Simple question on being quiet

In My Humble Opinion
21

You really need to find someone else to talk to. For one thing, it’s not fair to expect one person to absorb every single ounce of your social energy. For another, it’s not good for you to only have him to talk to. For yet another, it’s going to put one hell of a strain on your marriage for you to bugging the piss out of him yapping at him all the time and him bugging the piss out of you not responding to you. It’s just a bad situation all the way around.

Introverts and extroverts tend to communicate at cross-purposes a lot because of the different ways we’re wired. The extrovert faced with a non-responsive introvert thinks they must not be entertaining enough, so they talk louder and faster about more things. And the louder and faster and more varied the talk, the more introvert thinks “Jeebus, doesn’t this fucker ever shut up?”

22

I’m not married, so I don’t know if I can answer that usefully. I do know that I have co-workers who are total chatterboxes, and yes, it does get annoying. one in particular. she’s a nice person, very likable, extremely competent at her job, and works her ass off. but she just will talktalktalktalktalktalktalktalktalktalktalktalktalktalk all day long. I mean, just about any tiny inconsequential thing that happened that day. like her access card wouldn’t work, so someone else happened to show up early that day and let her in. she’ll repeat the story about how her card didn’t work and someone let her in to practically every single soul that arrives that morning.

23

Nothing at all.

24

That’s well put. I am a pretty strong introvert in a relationship with a lady who isn’t a strong extrovert, thank God (she goes to a Zen retreat every year where they don’t talk for five days - I imagine that would drive a true extrovert up the wall), but who occasionally likes to talk more than I do.

What works best for our relationship is to be open to each other about what we want and expect, i.e. straight talk. That sounds paradoxical under the circumstances, but I think other introverts can agree that we are perfecly OK with conversations that are to a purpose - it’s just talking for the purpose of talking that is stressful to us.

For example some months ago, she mentioned that she wanted to break the icy silence that had obtained for more than half an hour, on a car trip, after I had something that had mildly offended her. The thing was, I had not been aware she had been giving me the silent treatment - I thought we just did not talk because there was nothing to talk about (a phrase that sounds like hostility to an extrovert, perfectly normal to an introvert). We had a laugh together about it.

25

I think this is the key right here – you’re looking forward to connecting with him after a day of being on your own, while he’s likely looking forward to being able to decompress after a day of dealing with people. Your best bet is to tackle this from both ends: look to see what you can do to have human contact during the day so that he isn’t your one and only possibility for conversation, and find a way that he can be sure of some no-interaction time when he gets home. Maybe you give him a kiss when he gets in and then don’t talk to him for the first half-hour or hour, for example. That way, he can be sure he’ll get his need for quiet filled and he doesn’t have to shut himself off from you altogether through the whole evening. Just talk (heh) it over with him and see what kind of arrangement you can come to that leaves both of you feeling satisfied.

26

I am married, and, to a person more introverted than me. I can full understand how you can be starving for human contact after a day alone. The solution, however, is to deal with your social isolation, not expect your husband to be someone he isn’t. I am quite extroverted and for a time I lived alone on a farm. I was crawling the walls till I found a crafting group that met in town every thursday. That probably saved my sanity.

Good:
“there is something I want to talk to you about. When is a good time?”

Bad:
POKE POKE POKE TALK TO ME TALK TO ME NOW NOW NOW

27

I echo what others have said, especially CrazyCatLady. Find someone else you can talk to (not instead of your husband, but in addition to him); it’s not fair to either of you for you to expect him to fulfill all your conversational needs.

The article Caring For Your Introvert might be an enlightening read.

28

I have rarely found something on this board that I agree with more than this.

29

Let me preface this by saying I’m very introverted. I know what it’s like when you live with [del]a chatterbox[/del] an extrovert who wants to talk all the time, and it can be annoying at best and completely exhausting at worst. You’ve gotten a lot of good advice from people who are helping you see things from your husband’s point of view.

But I feel like your husband needs to step up a little and make some compromises of his own. Introversion is not an excuse for treating your spouse unkindly. If he doesn’t feel like talking, it would be great if he communicated that instead of sitting there in silence. As introverted as I am, I think if my spouse never wanted to talk and just sat there like a stone wall all the time, I’d be really hurt. Why are we together, then, if you never want to talk to me? In your OP you said you try to have a casual conversation and he doesn’t even acknowledge you – that shit’s just rude. He shouldn’t do that to you. And I don’t think it’s fair for you to change without him making an effort on his part to meet you half way.

I think you should communicate your frustration with him and ask him how he thinks the two of you can work on it together. Maybe part of the solution is for you to find another outlet for your conversation. Maybe part is to give him some alone time, and then another part would be for him to give you some conversation time. Maybe he could work out a signal to let you know when he’s up for talking and when he isn’t (like if he’s in the den with the door closed, he wants to be alone, but when he’s out in the rest of the house he’s open for talking with you). Whatever. Just let it be something that the two of you work out together, so it’s acceptable for the both of you and both of you are putting in effort to meet the other’s needs.

30

Let me add: when I lived with my mom (as an adult) she would talk every moment of the day that she wasn’t asleep. Most of the time she was just narrating her actions and thinking out loud, but sometimes she was trying to communicate with me. I had quickly adapted into Tune Out 98% of What She Says Because She’s Not Talking to ME mode, and this would frustrate her when she was actually talking to me. So after a few arguments about this, I learned to ask, “So are you asking me what I think, or are you just narrating?” And she learned to say, “I’d like your thoughts on [whatever],” or, “Don’t mind me, I’m just thinking out loud.” That way I was free to go off in my own world when I wanted, and she wouldn’t feel like I was ignoring her when she actually wanted my attention.

31

Yes, if you knew this about him before you decided to spend the rest of your life with him, and you now decide you want him to change. Learn to accept him as he his.

32

I agree that you should respect his need for quiet and find others to meet your conversational needs but his failure to even acknowledge you have spoken is just rude and disrespectful. Try to avoid chatter just for the sake of talking (especially negative or complaining comments about others) but don’t let him get away with hurtful rudeness. He would have to be a wealthy Adonis and perfect in every other respect to get me to tolerate that. Nope, not even then.

33

How did you phrase it? Communication experts stress using “I”, not “you” messages. While this is not a surefire recipe (nothing is in communication), there’s a big difference between “I want to talk to you about this, how I feel when I want to talk to you, and how can we both make it work out” and “You never listen to me”.

The point is: neither of you is wrong or right, it’s just differences in character. The important thing is therefore that he assures you that he isn’t mad, sulking, disinterested or anything else (that would need to be addressed), but just wants his quiet … and he needs to understand from you that you aren’t a mindless chatterbox getting on his nerves, but want his company, understanding and feedback/ conservation.

If you are at home all day long without any other adult conversation, while he has his colleagues at work, this can quickly build up, so I strongly suggest you find some other way to talk to adults. Do they have some club for any hobby you are interested in in your town? Can you volunteer for something? Maybe a book club at your local library? Go on the dope during the day? :slight_smile:

34

Ask him.

Sometimes I find it impossible to speak and carry on a conversation, and I get agitated when somebody is trying to chat with me. Other times, its not a problem at all.

Tell him what you posted. Maybe its just a matter of timing. When my hubby is feeling ‘silent’ but I am not, I call my very best friend.

35

What is your husband doing when you try to talk with him?

I’m male, very outgoing and love to talk (and listen), but I also like to give my undivided attention to whatever I’m doing.

If the TV is on, I’m listening to every word said. If I’m reading a book (or a webpage), interruptions ruin the experience. If I’m on the phone, I don’t want people bothering me about things that can wait.

On the other hand, if I’m speaking in person with someone, I try not to answer my phone. If there’s an important conversation going on, I turn the TV off so it won’t distract me.

So again, it’s just a guess. But let’s say your husband comes home and wants to watch something he’s recorded on the DVR.

Can you say something like “honey, after the TV show, can we cook dinner together? I found a new recipe and I can cut up the vegetables, but you’re so much better at cooking meat in a wok than I am.” Or something like that, you get the idea.

36

No, he does not behave rude or anything, there are times when he needs quiet time and I need a conversation because I have been on my own the whole day. I just can’t strike a middle here. Well with all the replies that I see up here now I am considering my options to see which would be apprpopriate to our situation.
A hobby def is a good thing.
I myself grew up as an only child at home.I used to be a lot alone home whenmy parents worked round the clock. But with marriage somehow I am surprised as to how I can’t handle these trivial things. Somehow with older family members and with roommates the casual chatter never stops. With a spouse the chatter is not the easy thing to happen, I am architect by profession, my job used to be convincing clients on the design, picking up the vibes of my client so that I can help design their space to suit their personality,…so with all this I thought I was a people person, I love to listen as much as I love to talk. So thing with my spouse was like a bummer.
Whoever said those marriage quotes about surprise that come along with marriage is sure right…thanks you guys…I couldn’t have thought this through without dope. :slight_smile:

37

I want to focus on something that I think everybody else so far has skipped over. In your original post you used the terms “uptight” and “quiet” almost interchangeably. So far everybody has written about “quiet”. I want to talk about “uptight”.

Do you think he is uptight? Does he?

What does “uptight” mean to you? Give us a paragraph or two on what that word means to you.

Did you just “automatically” equate his quietness with uptightness, or was that a deliberate thought-out decision?

Do you think the only reason someone would want to be non-talkative is if they’re under stress? Does he?
On the quiet front …
I will strongly second what **shantih **said in post#25. Even setting aside your differences in temperament, you two have totally different daytime experiences. As such, you’re each primed to want totally different things in the offtime to compensate.

The solution is to make sure your respective days prime you to want the same, or at least compatible, things at night. And for both of you to deeply understand and accept this issue as part of living together.

My wife & I don’t have the introvert vs. extravert thing going, but we do have very different work situations. So we have to take that into account when we’re deciding what to do with our common off time. In my line of work it’s very common for this difference to lead to divorce after a few years because it’s not really possible to bridge the at-work experience gap and folks who can’t or won’t work consciously & deliberately past its side effects are doomed to grow apart.
An observation: You will notice that everyone who writes here uses complete sentences, proper spelling and punctuation, and decent grammar. That’s just our style. By contrast, your writing seems much more stream of consciousness, complete with text-message style shortcuts. I’m not trying to be offensive here, but I wonder if that’s indicative of your conversational style as well.

*If *you are an eyes open = mouth open chatterbox like gallows fodder’s Mom (or my MIL, bless her brainless heart) *and if *your husband is truly a quiet sort, well you two have a genuine marriage-threatening challenge here. *If *this is the case, you are making him at least as miserable as he’s making you.

38

The most chatty person I know is an only child. Even though she probably spent many hours alone as a kid, she was also probably used to being the center of attention when adults WERE around. Having adults’ undivided attention is not a trivial thing, and it’s easy to take for granted that everyone wants to hear your every wish and desire as they seemed to do when you were a kid.

I grew up in a family with four kids, one a twin. We’re both very introverted, and our parents were from the “kids best seen, not heard” school of parenthood. So in addition to our innate personalities, we never expect people to particularly care about every thought that comes to mind. The one kid in the family who did care grew into a very wild and rebellious teenager. I think it’s because my parents simply did not talk or listen to us like we were real people. She now has chatty children who she talks to about everything. Funny, it’s her husband that’s the quiet introvert. But somehow they’ve managed.

There’s no “right” or “wrong” in this situation, but I applaud you for trying to make things better without blaming him for everything. Being an introvert is no excuse for being rude or mean–and I’m glad to hear that he hasn’t been any of those things–but just remember he’s not intentionally being hurtful or lazy by not talking to you.

I just thought of one thing. Perhaps his social juices are more fluid during lunchtime. Why not call him every so often and just ask him how he’s doing? Not every day (oh by god, not every day), but just often enough that he’ll get into the habit of having a nice, five-minute conversation with you. This way, you get the comfort of checking in with your husband, enjoying a moment of semi-spontaneous social interaction, and getting him to talk to you when he’s at his best.

39

Hi Mr. Luongo. This isn’t a criticism, just an comment on how different people have different hot buttons… If my wife said something like *you’re so much better at cooking meat in a wok than I am,*my immediate reaction would be, oh please, just say what you want; don’t try to manipulate me.

That reaction might be silent or spoken, but I’d almost always feel that she was talking down to me.

40

I’m an extrovert, married to an introvert; last November, we celebrated our 22nd wedding anniversary, so we must be doing something right. :wink:

Here are some things I do:
One, I have other sources of conversation. I’ll call one of my sisters or one of my friends. Obviously, I post on message boards (though very few besides this one); I have a small group of email buddies that I email with on a regular basis. This all gives me an outlet for my “chatter”, which hubby finds boring and annoying.

Two, I talk to him about things that affect us both, so we’re both ‘invested’ in it; for example, we are in the process of going to settlement on a huge (8BR/6BA) house, and it’s going to be my job to oversee re-habbing it. He’s always interested in discussing the house, and my ideas on it, and his ideas on it. Also, he DVR’s shows he likes that I enjoy as well, like Pawn Stars; I’ll watch along with him, and he’s not annoyed when I have something to interject, or something to ask his opinion on, because it’s DVR’d, and he can easily pause it, then start it again.

Three, when he’s focused on something, he tends to be really focused, to the point where I can be standing right in front of him talking to him, and he won’t realize it. I know this helps him greatly in his professional life (he’s a computer engineer), but it used to bug the hell out of me. Finally I realized that what I really need to do is to touch him lightly, on the shoulder, or arm, for example, get his attention, ask him if he can spare a few minutes, and then talk to him. Obviously, if something’s an emergency, the whole “can you spare a minute?” thing goes out the window.

Four, we try to do things together that interest both of us. We’ll see a movie we’re both interested in, then discuss it. We’ll go to a museum or some such, then talk about what we got out of it. I’m sure I get more out of these discussions than he does, but hey, marriage is a give and take.

I agree with the others here who say that it’s unfair of you to expect him to fulfill all your needs for social interactions. I can get on the phone with my sister and we’ll talk for two hours if time and circumstances allow. He doesn’t grok that at all. He has a couple of close friends, but if he calls them or they call him, they say what needs to be said (maybe a pleasantry or two first, but that’s it), and hang up. None of this “So, what have you been up to?” bullshit for them. He leaves that to me. :smiley: