Brethren, don’t be mad at me for revealing another
man-secret. It’s been a long time since I’ve exposed the nasty inner workings
of a man’s machinations to survive in the woman’s world of marriage. Remember when I dutifully instructed all of
MTE’s manly fans about how to settle any argument with your wife using three simple words? Anyway, it’s been three
years, and now I dare to venture into dangerous relationship territory
again. Sisters, hang on to your YW medallions;
you’re going to find out why your husband may have problems listening to you.
It’s because…. whatever you say he is filing away in the “Yes Dear” portion of
his brain.
I know this concept to be true because I first heard about
it in a sacrament meeting this time last year.
The MTE staff followed up with in-depth research on the undernet, the
outernet, and the internet, and discovered that there really is a portion of a
man’s brain where he stores everything a wife says that he doesn’t want to deal
with at the moment, because he is too busy thinking about himself- the “yes
dear” partition.
It all boils down to two simple words- listen and hear. When women speak they expect us men to
“listen;” instead we merely “hear.”
Hearing involves processing audible signals in the brain and turning
them into thought. Listening, however,
is a much more complex process. When we listen, we add an extra step and act on
the thought we have heard. So, when my
sweetie asks me to take out the trash, she expects me to listen- hear what she
said then act on it. I however, may
prefer to merely hear what she said.
When a husband wants to make his sweetie think that he is listening,
when his true desire is to merely hear, he will respond with a perfunctory “yes
dear.” This phrase signals to the brain
to file away what he has just has heard to the “Yes Dear” portion, where it will stay ignored
indefinitely.
The Yes Dear portion of the brain has diffused many tense
situations in some marriages, contributed to many festering emotional sores in
others, and served as the most popular plot theme of relationship
comedies. The Yes Dear portion of a man’s
brain allows him to store a request for action (listen) from his wife and then
postpone acting on it (hear) until a more convenient time.
About six months ago I suffered an aneurysm in the Yes Dear
portion of my brain. I don’t know exactly how it happened, but apparently one
afternoon my wife was proposing some plans to turn a sitting room off the side
of our master bedroom into her craft room.
I was hearing what she was saying, and like I had done several times in the
past, I tried to file it away, but this time it wouldn’t go. I actually found myself
interested in and having opinions about the color scheme of the room and the
type of Ikea bookcases we would purchase and transform into trendy storage
cubbies for her craft gear! Go figure!
She was just as surprised as I was. This trend has continued, which makes me
worry that the Yes dear portion has been permanently damaged. I have actually
found myself excited over the color or her new walking shoes, or genuinely
worried about her health when she plans to work outside on a particularly hot
and humid day. Clothes and weather
matter to me now.
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