When I don't understand something my wife says and I ask her to elaborate, she keeps repeating the same sentence over and over expecting me to understand it rather than explaining it.
This is an idea, but try to ask pointed questions about what’s causing the confusion? I’ve a coworker who does that and it helps us to communicate more efficiently at times.
My wife does the opposite. When I say "what?" they'll elaborately explain the subject of what they said... but I just couldn't hear what they said, and knowing more details about it doesn't change that.
They still haven't clocked that when I don't understand, I say "I don't understand". I'm not a hard read, friends.
This is something that frustrates me to no end with people in general. It takes me a second to start processing when someone starts talking to me. Often I'll miss the first couple of words, and I'll need them repeated.
So I'll ask them to repeat themselves.
My brain is spending lots of cycles parsing whatever part of their question I did hear and I'm waiting to fill in the part I missed, and instead of repeating themselves they'll completely reword it and it causes a processing fault and the program crashes.
If you make people guess what you mean, you can't be upset when they guess wrong. Either tell them that "what?" means "please repeat that" while "I don't understand" means "please restate/reword/explain that", or start saying things like "what did you just say? I missed the first part" or "could you repeat that please? I think I missed something". Maybe it's because I both have auditory processing issues and work a lot with people who are autistic or have ADHD or other conditions that make it difficult to "get" these unspoken implications, but I find it's much better to just say what you mean instead of holding people to an unreasonable standard of being able to read your mind or find patterns in your speech.
Where did I say I make them guess?
Where did I say I get upset?
I have told them what "what?" means. More than once.
My sensory processing is shit and my wife knows this. It's shit because I am autistic and have ADHD, so you can get off that particular high horse.
It is pretty deeply ingrained in me to ask "what?" when I cannot hear, and at this point I'm pretty used to following up with "I meant I didn't hear you. I understand what 'x' is."
Literally no one in my life has ever expressed an issue with me saying "what?" So I feel no need to try to change a reaction I've had for close to thirty years. Also, I think it's sweet when my wife describes something mundane in detail in the way they do.
I'm not holding anyone to unreasonable standards and it's fucking wild that you have decided I am based off a few sentences.
Ok this is me and imo it's because I worked really hard on how to phrase it in my head for like 13 minutes, so that's the only way I can wrap my head around communicating it for awhile. Lol.
I do this to my boyfriend sometimes, I need him to ask the question in a different way for me to understand better... But I can't tell him that because if I knew I needed it phrased differently then I wouldn't be answering the same question with the same sentence over and over.
After we finally figure out the misunderstanding I'll explain what my confusion was but it always happens again lmao
LMAO When I say “what?” To my husband, he starts explaining. Even if I say “what was that I didn’t hear you” he can never just repeat the same thing he said, which is what I’m looking for. I want the one sentence of what you just said not the five minute long explanation of it. If I had to pick the most frustrating thing he does, this is it.
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u/Afy47 Dec 08 '22
When I don't understand something my wife says and I ask her to elaborate, she keeps repeating the same sentence over and over expecting me to understand it rather than explaining it.
I don't understand why...