It is truly amazing when you are able to look at a conversation from the other person's point of view. As women we expect you (men) to get the "hidden" message as well. The one that in our opinion is perfectly obvious and that you SHOULD understand and we shouldn't have to verbalize it. The problem is you really don't think the way we do, you really don't know what we're not verbalizing. Not only are we not on the same page, we're not even reading the same book. It took a long time for me to figure out that my husband wasn't being intentionally dense (well about hints about mowing the lawn or something he suddenly doesn't speak English) he really had no idea that when I threw a fit about his socks being on the floor it wasn't the socks I was mad about.

It was actually quite comical (after a while). We did the exercise where your partner repeats what you said, we even taped it because there was such a huge difference in what I was saying and what he was hearing. He was hearing what I said, I just wasn't saying what I meant. For example, when men say they're tired, that means "I'm tired". When I said I'm tired it meant "I'm irritated with you and don't want to deal with you right now." How could he not get that? Or how about "fine"? To men it means it's ok, fine, no problem. For women... there is nothing fine about it.