Why do wives/girlfriends ask for opinion but don't take them?

If this happens a lot in your relationship, don't fret. My husband and I have a fair share of such conversations which got me thinking why my response was such. I can think of 1 reason to justify why such scenarios happen - and it is nothing personal. Perhaps this can help to explain why your wife or girlfriend behaves this way as well.

A typical scenario goes something like this:

Husband: Where to for dinner?

Wife: Hmmm no preference, you decide?

Husband: Japanese or Western food?

Wife: Hmmm no preference. You decide?

Husband: Japanese?

Wife: How about Western?

Husband: ok...

So what happened here? At the point when Japanese or Western is proposed, the wife is likely to not have a clear favourite. We can say that the preference for either option is 50/50 or deviating by a very small margin, i.e 49/51. When the husband made the selection to go with Japanese, it occurred to the wife that she won't be eating Western food for dinner, and thus this "loss" is thrown into the evaluation process. When this happens, if the thought of forgoing Western causes more "pain" than the thought of forgoing Japanese, we will see the wife making the decision to go with Western instead.

The decision-making process had shifted from the thought of "how much I want to eat Japanese vs how much I want to eat Western" to "how much I have to forgo if eat Japanese vs how much I have to forgo if I eat Western". This shift is substantive as additional thoughts may come to play, such as, "if I don't eat Western today, the next time we eat it could be 2 months later since it's not always we are in the area".

With all these thoughts rushing through the wife's mind in that short span of a few seconds, it's no wonder that she will jump to the alternate option.