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By Carolyn Hax

Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 27, 2007

Carolyn:

I have been happily married more than 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 of 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 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?

Perplexed

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.

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