To feel annoyed when he tries to compare my achievements with himself?

Hanlon's razor is an adage or rule of thumb that states: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity

Ultimately you have two choices, he either has no self awareness or empathy so he cannot see what he says is bothering you, or deep down he resents your success and wishes to demean it.

I think what you do depends on the rest of your relationship, if other than this facet it is good, then stop talking about these things and accept this as a single failing, however if it reflects this situation overall,then you need to question whether this relationship is for you.

In my experience talking about it achieves nothing, people don't change, they just mask the bits that need changing, or act in a way that is not being true to themselves, so achieving change through talking means living a lie to some extent.

Circumstances change people, but asking someone to think and act differently to how they are programmed, that is a big ask.

If it were me, I would probably make a statement along the lines of 'every time you refuse to share in my achievements, I think a bit less of you and wonder why you do it' and leave him to ponder that without having a big discussion which will only leave you feeling powerless or subservient in asking for a few scraps of approval and praise from someone that clearly, for his own reasons, refuses to do it.

It may be his inability to empathise with you related to the book launch, I think he's attempting to find common ground with you, so he's trying but his ability to relate to it is not there yet. Hence his warped comparison between the books you successfully published in your 30s and what he wrote as a teenager.

I am not saying he has no empathy, his life experience is different to yours.

Meet each other in the middle and try not to take offence. After all you are published and that is something you can be very proud of.

You say clearly and calmly ‘you know, every time I mention my work you say something about when you wrote fiction. So go on then, bring it out. Read it to me, I want to hear this fiction that you need to talk about every time I talk about my work. Why don’t you send it to a publisher? Anyway, let the reading commence!’
he won’t want to. Hopefully he’s embarassed at the idea if his terrible teen writing attempts seeing the light of day. If he gets shirty you say you know what is rude? You bringing up your teen hobby in every conversation about work. I don’t talk about that time I talked in front of class every time you mention a lecture, because they aren’t comparable. It’s really rude and dismissive of me.

This is something I'm prone to doing although just try really hard not to. Admittedly I am likely ASD (prevalent in my family, not me jumping in a trend) and it is something many neurodiverse people do to show empathy.

I'm not at all suggesting he is neurodivergent but I can totally see it being maybe something he does as he thinks he's empathising by relating to his own experience. Doesn't make it any less annoying and you should definitely tell
him!

I also thought this. It is very typical.

Write his personality / behaviour into a character in your next novel. He might even recognise himself as the insufferable arse he is!

Any chance he is ND? Apparently it is their way of connecting with others and they don't see it as rude or one upmanship

Just say something like “can we enjoy my achievement for a minute without making it about you?”.

Maybe you should actually tell him how you feel.

You still haven’t said why you don’t actually talk frankly to him.

For what it’s worth, though, I agree with @MasterBeth — in terms of publications, you’re a hobbyist. Which isn’t nothing, obviously, but if your novel finds a publisher and sells reasonably well, that’s a different matter. Though, still, arguably, not life changing, alas.

👌

This is beyond annoying OP, I feel for you.
I think you just have to tell him
’you know, every time I mention my achievements you have to bring up something about yourself. Yes you have been very successful but so have I, you don’t have to make everything about you’.

Hey, don’t be a CF and I don’t care if I get kicked off for saying so. That’s below the belt. She’s a bloody published writer you snob.

You're both articulate adults, why don't you just tell him how it makes you feel?

You are not being unreasonable; it is annoying!
My otherwise lovely husband does this too. I am a teacher and love my job. Sometimes (often) I'm telling him a story about a class or something either important or funny that happened and he will respond by butting in and telling me all about teaching, based on his tiny bit of experience of marking first years' maths papers for a physics professor when he was a masters student 24 years ago.

He showed me a tiktok video on neurodivergency the other day when the girls hosting the video were explaining that when neurodivergent people sometimes respond to your stories by telling you their own experience, it isn't meant to be rude, rather the opposite. He said to me 'I didn't realise that wasn't what you were meant to do! I do that don't I?' I have long suspected he may be neurodivergent so I do wonder if this may be it.

Congratulations on your novel!

@PrueHal my DH is a professional writer (as in, it's paid our mortgage for 25 years), he gets people he doesn't know contacting him and commissioning work, including 2 non-fiction books, 1 of which was pretty successful. Lots of times over the years people have asked him why he hasn't tried writing fiction. He always, always replies that that isn't where his talent lies, and that he wouldn't know where to start, it's a completely different skillset.

So bloody well done to you, huge congratulations on your success and I think you could, and should, politely point out that you are published author of fiction and that comparing his teenage efforts to your published work is like you comparing your under-graduate dissertation to his PhD thesis.

It sounds like a form of negging, putting down your success as an adult to his limited experience as a teenager. He is downplaying your achievements.

To be honest (I am a published author) EVERYONE likes to diminish those who write fiction. Just think of the number of 'oh, I'd write books too, if only I had the time' comments that just about every writer gets. For some reason, everyone thinks they are God's gift to publishing and they just haven't been discovered yet.

So you may just have to smile, tinkly laugh and say 'yes dear'. It will be good preparation for when you're published and the whole world tries this on you.

I think I’d have to stop him and say ‘Why do you always do this?’ And when he asks ‘Do what?’ let rip ‘You always try to compare what you did at 16 to my success as an adult? I’m published, there is no comparison.’ I’d be so cross at his constant bollocks.

I recommend you read The Exhibitionist by Charlotte Mendelssohn which is a novel about a couple with a similar dynamic.

Fear and denial. She's invested 10 years of her life on this man, and she's beginning to realise he probably isn't the wonderful man she's convinced herself he is for all these years. That's why she wrote this post. She knows there's something inherently off balance about their relationship and she's trying to come to terms with it.

It’s interesting how you’re just point blank ignoring the multiple people asking why you haven’t just said something to him.

Is it just this one thing? If you talk about how you can cook something for example, does he bang on about what an amazing cook he is? If not could he possibly be trying to downplay your success by comparing it to something he did as a teenager or is he trying to find common ground like those people who on hearing your problem will immediately tell you about when it happened to them? It’s hard to tell whether he is a negging bore or just a poor communicator.
Either way, I think you need to spell it out to the man.

Why aren't you just honest with him about the way this makes you feel? I'd just tell him.