How (specifically) would you deal with someone who won't listen? (Details follow)

A taser?? XD
I dated someone exactly like that and my advice is to dump him.Really.
When someone is that full of bullshit and that selfish,it is best to walk away.
Good luck to her.

I would write him a letter, in long hand explaining just that. That he asks her what he could to, she tells him, and he refuses to do it and how that makes her feel. No insults, no anger, no recrimination. Just a thoughtful communication. I would write it in a letter because it is a way to make sure that you say everything you want to say and exactly the way you want to say it without being interrupted, without getting angry, without getting off track. It also gets the other person’s attention. That you’re serious, you mean it and this is an important issue for you, not just another fight or more nagging. If he cares about her, asks her what he can do and continues not to do then she is in a losing battle. It sounds like she has been pretty clear. I don’t think it’s necessarily that he’s not listening or that he simply doesn’t care enough. Maybe he just doesn’t get how really important it is to her. He should care enough about her to at least try, to at least make the effort. That’s not a matter of listening.

Visit a professional. If he won’t go, go alone.

Don’t “tell” him, help him get to the answer. Instead of giving him instructions, have a conversation with him that starts from the problem and he sees himself getting to the answer. If he understand the whole thought process and why she wants him to do particular things, he might be better at it.

Even though she “knows” the answer, he doesn’t “get” it and that is the problem.

Note: Not full proof, just what I think would work.

Edit: This has the added benefit of getting to the “real” answer. I doubt that if just said “I love you” and “Happy anniversary” it would solve the problems. The fact that he doesn’t do these things are symptoms not the problem.

The shortest route to getting someone to feel genuine appreciation for your relationship is to disappear from their life suddenly without warning or further contact. In their time of lonely reflection, the silent voice in their head will speak upon the issue quite clearly.

I agree with @RealEyesRealizeRealLies and if that doesn’t wake hime up, and I doubt it will, I’m with @lucillelucillelucille. You guys are being too nice to this guy. I think he is not doing what she wants because it would be giving her what she wants.

Big story…small problem Have you ever thought this is not your problem but theirs??? You can’t change them with a snap of a question on Fluther but you can change how you perceive others difficulties in THEIR lives as in “hers” and let “her” deal with “her” problems. IMO most people have enough of their own personal issues than to telegraph their own problems into things other people do or don’t do. MYOB!

The two of them need to go to marriage counseling. She tells him what she wants and he can’t or won’t do it. They need to have a professional resolve it.

You could try giving her Getting the Love You Want by Harville Hendrix. Reading it might help her.

Is the couple you refer to really a neighbor or might it be your own situation? I find it curious that you’ve spent so much time and effort, attempting to and wanting to fix someone else’s business. Your italics suggests that you’re rather emotional over this and don’t realize there are two (not one) people contributing to a messy marriage.

Step back a minute and self-examine. What do you get out of dishing out advice? Sometimes well-meaning friends and relatives offer simplistic solutions to complex problems not realizing that their advice may be a diversion from a friend getting real help.

If I have to deal directly with someone who won’t listen, I listen to them. I spend whatevcer time I think I can aford doing that, then get up and tell them I have to go. But in your case, it’s not someone you’re interacting with directly. And I have no idea how you might counsel your neighbor to remodel her husband’s controlling personality.

She might choose to tell him the next time he asks what he can do, “Go figure it out yourself. I’ve told you a dozen times but you seem to want to do it your way. Either lead, follow, or I’m going to push you the hell out of the way. If your need for control brings me to that juncture, you will have controlled creating a disaster. So decide if that’s what you want.”

All men are selfish and cheap when it comes to giving compliments. On the other hand, women are never satisfied.

The easiest thing is to assume there is no iota of goodness in this arrogant man. Yet your friend chooses to remain with him. Whatever reason is making her stay in this relationship, maybe that is as good as it gets. If your friend can’t live with that then time for a different tact.

Personally, I believe if you have a partner who needs to prove his love for you, all the while already in a relationship with you, well, maybe it’s time to consider that your partner’s feelings for you do not match how much you perceived it to be. In a way, there is nothing broken in this relationship that needs fixing. It is what it is and that is all there is to it.

She can try the advice of one of two books:

The first is Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg. It explains very specifically how to communicate in a way that doesn’t trigger his emotional wall.

The other is called How to Succeed with Men by Louis and/or Copeland. This would be more of a “how to hack your male companion” approach. She would adjust her behavior to trigger the response she wants.

@marinelife I really had a positive experience reading that book and on my must read list!

Fact from fiction, truth from diction. The way in which this man can be helped by her is not to comply with what he ask because he has not the capacity to even follow his own advice. What she will have to do is lead him to the conclusion where he believes it was his ideal.

Such as:
Him “Dear, tell me what you want me to do and I will do it?”
Her “I guess if I was to want anything it would be nice to go to the bathroom at night and not have to worry about the toilet seat not being down, my father always made sure of that for my mother. My father was such a gentleman like that, I really loved him for it.” Using that around about glancing type of exchange. He might start to fill in the blanks; she really speaks high of her father, he put the seat down for her mother and she really likes that, I should put the seat down and be in the same light as her father. If he is the type to not want to be told because he feels weak or that he is being nagged then he needs a less direct approach to get him there.

Adding on to @Hypocrisy_Central, it may be best to do this outside of the “what can I do to make this better” conversation. She could casually bring things up sometimes… the more often hints are dropped, the better.

On the other hand, she needs to wonder if she is willing to do this because it may be a lot of work.

Why would anybody want to be in a relationship where you are playing Flintstone games?

She’s too good for him. He’ll realize how much he needs her only when she won’t be around. And while we’re at it… is she decides to leave him .. well I’m not sure she’ll bother to return.

There’s nothing to be done because he cannot change.

You have pretty much described my brother, or at least how he used to be. Wife #1 wanted more romance, e.g. “I love you” and gifts, and less like being treated as an employee (he would leave lists of tasks to be completed.) She would tell him what she wanted, and yet he didn’t change. I lived with them for a year, and in hindsight, it was sort of like observing a slow train wreck in the making.

When the dam finally broke and she asked for a divorce, he sought out marriage counseling. She went with him a few times, but would walk out whenever the spotlight was turned on her. He continued the therapy on his own. He later told me that it was enlightening. He gained perspective on the mistakes he made, and it appears that he has grown from it. Wife #2 is (eerily) like Wife #1 in her needs, and he seems much more in tune to addressing them without being prompted.

Maybe your male neighbor grew up in an environment much like ours. I don’t recall ever hearing Mom and Dad say, “I love you” to each other, although it was obvious that they did. Dad never gave Mom a gift until much later in life. So, maybe it was conditioned in my brother and your neighbor to not put emphasis on these things, but to show their love in other ways.

The challenge with stating what one wants in relationship is that it might be heard, but unless it is continually discussed, and there is agreement, it doesn’t always help. My sister has spent over 25 years in a marriage where she would do anything to have her husband be on time and has voiced her complaint often. And yet, he hasn’t changed. After years of observing her blood pressure go up in these situations and listening to her complaints, I finally asked her, “Has he ever said that he change his ways?” Her response was “No”. So I shared with her the definition of insanity: Doing (or saying) the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. She finally learned to just go on her own to events and accepts that he will show up in his own time.

Marriage counseling seems to be the best way to attempt to repair the damage, but only if both parties are willing to listen to their faults and be open to change. Otherwise, the female neighbor has two choices: either leave him or learn to adapt.

@Everybody….....Thank you for your answers.

First, it _was_info for the neighbor.
Secondly, I came to the Fluther because I usually have an answer quickly for someone and this “Catch-22” question really left me without a ready solution.

Third, I am not trying to “fix” her…where I have a lot invested in this…she asked, I was stumped and I simply said, “Ethel…you’ve got me on this one…I’ll get back to you.”

He won’t go to therapy, he’s an old geezer set in his ways (second marriage for both of them). I think they have only been married for five years or so…not that long ago. I’m not a very close and intimate friend either. She is a “neighbor friend”...watches my house when I’m away, I take in her post when they are away . We do talk a bit more personally now, which is probably what prompted her question: “Well, Darling Rhad, you know a bit about psychology…I don’t know what to do, do you know?” And I didn’t.

I think that I will recommend that she go talk to someone, even if he doesn’t. At least, she can have a sounding board and a way to work things out for herself. I just sensed that she was going through a lot and didn’t have a way to be heard.

Thank you sooooo much for answering this question and being so helpful.

Yes, I’ve know quite a few people like this. They’re often found in management positions and bad marriages/relationships. These people excel at blowing smoke up other people’s arses. They are good at playing concerned and involved when they see you are at a breaking point but their skill is diversion and avoidance even though their lips move. I think your neighbor has a case of “love him or leave him”, I doubt he’d ever make an effort to please her since he’s seen he can wind her up and then blow her off, repeatedly.

@Neizvestnaya Exactly!