Tell Me About It | Wife confides in him as if he is a girlfriend

Question:

I have been happily married for over 20 years. However, my wife often treats me as if I were her girlfriend.

She has several friends she sees on a regular basis. When she is with them, she never talks about herself or her fears and anxieties. Her friends do all the talking, and she just listens. I get to hear all my wife's concerns, plus all of her friends'.

I am sympathetic to a degree but, of course, give her a man's perspective on these insecurities. This gets me labeled as insensitive. When I suggest that she share her concerns with her girlfriends to get a female perspective, she says that I don't care and that they wouldn't be interested.

I do care, but I can't care like a woman cares, and I get the feeling that's what she wants from me. I tell her that her friends would care about what she has to say about her life, but this falls on deaf ears. What can I do to convince her I'm not her girlfriend and encourage her to open up to her own friends?

Answer: She continues to lean on you exclusively, even though it frustrates you. You continue to "give her a man's perspective" - whatever that means - even though it frustrates her.

Definitely a stalemate. Now, let's assume you are you, and will always be you. Which behavior can you reasonably expect to change, hers or yours?

Please try, next time she confides in you, not to "give her a man's perspective" - which I'll assume, from tone and for argument's sake, means you suggest ways she can solve all her problems.

If that's the case, then switch it up next time by expressing sympathy or, if that feels false, by asking her how she feels, what she'd like to do about X, or just, "What can I do to help?"

Your footprints are in this rut, too. If you really don't like where they go, then take her hand and together walk somewhere else.