Lesson(#5): Push yourself to listen ever harder, and to respond aloud with your reaction so that your wife knows you heard her. Above all, recognize that sometimes talking is her way of processing.

So, when my wife would refer to the colour of a table cloth ten years ago I wasn't suppose to utter "What in sweet fuck are you talking about? Could you get to the fucking point? The game is about to come on and I do NOT intend to miss a minute of it trying guess what crawled up yer ass."?

BTW, what colour was it?