Expecting Your Mate to Read Your Mind

“He/she should know what I want.”

Therapists make a fortune from those who believe that everyone in the world is intuitive; that each person is born with the gift of being able to peer into the mind of the other. And, most importantly, that a person who really loves you (or even a very good friend) will know what you want without it having to be put into words.

Such people come to couples therapists expecting that the counselor will be able to train the patient’s spouse to do this. The problem, as they see it, is in the other, not in themselves.

There are a few iffy assumptions here:

1. Any reasonably intelligent person (I’m including men here, if you will permit me to put that word together with the word “intelligent”) has an innate capacity to know the wants and desires of a partner who has not directly stated them.
2. Such a person is further able to know the order in which such requirements are to be fulfilled, despite the absence of any ranking of those priorities by their partner.
3. The same individual is always listening for hints that might suggest what the lover wants and in what order the lover wants them. He/she is terrific at “getting” the subtlest of those hints because he/she is a master of understanding tone of voice, body language, and even silences.
4. The fulfillment of an unstated desire is worth more than getting what is wanted by asking for it directly. Having to ask for the thing you want somehow diminishes its value.

Are these assumptions correct?

No, no, no, and no.

Partners, even those who are sensitive and devoted, have only an approximate idea of some of the things that would please the spouse. If they don’t know the items on your list, they certainly can’t get the expected order of importance right.

It would be nice if your friend were telepathic, but his/her lack of capacity to read your mind should not diminish the value of what he tries to do to please you, even if you have to give him directions along the way. Isn’t there something appealing in a person whose affection for you is so great that he is willing to make the effort to understand something — do something that is not intuitive and doesn’t come easily?

And, do remember, your loved one is not always paying attention, as in the following cartoon showing a long-time patient and his therapist:

“Oops! I just deleted all your files. Can you repeat everything you’ve ever told me?”

A few practical suggestions (follow them at your own risk):

1. Ask your spouse to tell you what he/she thinks will make you happy. Do this with the iPads and smartphones put away, the TV and radio off, no music in the background, the wine bottles corked, and the kids asleep or out of the house. Assuming that he doesn’t say, “Nothing will make you happy,” you are off to a good start: you are talking without distractions.
2. If that question is too broad, be more specific. Ask your spouse what he imagines would make you happy in one or two of the following areas: housework, taking care of the kids, running errands, making a living, time spent together, romance/sex, attitude, and whatever else you can think of that is important.
3. Don’t condemn, mock, or laugh. Don’t criticize. Don’t start any sentence with the words “How can you not know…” Just listen. Take notes if necessary.
4. Don’t assume that you can read his/her mind any more than he can read yours. Don’t assume the worst possible motives for his failure to give you what you want. Recognize and praise what he has done right that you might otherwise tend to minimize or ignore.
5. Choose only one or two of the areas on which you wish to concentrate. (I realize I’m repeating this, but you should try to start small). Tell your mate where he is right and where he needs a bit of help. Give him that help. Tell him precisely what you want. That is, if you want him to take out the garbage by 8PM without a reminder on Tuesday night, say so. If you also want him to replace the garbage bags, say so. Don’t assume anything. Make your desires as explicit and behaviorally descriptive as possible. Remember, you are dealing with someone you believe to have missed a few years in school.
6. Ask the other to paraphrase what you’ve said. He will probably not do a great job at this. Keep at it until you feel that he actually knows what you are asking for because he has specified all the details in his own words, not because he says “OK, I’ll do that.”
7. Don’t ask for the world. If you want a man to put the toilet seat down every time he uses the W/C, you should realize that (for certain men) asking for a round-the-world tour would be more easily achieved.
8. Be sensitive to the possibility that he may stop listening to you if you go on too long, start hammering him, or if he has other things on his mind. It is better for your conversation to be relatively brief with full attention than longer, but with periods of inattention.
9. If you are getting exasperated try to end the conversation and make plans to pick it up again. Rome wasn’t built in a day.
10. End on a high note. Say thanks and mean it. He/she is trying to get this right.

One last word. This will require you to change, too. Indeed, it is just possible that the love of your life fails to do some of the things you want because he doesn’t think you are attentive to his own desires. In other words, that the two of you are involved in a kind of tit-for-tat game of withholding and passive-aggressive expressions of anger.

You will also have to recognize that you too have a limited power to read his mind; that it is only fair that you permit him to go through the same kind of 10-point exercise I just described, allowing him to determine whether you are fully aware of his wishes and giving him an opportunity to set you straight.

Being direct but not vicious is an art that must be perfected for relationships to survive in the best possible way. You won’t get back to “the days of wine and roses” by hitting your spouse over the head with a mallet, however tempting that might be. You want him to look at you with stars of love in his eyes, not seeing stars after the blow you just delivered to his noggin.

It is not a subtle point, I know. Still, I had to make it because otherwise you would have had to read my mind!

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The top image is a Poster of Alexander Seer, sourced from Wikimedia Commons.