Things My Wife Complains About #25: Not Reading Her Mind

My wife doesn't expect me to be a mind reader, but the concept of mind reading comes up so frequently that I've come to believe that she actually does believe in mind readers but not in a way that she's willing to admit, lest this undermine her credibility as someone who believes in logic but nevertheless expects me to understand what she's thinking, more or less, all of the time.

It's not unusual for my wife to begin a conversation so deep into the story that I have no idea (a) what the story is about, (b) whom or what the pronouns refer to, (c) why she's angry, and (d) why she's angry that I'm not sufficiently angry on her behalf. A theoretical example:

Wife: "Can you believe she didn't return it to her after we'd just talked about it?"
Me: (infinitesimal pause) "No."
Wife: "Unbelievable! So you take her side?"

Ericka in front of the Sphinx in Vegas

I can't give a real example because I never have any idea what she's talking about in these stories. Sometimes my wife is so thoroughly involved in a conversation existing entirely within her head that she grows incredulous that I don't interrupt to take her side. Interrupt what, I might ask. It's like you don't love me at all, she might say. Or she might not say anything before growing angry at my silence.

Possible solutions!

1) Emphasize the impossibility, given current science, of reading anyone's mind
2) Get angry at my wife's refusal to defend me in my mind
3) Suck it up and learn to read her mind (hard)