DH boring me constantly

He sounds very lonely. Sounds as though his life has become small.

@DHbore Never marry a sound engineer or a techy by the way- they can bore for England . The big issue OP (and I have a similar situation) is that you are just the recipient of their stream of consciousness- it's why I go to a co working centre and pay for the priviledge- I could easily work from home and choose not to

Many people identify with their job/ career to the degree that it defines them, they can lose their sense of self. Wiser persons might respond with "It's what I do, it's not who I am" when discussing work, jobs and careers.

I get interminable rants about politics. I'm quite interested in politics but this is a monologue and quite ranty. I tune out and think that he's basically a good bloke apart from that.

I also heartily encourage his bike rides and pub quiz night and lunch out with his blokey mates - who are all better at managing this/interested in it/tell him to shut up/there's more of them so it's dilute.

My BIL is like this but DS deals with by telling him he can tell her once and once only. She gives him the option of telling her now or at another time so sometimes he saves it up so she can really pay attention to his very long, detailed monologue about some aspect of trains.

It's all done very kindly and gently and BIL accepts he can go on a bit so it works well for them.

This is unfair on you. I couldn't be arpund someone who talks at me to such an extent. Can you buy him a gaming headset or something and at least encourage him to socialise virtually?

Pretty sure they'd have an inkling anyway 😉

Does he listen to you when you want to talk about things? Or is he just using you a sounding board?

I am a chatterbox so can fight fire with fire. At least I never feel guilty about going on about things, I am owed a lot of listening.

DH is obsessed with a certain pre war car. Luckily he has written a book and articles about it, so has a wider audience. He gets emails and phonecalls from fellow enthusiasts and they all talk among themselves. This is the best way...I mean, he will still tell me interesting snippets but generally will discuss things with his fellow nerds. I do love his enthusiasm, but not to the extent of it dominating our lives. Generally I find the trick is to start a conversation on something I am very interested in, and then he gets sucked in despite himself.

Mine likes to talk about Prog Rock too. As interesting as chopping boards.

Yeah, but Skittle colours are interesting!😁

Listing things is my DP’s style. He doesn’t bore me with his hobbies as he knows I have no interest, but Christ almighty he seems to think I’m a Dictafone or notepad for his thoughts. Like he can’t keep hold of a domestic task or list unless he’s downloaded it to me: I’ll be sitting peacefully reading a book and he’ll come into the room and go, “Right, I’ve unloaded the dishwasher and out everything away, reloaded it, I’m going to tidy the kitchen later, first I’m going to the shop to get [lists everything]. Dinner tonight is the exact same thing we’ve talked about 300 times and that is also written down on the meal planner precisely so bussteward doesn’t have to hear about it, tomorrow it’s ditto but you’re going to hear about it anyway. Just need to go to the loo, change my contact lenses, put a jumper on and find my shoes, then I’ll go and…” On and on and on! I never get the brain space to daydream or contemplate because I’m always hearing that he’s going to the fucking loo or putting his fucking shoes on.

Parallel conversations are your friend here. Whenever he starts, you begin a parallel conversation on a different (but equally boring) topic.

'I bought 200 chopping boards today'.
'What colour of skittle do you like best?'.
'I got them for a really good price'.
'Hmm, I think the red one'.
'They're going to be delivered on Monday so I'll need to make sure I'm in to take delivery'.
'I wish they'd put more red skittles in the packet, don't you?'.

And so on.

My Mum is exactly like this and won't take ANY hints, people edging away- she follows them, changing the subject- she brings it back, telling her I've heard it before- tells it anyway, telling her I'm not interested- carries on. It's exhausting.

She also likes to list things, I've got lamb chops, pork chops, a bit of gammon, fish cakes, steak, cauliflower, broccoli, spuds....on and on.

Be careful suggesting a hobby.

My husband got into cycling. He then became addicted.

He then started cycling in and out of work every day (about 30 miles)!

Every bloody night he'd get in and talk about his Strava stats and how long it took him to cycle up a certain hill, how fast he could do it compared with strangers who'd logged the speed on Strava, how many calories he burnt, his heart rate, whether he'd beaten his personal best speed, blah, blah, blah!

I was tempted to stick the bike where the sun don't shine!

Oh God, I think this might be me with my DH. I wfh, he works long hours out of the house, no kids so I never really see anyone. I can feel myself waffling on about utter shite to him because I just need to talk and have human contact and I can sense he isn't listening. And I don't blame him! I am sure it's the same with your DH.

You've just got me looking at wooden spoons on Amazon, OP. Is he Tradeco?

get some headphoned or you might hit him.sounds so boring

He'd have to literally BE Paul Newman before I could feel this way.

You can encourage him to start a blog or write forum posts (which you'll promise to read of course... 🤭) for others with that special interest/hyperfocus, or for others in general. Mine constantly did in a nice way, but I never took him up on that suggestion!

I love listening to my OHs hyper fixations… maybe that’s just me! Usually true crime. I love how passionate he gets about stuff.

granted it’s not about spatulas or solar panels though…

Oh dear, all of this sounds like me 😂 I've always been quite long winded, but it's got worse with wfh. And I feel even more free to be long winded around DH than around friends etc. I also tell my DH all about online forum stuff against his will 😅

"Turn the tables" won't work – the thing is I'm genuinely interested in every little detail about my DH's life and work too, and will listen/ask questions with rapt attention!

My DH tends to be polite (though his pain is obvious 😂) but my family has given me brutal feedback! What I did was make it a fun challenge to myself try to get the story/point across in less than 3 sentences (2 was too ambitious 😆). Just state the most interesting or relevant stuff!

Look he does sound incredibly dull. But in his defence...
'I say that’s interesting'
It doesn't matter that you're saying it with a tone that says I'd rather pull my own arm off than hear another word, it sounds like what he hears are your actual words, which are that it's interesting. You don't have to tell him quite how dull you find it all, but do find another generic platitude that doesn't risk encouraging more dry chat.