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I find it difficult to really listen

Robin
over 1 year ago

My wife complains that I don't listen to her until things get so bad that she shouts and/or cries.

I know I can listen, and listen well. I used to be a listening volunteer for the Samaritans, and had no issues listening then. As far as I can tell, the difference is that at Samaritans, I'd put myself in "listening mode" before picking up the phone. We always let it ring a few times before picking up, and we'd use that time to prepare ourselves.

It seems that if I don't consciously get myself ready to listen, I don't really listen, which causes problems.

I've only recently realised that I'm autistic. I've seen advice about helping autistic people do things, but they all seem to revolve around writing down instructions and putting them where they'll be seen at the relevant time. But I can't know in advance when I'll need to properly listen, so that doesn't seem very helpful.

Does anyone have any advice or ideas?

Parents
  • over 1 year ago

    I was just wondering if your wife also doesn’t see you listen? During my assessment process, my mother had said that I never look like I’m listening to her, yet she knows I am. 
    with close people I don’t feel the need to look at them when they speak. However, at work, I will look at the person, or pretend to lol, and I will nod my head etc.

    Also, perhaps she wants a verbal response, when you don’t deem it necessary to do so, if you know what I mean?

    All this on top of not being able to always hear what it being said. It’s down to differences with audio processing. 

  • over 1 year ago in reply to Catlover

    Brains are always listening, we are always listening.  

    Here's a scenario that people might be familiar with:

    Questioner: "are you going to put the bins out?" 
    Responder: [delay]
    Responder: "Eh?" or "Sorry?"

    Listened, heard, but not made sense of.

    When someone wants to talk to us they might assume we are ready and primed for listening and processing that, but people have their own thoughts and mind processes going on at any moment, and its unfair to expect 100% perfect responses when talking to people.

    I get frustrated/annoyed about having to repeat myself because its hard to speak at times and then having to remember what I just said and speak that back out again, or the gist of it, is hard.  Both sides can work on handling these situations better, its worth trying as it can really make relationships difficult or add to the breaking of them.

Reply
  • over 1 year ago in reply to Catlover

    Brains are always listening, we are always listening.  

    Here's a scenario that people might be familiar with:

    Questioner: "are you going to put the bins out?" 
    Responder: [delay]
    Responder: "Eh?" or "Sorry?"

    Listened, heard, but not made sense of.

    When someone wants to talk to us they might assume we are ready and primed for listening and processing that, but people have their own thoughts and mind processes going on at any moment, and its unfair to expect 100% perfect responses when talking to people.

    I get frustrated/annoyed about having to repeat myself because its hard to speak at times and then having to remember what I just said and speak that back out again, or the gist of it, is hard.  Both sides can work on handling these situations better, its worth trying as it can really make relationships difficult or add to the breaking of them.

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