to be sick of silent DH during meals?

I lived with DH for five years before we got "married and trapped". He wouldn't have been able to hide it that long.

This!

I’d be livid & would go so far as to stop making / having dinner with him. He’s opting out so can sort himself. Appreciate it doesn’t really help you, but it at least inconveniences him, so might make him think twice.

It is frustrating OP but maybe he's been brought up to eat and not talk at the same time. I was brought up (strictly) the same way and even now I find it mildly irritating when being asked a question when I have a mouth full.
As children, we only spoke when spoken to and the only talking was done when we had all finished eating. We had to ask permission to leave the table too.
As an adult I'm nowhere near as strict as this and I don't expect the same of others , but I'm assuming DH had a similar upbringing to myself.

Well, the two people I'm related to who maintained a total wall of silence while eating definitely did not want to happily chat before and after the meal. In my experience, they do not want to talk AT ALL, as in acting as if you're invisible, and coming to the table just before the meal and getting up immediately after that. If OP's husband was happy to socialise a bit before and after just the time it takes to physically eat, I doubt she'd be so annoyed.

Dh, dc and I will talk and always have quiet music playing. (We both have tinnitus & it helps).

Needs? What do they NEED to be constantly talking through a meal

Try borrowing an idea from monasteries - everybody is quiet while one person reads a book. That way there's less thinking for you to do because you just have to read the words on the page and the children get used to some meals with less conversation. (Obviously you make time to talk elsewhere in the day / don't do this for every meal) The person reading eats before/ after.

Or got married.

"Hmmph."

Ask me how I know.

Yup. This is every meal I ever had with my late dad. Pretty much EXACTLY. Except me calling him a boring old cow. 🤣 God, it was painful. Utterly painful. ExH could be very similar.

Oooh, this is a gotcha, OP.

I’m going to hazard a guess that when they met, he had some qualities she liked and she didn’t think ‘hang on, the fact that he doesn’t speak at the table means that if we get married and have very chatty children, he’ll ignore the children at mealtimes and I’ll have to do all the work of entertaining and conversing with my children while I eat, which will become tiring. So maybe I won’t marry him.’

Yes I think mealtimes should be a sociable part of the day. Eating together, talking about your day etc. and like you say, a good opportunity for your DC to be able to open up about their troubles. I really think he should contribute to this - even if it is not his ideal time because I think you have to strike when the irons hot.
If not, like others have said, does he then talk to them after dinner? Otherwise it sounds like he's checked out of family life and is leaving you to it!

Doesn't work. You'll get a grunt.

Or they didn't do it until they became fathers. Then they started emulating their own fathers more. My FIL almost never spoke. Maybe my MIL didn't mind but it was just another example of how I carried the mental load while he passively sat by. It's very unattractive!

Yeah, but they don't do it on a date, because they know it's unacceptable. They do it once you're married and trapped.

My late DF was like this, which didn't matter when my mother was alive, but after she died it was utterly painful. I'd visit him and the two of us would eat in total silence, including years later when he'd found happiness with a new partner. If people haven't experienced this, they may not realise how awful it is. A total wall of silence, and me trying to make conversation and getting the odd grunt in reply. It's like you're not even there. It's a type of passive aggression, ime. But my dad was a narcissist and a bully. YMMV.

Of course, I went on to marry a narcissist and a bully, didn't I. My exH would either eat in complete silence or he'd talk nonstop for 40 minutes without drawing a breath and would whiplash right over you if you tried to speak.

I LONG for a partner who actually knows how to have a conversation. There was zero back and forth with my father or exH.

Having a partner who is capable of pleasant dinner conversation is a dream that I have not yet been able to achieve.

I feel for you; it's insanely rude and I don't blame you for being utterly sick of it.

Firstly, I would give your DH the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he doesn't realise how rude he's being and how badly it comes across. Sit him down and make him understand that it's not OK to permanently sit out a family activity like mealtime conversation and cast a dark cloud over every meal, and leave you to be the one to facilitate connections. See if it makes a difference.

If he refuses to listen, then he's just a rude, superior, smug arse like my late father and exH.

Oh, that was something the ex decided was a really good idea. Restrict everybody's food until they performed in the way he decided was suitably refined. Massively stressful for the kids, stressful for me, not conducive to relaxing and seeing eating as anything but a trial to be endured and then escaped in favour of eating in secret/without stress or supervision, especially when the way they ate (knife, fork, what order they picked up food, whether it was a suitably feminine'-sized morsel, that kind of thing) was part of his barracking.

I wondered when he was going to insist that the children did tricks like rolling over, sitting and begging by the time he fucked off. After all, he did it to the dog as part of his 'I'm the pack leader/Alpha' Cesar Milan shite.

I don’t particularly like talking while eating BUT despite this I would never behave like your husband. It is obnoxious to everyone and he’s taking you for granted. What would happen if you decided to stay silent too? Would he just let the kids go ignored? And especially when out for a meal its bloody rude. YANBU. he needs to compromise.

There’s a compromise here. DH also likes to just eat his dinner and has done always since we first knew each other at 18.

We have compromised.

A couple of nights a week we eat separately and a couple of nights a week we eat together.

He would never sit silently if we went out to eat though.

Agree, and also sorry but your preference may be to not talk during eating but if you choose to have children, you may have to, you know, put their needs above yours 🙄

Start serving him tiny portions so he can eat then chat. Tell him he can have seconds once he converses.

Or serve him and DC at table saying can he m8nd them as you have xyz to do. Then eat after.

Then keep doing either until he gets the picture. Or call dinner time then have a chat for 5 minutes or so then serve the food.

If he doesn't want to talk over food stipulate that they convene at table 5-10 minutes before food for family time.
You need to come to some kind of mutual agreement

Is there a law that somebody must fill the air with chat at all times?

I hated the ex's attempts to appear middleclass by insisting that all 'normal' families sit and interrogate and tear apart children at the table when everybody's hungry and at least some just want to be left alone to get on with eating.

There's a reason why there's a media trope of the majority of family arguments starting at the dinner table. Best avoided, in my view.

If he was always like this then why did you marry him and have kids with him?

My DH was like this and it annoyed me too. It's not even that he's quiet, it's that it's just another example of him letting me handle the mental load and take care of the kids while he does his own thing on the side. I suspect that may be the reason for you too, OP.

It doesn't really matter now though. Kids are older, they are working and doing things so meal times are more disjointed. We tend to eat informally now, doing our own thing, so everyone is happy.

My husband is like this too. It drives me up the wall! Meals together are often the only time the whole family sit together. The kids feel ignored, and me too. I think he needs to compromise a bit so it feels as if he's actually part of his family!