To find this really fucking irritating?

[WhatToys]

DH has this habit of hearing the end of a conversation and wanting to know what it was about. Doesn't sound too annoying, but it's ALL THE TIME.

For example, just now DS and I were talking about chilli peanuts, and I agreed with him that they're nice. DH hard me saying that they're nice and he pops his head out wanting to know what's nice.

Or he comes in on the end of a conversation where he hears one of us saying something innocuous like "Yeah I know" or "I suppose" or whatever and he's looking around going "What?" wanting to know what the conversation was about.

I wouldn't mind if he heard "Oh my god, are you serious??!" or "No way! That's amazing!" - something that sounds really interesting - but it's just random, not especially interesting, conversations which DH then expects us to relay back to him.

There's no issue of us hiding anything from him - that has never been the case, so it's not like he has some kind of worry in that regard. He's just being nosy, and I'm finding it really fucking irritating.

AIBU? Would this annoy you and if so what would you do / say? I don't want to make a big deal thing of it.

Yup, my DH does this. Wanders in and says "what's that?". I usually just say "nothing important or interesting".

YANBU OP - it is really irritating. As time passes you'll either just learn to live with it, or you'll want to bury him under the patio. Thankfully (for DH) I have learned to live with it, but I do see my DM flinching when he does it!

OP - if you say "Pardon" to something your DH has said, does he also simply repeat the very last word of what he's just said, rather than the whole sentence, like my DH does??

My DM used to moan at me and my DF for this and as I'm now on the receiving end of it, it is really fucking annoying!

Then he ends up pissed off with me when I say "I literally didn't hear a word of that sentence - what on earth makes you think I'll know what you're talking about when you just say "potatoes"??" (or insert other random word here)

I would keep saying “doesn’t matter” or “wasn’t important”.

he could just be worried he’s missing important stuff he needs to know about. You could talk to him about it when he’s not just done it and say that you find it annoying that he makes you summarise all your conversations with the kids or anyone else if he walks in at the end of the conversation. It makes you feel like he’s constantly checking up on what you are talking about. Tell him you will tell him if there’s anything important he need to know about, but otherwise please stop asking everyone what they were talking about.

I would just say ' honestly it's so trivial I really can't be bothered to repeat it ' that normally does the trick

Lol my DP does that. I'll be sitting with earphones in and see his mouth moving. I'll pluck one out and say "What?" then he'll say "Next month."

Or he'll say something from another room, then get annoyed when I ask him to repeat what he said.

This doesn't bother me, though. It takes seconds to give someone a summary of what they missed. But that's because I'm usually the person coming back from the toilet asking "What did I miss?" 😬I didn't realise that annoyed people. I just hope they don't expect me to remember the convo that I was never a part of at a later date.

Why do you care? Honestly the fucking thread police are all over mumsnet at the moment, it's so tiring.

Please believe me when I say his hearing is perfect. And (as I keep repeating - how ironic! 😅) this doesn't happen when he's in the room for the conversation. It's when he comes in on the tail-end of it.

Re. genuinely annoying vs me being a bit precious about something small... it's probably a bit of both!

@ChiefWiggumsBoy it's kind of the verbal equivalent of that! I might try that response and see how it goes down 😄

@NoSquirrels he's not particularly easily offended. I've never done the"nothing interesting" reply. It's generally quick and easy to relay the conversation... just a bit irritating when he died out regularly and it's always something so banal and irrelevant. I've never left him out of something that's interesting or actually matters, so he has no reason for any fomo.

@CFLandlordStory he had a happy childhood, no abandonment issues of any kind, never been left out of anything. I would equally often walk in on the end of a conversation between him and the kids, but don't feel the need to question them on what they were talking about. (An OMG! moment obviously is completely different - this I could fully understand him asking about.)

@WireSkills one of us mishearing / not hearing something the other said isn't an issue at all - we'd generally just repeat the last sentence and 99% of the time that's enough.

@threecupsofscreams I usually do, and one of the kids fills him in. I've never said anything to them about it, but I noticed DS joking with DD "You're like Dad now" when she did something the other day, so they're obviously noticing it too. I'm not going to mention it to them - neither DH nor I would ever give out about each other to the kids. We're very loyal to each other, and have always been a united front. This is why I'm offloading here instead 😁

@dudsville a little like that I guess, except in that case those people have to be filled in on what's been discussed because its actually relevant to them. Imagine if the meeting had no relevance to them, but they still wanted everything relayed.

... when he does it regularly, not when he died out regularly. Bloody autocorrect.

...DS joking with DD "You're like Dad now" when she did something similar the other day...

Is it his way of joining the conversation?
If he’s out of the room and walks in and immediately starts a conversation about the football or something surely that would be a bit rude? Almost like what he wants to talk about takes precedence over your conversation.
This way he’s showing he’s interested in talking but your existing conversation takes priority.

YANBU. My mum does this and it's so frustrating having to repeat totally innocuous conversations back to her. She doesn't add anything, it's just nosiness.

Op, my mum does this. Other posters who are feeling sorry for your husband clearly haven’t had to live with it.

it’s infuriating, you can’t even have the most mundane exchange of words with somebody without having to replete them.

I have honestly got to the point where I have told my mum she is literally wasting hours of my life by making me replete ‘I’m going to the loo’, ‘I bought toilet roll today’, the soap is in the cupboard’, ‘I’ll do a wash later’.

I have told her repeatedly that she does not need to know every boring minute detail of absolutely everything and that if relates to her or it would be helpful for her to know, I will tell her.

At best it’s nosiness and at worst it’s complete and utter self entitlement.

Please believe me when I say his hearing is perfect. And (as I keep repeating - how ironic! 😅) this doesn't happen when he's in the room for the conversation. It's when he comes in on the tail-end of it.

You seem not to understand what I am saying - maybe he could hear you before, even when not in the room - and now he cannot. I can hear what my family are saying in the kitchen when I am in the lounge. My DH can't.

I think sometimes each of us develops a little verbal habit which other people may not even notice, but may also drive them bats.

Recently my friend has taken to explaining "why" things are the way they are. E.g. Me: "It's sad when all the plants die back" Friend: "that's because it's autumn". Yes I fucking know that's why, I didn't ask why, I was just talking to you

No doubt I'm doing something that annoys him just as much.

I think honestly you have a few choices that may work:

a) just ask him to stop, say it's become a bit of a habit
b) say "too boring to explain" which honestly is explanation enough most of the time. If he then insists on knowing, do the tediously detailed explanation suggested earlier.
c) as a PP said, lie wildly. "What's nice?" "retraining as an astronaut, didn't i tell you?"

I find it irritating when posters don’t put the subject matter in the thread title. I clicked thinking it would be about that.

Well I hear your pain and am prepared to swap you your for one who is happy to observe conversations without ever adding anything ever.

Give it three days before you want to swap back.

You seem not to understand me 😅 His hearing is perfect. He hears things close-up, far away, mid-distance... how many more ways can I explain it? It's nothing to do with his hearing 😉

I'm glad some of ye "get it" 😊 - he's not deaf, and not trying to join in the conversation - he just wants to know what we were taking about.

@Fairyliz there's a middle ground between wanting to know what we were taking about (for no apparent reason) and rudely barging in and talking over us. If I walk in on the tail end of a conversation, I just start up a new one once I know the people in question are finished theirs. It's not complicated 😁 I manage it by waiting a few seconds to see if they're finished, and without quizzing them!

I have a friend who does this. Three of us meet for coffee. She is always 15 minutes late so arrives mid-conversation. She demands to know what she’s missed, so the entire conversation has to be rehashed for her. I find it very tedious.

I used to do this 🙈. For me it was a social anxiety thing, particularly where I wasn't sure the others liked me or thought they were closer to one another - worried that I had missed something or would be left out. I appreciate it has the exact opposite effect as it's very irritating, which is why I worked quite hard to stop it!

I agree it's irritating, my 11yo does this.

I'd be annoyed too. It's just not being able to let other people have their own conversation without having to know the whole lot. Rude and irritating.

My mum does something similar with TV programmes. Comes in at the end and starts going "who's that person? Why are they doing that?"

My son does this. Fairly irritating!

I totally get you OP. DH's family do it with one another all the time, especially when they're together in a big group. A and B will be having a totally innocuous/dull conversation, say about something A watched on TV last night, C and D will be talking about something else entirely. C's ears will prick up at the mention of some name they recognize or similar and they will suddenly jump into A and B's discussion mid flow, abandoning their previous chat with D and totally sending A&B's conversation back to its starting point, what show are you talking about, what actor is that, when did you see it and so on. Annoying, but OK. Then just as A, B and C are all on the same page and about to start talking about the show, in will come D and say 'what? what show's that you're talking about' and so A will have to repeat themselves all over again, by this time C has lost interest and wandered off to join E&F so A doesn't know whether they actually want to hear about the show or not, and B has heard the initial really-quite-dull introduction at least 3 times before the actual point has been made! Very frustrating. If it's something even mildly complicated or hard to understand (English is not the first language for several of them so sometimes side explanations need to be given as to the meaning of certain words or whatever) it's even worse and each conversation actually takes ages each time and everyone can wind up even more confused or totally losing the thread. The room is also then super noisy with each person trying to participate in 6 different conversations going on at once, some of them in different languages, at cross-purposes or multiple repeats of the same thing and my introvert brain ends up fried and I get snappy and rude with them!

I don't have any suggestions for how to stop it other than either stop having these sorts conversations in his earshot but without actually involving him, or just wander off or change the subject if he starts wanting you to repeat all the details of every conversation every time? Or just be so colossally, achingly dull he learns to stop, e.g. he comes over and wants to know what it was you were telling DS about peanuts, you say oh no DH it's boring, he says no go on, you then monologue for 10 mins about all the peanuts you have known, where you've bought them from, the minute variances in chilli heat and so forth, until he cries with the tedium, begs you to stop and wishes he hadn't asked?

I get it - they weren't involved in a trivial conversation about nothing important, then come in at the end and want the whole thing repeating for them.

Bloody annoying - be in the conversation or not, but don't expect a recap afterwards!

My sister does this, she also has a super irritating phone habit..

She will talk to others when on the phone to me, without warning - I realise and just wait (or occasionally, hang up if she rang me and is then talking to someone else!)

However if I need to speak to my DP who is often in the room with me (which she knows), I will say 'one second... DPname... can you/is this/pass me... ' whatever it is... something brief but can't wait.

She will immediately respond with a faux confused 'eh, what, what are you on about' as if the idea that I am speaking to someone in the room with me is TOTALLY ALIEN to her, and has happened without warning and she genuinely thinks I am asking her to pass the post/pint/stop the puppy pissing... even though obviously I cannot be as I know she's in her car or her house!

Once or twice would be fine but it's EVERY time - does she forget I live with someone and he is usually here? She remembers that well enough when talking about him (phone usually on speaker). Does she think it's funny? Is she not listening so has not heard me ask her to wait a second?

I don't know, but I bloody wish she'd stop it, it happens a lot as she rings me multiple times a day whilst she is at work (driving. bored) as she also appears to think I have nothing better to do but await her phone calls (also, v irritating).

Well my choice of words was not the best so don't take any advice from me! I complained to her that she was being nosy wanting to have the conversation rehashed when it was about a really boring nothing topic and it was silly of her to keep trying to butt in at the end. As I said she got upset because I was rather short with her, not the best way to go about it clearly and it didn't achieve anything. @WhatToys