My wife and l face a language barrier. But she teaches English, so she's fluent enough. I hear stuff like that first sentence all the time, and fighting my way to the root of it drives me batshlt! "Gaaa!"
@garthm9 : It drives me nuts when I say sth to my husband and he won´t respond, not even with a simple "uhum". So I am not the least surprised by your anecdote´s outcome - I will give it to my hubby to read :=)
jcwilliams: I knew a guy who had the same problem. His wife accused him of having bad hearing, so he went to a specialist and had his hearing checked. The report said had excellent hearing, so he went home and showed the report to his wife. After that, whenever his wife made a (half) comment or spoke a half-thought, he would respond with "ok, I heard ...". He said it made more improvement in his marriage than anything else he had done in their 30 years together.