missouri where she tries and fails to keep up with her two energetic sons. She is the author of The Promise is His Presence (P&R) and Everyday Faithfulness (Crossway), and Memorizing Scripture (Moody). Connect with her on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.