Oh this. So much this.
I’m a victim of this too, I like your solution and I’ll start implementing it.
May we should form a support group?
Also I learned that what you do NOT do is respond “Mumble mumble mumble the garage?”
“I was not mumbling!” Yeah, that definitely pisses her off.
Oh man. And you’re still alive to tell us about it?
- Men dribbling while urinating may be a sign of prostate problems. Suggesting he go for a digital rectal exam just to be safe is the action of a caring, solicitous partner. I would not care to speculate on other motivations for the suggestion in this case.
- Thinking other people are mumbling is a very common early sign of hearing loss. A caring and solicitous partner might consider going for a hearing test to be sure they are not the issue here.
Someone suddenly speaking absent-mindedly in another room facing away from the door to the room where the listener is, is probably not mumbling in the sense that their enunciation is bad.
But they most certainly are not making a sincere effort to communicate successfully. And from the POV of the hapless listener, all that distance, echoing, inattentiveness of speech, etc. amounts to mumbling. By the time the sound arrives at the listener’s ears, it’s a mess.
But yeah: if someone is speaking directly and deliberately to you and it sounds all mush-mouthed to you, good bet it’s your ears and not their talking that are the problem.
I have this one, too. If I dare ask to have something repeated because all I heard was a few words, the statement is restated in a lower volume, but slower, so I can understand the words better. SMH
My in-law’s favorite family activity by far is playing cards, mostly nickle and dime poker for fun, no serious gambling. They will play cards for 6-8 hours at a time, stopping only for pee breaks and snacks. But they really aren’t about playing cards, they are about yacking. They are so into family gossip that they’ll forget what game the dealer called. Eventually they’ll just toss their cards in and start a new game. Rinse, lather and repeat. They might actually finish a game or two in an hour’s time. This frustrates the hell out of me. To my thinking, if you wanna play cards, let’s play cards. If you want to get so involved in talking that you can’t play cards, then forget the cards and let’s talk instead.
Also adding to my frustration is that hearing loss and vanity run in my wife’s family which is to say that many of them could benefit from hearing aids but will not avail themselves. What this means is that their “card games” are also VERY loud with lots of whooping and hollering. If you were outside the house listening you’d think there was a pro-wrestling match going on in there.
I’m a bit on the spectrum, sudden loud noises and shouting are major anxiety triggers. I can no longer consume alcohol so I don’t have that as a mechanism to cope with the racket. And since there is poor/no cellphone signal where they live I can’t bury myself in my phone either. All I can do is sit there, grit my teeth and do my best to not to let the anxiety shut me down. If need be, I’ll find an excuse to get up and walk around outside for a while to remove myself from the situation.
All that said, my in-laws are fine, good hearted people, they’d do anything for anybody. I do love them. But…
I wish Mrs Cad would give me that much information. She likes to play the less-than-minimal information game. “Can you get my purse?” Not unless you can at least tell me what room it is in. “Could you grab my black shirt for me?” Ummm … which one of the 20 black shirts that you own? And when she tells me, more likely than not it’s a different color.
I have to say that I used to actually get really annoyed with the things my wife does. As in really annoyed. And we would get into stupid fights about them.
My husband routinely comments on how grateful he is that we have a good relationship. He gets a lot of clients who are in bad relationships and refuse to do anything about it. Or sometimes he’ll say, “You have no idea how well you’re actually doing.”
I used to get really mad about the dishwasher and then I just accepted it wasn’t going to change. It’s not like he never does anything around the house. He’s always doing something to contribute.
One thing that has escalated since we had a kid is he thinks everything is dangerous. He gets so mad at me when I think he’s overreacting. But he would get so upset and yell every time he perceived our son was doing something dangerous, which in my estimation sends confusing messages about what actually is for real dangerous. Things he deemed “dangerous” included playing with toys in the shower and rocking forward on the toilet seat. Like yes theoretically he could fall and hit his head but the kid’s not running into traffic. These are acceptable levels of risk to me. In fact, call me crazy but I think kids should get into a controlled amount of trouble and hardship, and yes, injury. That’s how they learn.
I do find this very frustrating, especially when he wants to strongarm me into a decision based on what I think are irrational fears. There was a period of time where I felt like every idea I ever had was shot down because of the perceived danger.
He is starting to lighten up, though. As our son gets older maybe he is starting to let go. Lately he’s gone for some things that surprised me. For example he let me replace our son’s booster with a seatbelt positioning restraining device, a legal alternative. Because it was a massive pain in the ass for me to buckle the car seat booster. I had to walk all the way around to the other side of the car to do it.
My version of this is when I say “what?” my wife takes that to mean “I don’t understand your meaning, please explain further.” So instead of repeating what she said, she launches into some explanation of whatever she was talking about. Which leaves me even more bewildered. So I have to stop her and say “No, no, I didn’t hear what you said.”
You’d think after all these years, she would figure out that “what?” means “please repeat yourself.” Or… you’d think after all these years, I would figure out to say something like “come again?” or “say that again?” instead of “what?”
The wife is going to attend a televised remembrance today for one of our residents who died a couple of weeks ago and has been badgering me to also go. I don’t do funerals, I don’t do maudlin remembrances, and I absolutely have nothing to do with religious rites. Especially for someone I barely knew. She knows this, yet tries to guilt me into going. I kinda lost my temper today, when she started using the “people will think. . .” argument. We’ve been married 30 years and she knows full well that I don’t give a flying fuck about what people think about me. The guy died, end of story. Move on.
It is Mrs. Odesio’s custom to provide me with instructions on how to complete even the most basic of tasks. A few years back I was making jambalaya from a Zatarain box, and Mrs. Odesio was providing me with me with step-by-step instructions on how to accomplish a seemingly Herculean task. I don’t weaponize incompetence, I’m not shy about asking questions when I need answers, and she does provide helpful suggestions from time-to-time, but at this point when she gives me unsolicited instructions for basic tasks it just sets me on edge.
My mother-in-law is a nice person. I’m very fortunate that I get along with her and the rest of my in-laws very well. The woman cannot stop talking. A few years back my sister-in-law (married to my wife’s brother) and I were in the living room and our mother-in-law was alone in the kitchen just chattering away. My sister-in-law turned to me and asked, “Is she talking to us?”
Another thing my mother-in-law does is give me “helpful” information while I’m driving. Things like “Watch out, there’s a car coming.” Usually it’s just annoying, but sometimes it’s a bit dangerous. I remember she warned me about a stop sign as I was blowing through an intersection, and as I worried looked around to make sure nobody was going to plow into me, I figured out she meant the stop sign at the next intersection.
You do you, but, depending on what you mean by “televised,” this doesn’t seem like a defensible principle. If you mean “over zoom,” just log on, turn off your camera and microphone, and go on with your day. If you mean it and therefore you will be televised, I can see balking at that, but I’d still go.
I’ve been to a number of poorly attended funerals, and many well attended ones, and the audience (even strangers) really does make a difference to the survivors, who are NOT dead.
I don’t have to defend it, and this thread is not about debate.
Mrs Cad tends to do that. If there are 20 ways to do something she still expects me to do it her way.
Not to me, certainly — I was thinking to your wife.
My retort to this situation has been “You can ask me to do something for you, or tell me how you want it done. Not both.”
My wife does this. Sometimes I’ll hear the first half and miss the second half. She has the uncanny ability to only repeat the half that I heard.
Sometimes she’lll decide that when I said “what?”, what I meant was that I need her to expound upon whatever she said, and she’ll dive into an in-depth explanation of why she told me whatever she told me, leaving me even more in the dark, because I didn’t hear what she told me, hence the “what?”