Me: What's the first thing you think of when I say, "Missing the point"?
Wife: (clearly confused) I don't understand what you're telling me.
Me: Perfect! Thank you.
Sadly, this is a typical exchange for us. I suspect that this stems from habits of communication that are often dysfunctional. I have recently become aware that I almost always, by habit, treat a question as a request for information. It often is not.
One real life example of this is from my long career at Queen Wilhelmina State Park Lodge and Restaurant. All employees there had to answer the call of duty when the restaurant was busy. Regardless of one's job description, at such times it would change to busboy. It took me the longest time to realize that when people who were seated in the smoking section of the restaurant (yes, that was a thing and yes, it was THAT long ago) asked, "Are we at a non-smoking table?", they were not requesting information. The actual translation of this query was: "Bring us a damn ashtray!"
Stephen Covey's habit #5 is "Seek first to understand, then to be understood". Failing to make this a habit has resulted, far too often, in my missing the point.
What was the question, again?