to be sick of silent DH during meals?

He's not stopping her talking

Not if he has always been like this. But I’d refuse to go out for meals with him.

A lot of people saying that’s just his preference and how he likes to eat his meals. But they have a child, things change and you can’t always get what you want.
OPs issue is a chatty child during meal times, asking lots of questions and wanting discussion. I don’t think it’s fair that she has to single handedly converse. She might like a relaxed, quiet meal too, but can’t because of their child’s chitter chatter. Why does the husband get away with staying silent? They need to parent TOGETHER. Either both engage and respond to their child, or together come up with a different solution for quieter meals.

DH has always been like this

Omg yet another of these.

You presumably realised he was a silent eater when you started dating him and when you moved in with him - it's a fairly obvious habit, and it didn't change. If you didn't like it you were free to leave (and would not have been unreasonable) but you chose to marry and have kids with him, knowing who he was!

It should be so simple - if someone has habits that you dislike or that annoy you, don't marry them. Marrying someone is an acceptance of who they are, both the good and the bad.

And?

Yes but he has always been this way. To expect a change is madness despite the circumstances changing.

Well obviously if you are eating alone you won't have anyone to talk to, but this thread wasn't about talking to yourself whilst eating.

Not everyone eats together or around a table or even at the same time OR the same food.

Apparently people can't imagine the different ways of having your tea.

I hate yappers during mealtime , unfortunately I seem to have produced two of them and they’re just like their dad so they can all crack on and not drag me into the conversation. Especially when we’ve been fasting all day, I don’t know where they get the energy to discuss religion and politics after not eating for 12 hours 🙄

Happy families!

Once again I thank Mumsnet for reminding me how good it is to be single.

They sit in respectful silence until the other one has finished? the thought of this gives me the heebie-jeebies. Imagine sitting there eating whilst the rest of the table is just listening to you chewing.

Again people are interpreting any conversation during a meal as endless chattering and inane constant blather.

Do you really sit in complete silence with just the sounds of chewing and cutlery until all the food is gone? What if someone finishes first? They sit in respectful silence until the other one has finished?

My DP doesn't like talking at meals, I've been told off for 'talking with my mouth full' which is inaccurate, but he just has a bugbear about it, so I don't say anything now and we will watch a video or something. It's so weird because I was brought up in a household where we chattered during mealtimes and yet no-one was speaking with a mouth full of food. I doubt you can change him OP, but it is unfortunate for family meal times as it's a great time to share about one's day.

My ex husband did this as well. I thought it was incredibly ignorant. He'd be the only one not talking or listening at dinner parties or family gatheings. It was embarrasing quite honestly. It was like a food trance.

Stop being so dramatic being quiet at teatime doesn’t make you a bad parent
you’ve filled a lot of blank in there with no facts

No, I didn't invent it. She said "He just sits and eats, barely even noticing us". That's doing no parenting.

It's not reasonable for him to continue his life unchanged after having children. That seems to be a common theme for (some) men, while women are expected to go part-time / flexi their work around childcare, give up their sleep cycle to do all the overnights etc etc.

This. I can’t believe the number of responses supporting DH absconding daily on his parenting duties. I bet the mum is the one who works to make the dinner. He swans in, eats it, ignoring his wife and kids, including when they are talking about their worries/ meaningful concerns…

its just one of many instances when men silently step out of making an effort, leaving the woman to pick up the slack.

Family dinner is probably one of the few times everyone is together. So what are the kids learning from this? 1. Men get to do fuck all while the woman makes the effort. 2. My dad isn’t interested in me.

You do know there is a happy medium between talking nonstop and sitting in a gloomy, unsociable silence?

It's called normal, polite table manners.

Whoah, what century are you from?

To be clear, I have no time for poor table manners. My DD was taught to sit at the table, eat properly with a knife and fork and could manage to eat with her mouth closed from a young age. In fact, as I have mentioned up thread, she was used to eating in restaurants from a young age and a couple of times when she was still small we had strangers compliment us on her behaviour in a restaurant. I don't say this to boast but to illustrate that I think I knew very well how to teach my child to behave at meal times.

But I genuinely think her behaviour was due to the fact that she grew up seeing that sitting round a table with her grown ups was a pleasurable thing when we talked to each other and paid attention to each other.

Your attitude reminds me of how my late DM used to describe meal times when she was a child. She was born in 1932. I never knew my GF but he always sounded like a bullying git TBH. My DM used to recount how they had to sit and eat in absolute silence and we're terrified of disturbing their Dad during meals.

Thankfully my childhood wasn't like that. We all ate together every evening as a family and shared our day's news over the meal.

My mother used to talk nonstop during meals. It drove me and my sibling mad. Are you like this?

What happens when you say "I don't know Horatio, ask Daddy" or "what do you think of that Phillip? Horatio is really worried about trumpet lessons". Does he acknowledge the direct qn or ignore you?

I agree with absolutely everything you say!

DH and I have been married for nearly 40 years. Our first date was a meal out. I think if either of us had sat there in silence just shovelling in the food there wouldn't have been a second date.

We too have so many happy memories of meals out on holiday and at family get togethers. We started taking our DD to restaurants when she was about two and by the time she was four or five we could confidently take her to any restaurant and know she would behave impeccably. And I think the reason is that she grew up seeing that mealtimes were sociable occasions where, yes, we enjoyed the food, but we enjoyed each other's company even more.

I suppose I have never had much sympathy with the view that food is just fuel to be consumed out of necessity. I see it as one of life's pleasures and, where possible, a pleasure to be shared.

So many happy family memories around meals.

How about today your cheap “sour grapes” comment doesn’t cut it as an excuse. Why shouldn’t OP be hurt and disappointed? The reason he gets angry is that he knows it is dog ignorant and he just can’t be bothered, it is too much intellectual and cognitive load for him so he can’t cope.

The reason it is too much cognitive load for him is that he has never practiced. This is a part of parenting that he just can’t be fucking arsed with, so somebody else has to do it for him. But we aren’t allowed to talk about that. We have to pretend he’s some Victorian patriarch, that hasn’t deigned to engage with us. Pathetic!

In Indian culture, we don’t really chat around the dinner table. Mealtimes are seen as a quick job to finish as soon as possible. Chapattis are made fresh and served one by one, straight off the hob, so you kind of serve one person at a time. You might have 2-3 people eating at the same time, depending on how fast they eat their chappattis!

So on a normal day, there isn’t loads of chatting while you’re eating dinner.

However, we usually have dinner around 8pm and have ‘tea’ earlier around 5pm, depending on when everyone’s back from work or school. That’s when we have tea/coffee and snacks together and spend time chatting about our day.

My DH "zones out" during meals, and barely notices anything happening or contributes to conversation.
Once DS dropped a roast potato and went under the table to retrieve it, me and DD were laughing, DH who was sitting next to DS had no idea that had even happened.

Our kids are teens, often meal times actually are one of the rare times they'll talk to us or tell us things.

He rarely takes in what anyone is talking about, and is like it with extended family as well. He'll insist he didnt know one of his nieces or nephews had gone travelling/changed job/split from their boyfriend etc....because he took no notice of what anyone was talking about!