To wish DH would sometimes empathise and not just look for the solution?

Lots of the problem solvers have said things along the line of: 'what's the point of moaning, I like to offer solutions'. I was pointing our that everyone can see that sometimes there is no solution, and saying things like: 'you will find a new friend' or 'time will make you feel better' or 'there's no point in keeping on grieving, you need to get out and do things to cheer up' are obviously insensitive if someone has died.

Similarly, there are a lot of unhelpful solutions that people offer in less drastic situations, and I was trying to point out (with an extreme example) to the problem solvers that they should realise that solutions can be insensitive and unhelpful. Quite often they make the situation worse.

Lots of people commenting on this thread seem unaware of this.

Have you tried saying, dont worry I dont need you to do anything its in hand but god I need to talk this out..

Let him know the solution/him fixing it is by him giving you comfort.

As for planks I think someone who asks a question like that probably has their own eye plank.

Just tell him you need him to listen and sympathise without offering a solution. It doesn't come naturally to everyone!

I will caveat this by saying listening to someone moaning about the same problem over and over while doing nothing about it is very annoying! So if you're doing this, I can see why he might get a bit frustrated 😂

It means “do you want me to solve the problem or just sympathise with it?”

Has anyone claimed to resurrect the dead? 🤔

People are different, no approach is wrong, but communication is key.

As PP have advised, OP should tell her DH what she needs at that time.

No one can mind read.

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?" - Matthew 7:3-5

What the fuck does he mean by that? What plank?

It can also lead to the person being criticised as not being open to any solutions. Sometimes that's fair but other times the problem is that the solutions offered are either stuff that's already been tried and failed or crap suggestions from the start.

Dh can be like this and it’s one reason I have other friends 😂
i can see his point of view - there’s a problem, I think I can find a way to resolve it, here, let me tell you.
My point of view is that I just want to offload and be empathised with. And then I’m ready to take on board suggestions.
He prefers to skip the empathy, remove the emotion from it completely and solve it as quickly as possible.
Neither way is right or wrong. We just have different approaches to stuff.
If I have a practical problem that I can’t solve myself i gladly share and want him to chip in. If it’s a moral dilemma type quandary l prefer to talk it through with girl friends because they offer empathy, share anecdotal situations and then once the kindly words are over the helpful advice comes in.

Weird AI post OP

Some of the problem solvers on this thread come across as a little self-righteous. Every reasonable person recognises the extremes when solutions are not possible. Only a jerk would come up with advice when presented with a problem like: ‘My friend died, and I miss her so much’. Only an insensitive person would fail to understand that for some people talking about a dead friend might be helpful at times.

The problem with solutions to smaller issues is often that the ideas are often useless for one reason or another, and the person with the problem ends up having to explain why each proffered solution is unworkable- a frustrating and demoralising process, not helpful at all.

I'm one of three - sister 1 is empathy, I am strategy and sister 2 is distraction! 🤣
It is a good combination when you get it right!

Another that disagrees with the "male" trait, my partner and I are both like this. I'm mum says I'm the one she calls when she needs something to get done. She has chronic pain following a back injury a few years ago if she call sister 1 on a bad day she gets empathy and told how hard it must be, sister 2 tells her all about her bad day or something vaguely related to pain she had read about, I ask about pain relief and order her her the medicated cream that helps but she never replaces when its finished and chase up her physio referral.

My dad is the same as me though and sometimes his work around solutions make life harder and he has to be talked down to something more reasonable.

I think there are pros and cons with all approaches the trick is pick up the cues for what response is the most helpful in the short and long term.

It's absolutely a male thing . One of the differences between men and women .

I'm a problem solver and DH likes to moan for the sake of it.

I moan too, but I'd be wanting a solution whereas DH will just nod along and I get frustrated.

He gets frustrated at me interrupting his moans with solutions.

We can laugh about it now and tell each other what we need in that moment.

Yes I'm solution focused too. I get really irritated when people just want to moan on when there's usually (not always) a solution. I feel they're just wasting my time. Obviously my approach is different if it's a bereavement and I'm a good and empathetic listener!

Here’s a suggestion ( see I can’t help it )

you don’t want solutions just sympathy - say so

better “I know what I need to do I just feel sad about it “

Your husband sounds like me in my relationship.
Trying to find a solution isn't dismissive, it's his way of trying to alleviate your distress by trying to fix or repair what is troubling you.

Very well said @lottiegarbanzothat's exactly what it is.

No one ever pulls a person to the side and tells them what they need to work on. Instead people stay blind to their own shortcomings and often are complained or even laughed about behind their backs. It's unfair really, I agree it should be focused on with workshops or something in school. How to read the room, appropriate language, tone of voice, when to interject and when to pause.

My exH did this OP. He could never simply listen. It created a big wedge of misunderstanding between us as I ended up keeping my upsets and worries to myself. I wanted emotional support not a solution because very often there was none.

It took me until my early 40s to realise, sometimes people moan because they want empathy and care, not advice 😳

My parents always tried to provide solutions whenever I felt sad about anything and I simply thought that was why people went to others when they wanted to moan - because they didn’t want to be in that situation any more and wanted help/ support in getting out of it.

I understand having a rant at a tricky situation, eg “this such and such is doing my head in, this is so annoying!” Before moving on. But an extended moan about something without wanting it to be fixed or helped… again, this could be a result of having family who were solutions-oriented but lengthy moaning for the sake of it always just felt one-sided and self indulgent to me.

This jn.my opinion is a major difference generally between.me and women. I have 3 brothers and a sister if I speak to any of my brothers about anything it results in an attempt to resolve the issue. My sister will.listen

I think this issue is exacerbated because emotional and social intelligence are not formally recognised or developed in the way that mathematical and logical intelligence are. So people lack awareness of their own ability and level of development in these areas.

If you’d barely scraped a GCSE maths pass then attended a university maths lecture you’d know you were completely out of your depth. Everything would be just words and symbols with no recognisable meaning. You’d get bored fast but would probably recognise the deficit as lying within yourself, rather than jumping in to ‘problem solve’ by saying ‘look, it’s either positive or negative, big or small, just do the sums and there’s your answer’, or ‘just ask the teacher’.

In contrast, people ill-equipped to scrape a pass in
social and emotional comprehension, who were never even given the opportunity to take that GCSE, are quite happy to hear a complex emotional, inter-personal problem and leap in feet first with an imperceptive, utterly irrelevant ‘solution’.

Their tin-ear extends beyond their approach to responding, to their inability to recognise the type of problem they’re being presented with.

As with maths, most people have some innate ability which could be developed through education. Whether they want to develop this ability is another question. Many happily revel in their ignorance.

This is why women need female friendships.

You can try and tell them, and my husband is definitely getting better the older we get, but it's not the same 😂

I’m very much a problem solver: as a teenager, I remember sneering at my mum when she had a whinge, when the practical solution was obvious. I didn’t learn until much later that sometimes, people just want their feelings acknowledged. I remember also feeling perplexed as a child if I had a rant, and adults showed sympathy, but did nothing.

I once had the very unusual situation of my vicar (quite a bit older than me) suddenly pouring his heart out to me about one of his adult children doing nothing with his life, when we happened to be alone together. Normally, I’m very much a problem solver, but I didn’t have any advice at all, not being a parent, and perhaps I was silenced by the unusual situation. At the end he just said “thank you for listening”. Later, I did chat to his son, and it all had a happy ending, but I think I learned quite a bit about people from that episode.