Say that again?

As I like to say, anything worth saying once is worth saying twice. Anything worth saying once is worth saying twice. (See what I did there?)

Carla and I have entered that beautiful phase of our relationship where more than 50 percent of all of our communication – and we all know communication is the key to any successful marriage – is repeated.

I know, I know, that’s some high level math there, but what I mean is that the amount of original content we say to each other is shrinking because we find ourselves repeating what we just said, often more than once.

This alarming trend has suddenly become more noticeable recently, and by “suddenly” and “recently” I mean slowly over the past 10 years. Whether the root cause is a lack of listening or a lack of hearing, I think it’s inevitable that we’ve reached this stage, based on my careful observation of older couples in my life (Love you, Mom and Dad!)

Here are the potential causes as I see them:

Can’t sit still. Carla has complained to me on many occasions that I will leave the room while she is speaking to me. Her complaint is 100 percent valid. I simply cannot sit still if I am in the middle of a task. I know I should stand patiently and listen when I’m holding a garbage bag and going from room to room emptying the trash, but it’s like completing an electrical circuit. I can’t hear what she is saying until I’m finished with that task. The problem is, as soon as that task is done, there’s always another one I need to do.

True story: last Sunday night after the time changed and the world was swallowed in darkness at 3:46 p.m., I was focused on changing the timers on all of our outdoor lights, including our cantina lights on the deck. In mid conversation, I went outside, crawled under the deck, and reset the timer. That was, in hindsight, a poor time management choice. I should have waited until she finished speaking to me, and I could have done the whole crawl under the deck thing during daylight hours.

So when I’m up to this level of shenanigous behavior, it’s no wonder she’s frustrated at having to repeat herself.

Hearing loss. I know my hearing is not as good as it once was because my children let me know. They inform me when I’m speaking too loudly in public. They inform me when the television is at a higher volume than they require. They refuse to repeat themselves when they mumble important information like what they want from the Starbucks drive-thru which already has ridiculous words for “black coffee” that I don’t use in everyday conversation.

Hearing aids are in my near future, I’m sure, but for now, I’ll take advantage of selective hearing for as long as possible.

Attention deficit. I am easily distracted by television because I want to see what’s happening. If it’s a sports ball game and the cheering suddenly picks up, I can’t help but avert my gaze to see what all the fuss is about. I can’t help it that the Cowboys decided to miss the game-tying field goal right when you’re telling me the plan for tomorrow. Please repeat the plan minus the lecture about me not listening to you.

On the flip side, I have to work on not growing agitated when I must repeat what one of our children texted me because you were doing your Wordle for the day. Wordle takes a lot of focus for me, too, and there’s nothing worse than having your streak ended because your husband is blabbing on about silly “Lord of the Rings” memes he is sharing with your boys.

Smart phones. This is closely related to the point above. These devices have stolen our ability to focus on anything in the world, including our spouses and their important conversations. In our marriage, we are both guilty of this, and it is hindering our communication. It’s so bad that we are now using these devices to break through the communication barrier they create by sending each other clever memes and reels on Instagram just so we’ll know what we love – and don’t love – about each other.

I confess all of this repeating frustrates me at times, but when I think about how often I should ask her to repeat herself but don’t because I don’t want to risk being the one not paying attention, I have to cut her some slack. I know my hearing isn’t what it used to be, so she shouldn’t be denigrated when I have to repeat things for her.

And in her defense, I do say a lot of things she doesn’t care anything about, like football scores, how much I accomplished before 6 a.m., my exercise routine, and where Frodo and Sam would be today if the Middle Earth calendar were translated to the regular Earth calendar.

She’s mastered the art of filtering, and a lot of what I say is a poor attempt at humor or just nonsense. I’ve discovered my hilarious riffing sounds like Charlie Brown’s teacher to her. I, on the other hand, have mastered nothing. I just can’t hear her say words. This is 100 percent on me. I need to lean in, make eye contact and truly listen so that she feels heard, understood and appreciated.

I’m not there yet, but I’m working on it. And the next time I go to whisper “sweet nothings” in her ear, I’ll try to remember that’s what she’s taking away from the conversation… nothing. 

“What was that?”

Exactly.