OK, I have a wonderful husband and I love him. My life is a lot better with him in it than it was before we met. He works hard, he's totally honest and dependable, and when I had gallbladder surgery recently, he took excellent care of me.

But no marriage is perfect, and here's the problem in this one.

I've been noticing for some time now that I'll tell him something, he'll acknowledge it, and then a few minutes later he'll ask a question that makes it obvious he didn't get a word I said. Or, I'll ask a question, and he'll give me a non-sequitur answer. He misunderstands me a lot, which is his evaluation of the situation. And it's not his hearing, which has been checked.

There could be many possible medical explanations.

But I couldn't get him to see that there was a problem, and agree to get checked out, until something happened at work. I won't say what happened exactly, out of respect for him because he's very embarrassed about it.

And I've noticed that pattern quite a bit. He doesn't listen to what I say, until someone else says it too. Then he'll often say he misunderstood what I was trying to tell him, and it didn't register until the other person said it.

The fact that lack of communication was causing an issue in our *marriage* wasn't enough to get him to agree to be evaluated. He had to wait until it started causing an issue with his *job.* Now he's having all kinds of tests done.

I'm not mad at him for this. I just want to know why it happens.

Do I simply communicate badly? Am I not worth listening to, so that it doesn't count until someone else says it?