"If your wife says, 'I have a headache,' the answer is not , 'The aspirin is in the cupboard.'"

You are so brilliant. She wants the damn sympthy first, not instructions on how she ought to take care of her problem.

I have been telling this to young men for years. Most of the time our complaints are about something that's bothering us terribly, and we want to vent. We want to unload a clump of garbage to a listening ear (n.b.: the left side of his head as he reads his newspaper does NOT count as a listening ear!), then get a moment of sympathy, and follows a warm hug or even a cuddle.

What we don't want is a man telling us what we should do. Not even a loving, caring man can carry that off sympathetically, because to us it feels like, "Honey, you're so dumb, why didn't you think of my brilliant fix for your problem?" or even worse, the reminder that you SHOULD learn to be logical and reasonable in the way you organize your affairs.

Nope, we don't want to be fixed, we just want our mood fixed. So after she's dumped on you all the crap she's brought home from the office, what can you say if you can't fix her? First remember she's not broken, so she doesn't need a repair man. Or a repair daddy. She needs a loving co-equal to sympathize and stroke her feelings and tell her how much he cares.

Usually, sympathy can be easy to show. All you have to do is mirror what she says.

Try it like this:
She: "Damn that Margaret, she's so annoying, always talking, won't let me get my work done."
You: "You'd feel better if she'd let you get your work done."

NOT:
You: "She drives you nuts" because you've just drawn a conclusion and then you're only telling her how to feel.