AIBU for getting fed up of being interrupted when my headphones are in?

[Gastromancy]

Fully prepared to be told I'm being unreasonable, but this is driving me round the bend and I finally snapped a bit today. My partner has a habit of entering a room already talking to me without checking to see if he's interrupting me. I could be reading, writing, working, listening to a podcast - doesn't matter. It seriously winds me up. To be honest he talks quite a lot and doesn't always provide context for what he's talking about. It can be confusing for me and I have to ask a lot of clarifying questions and I feel like a captive audience sometimes (he'll be going on about cars, for example, when he knows I'm not that interested). For full disclosure I am neurodivergent, so it's likely that interruptions and lack of quiet time to myself cause me more distress than is the norm.

I always listen to a podcast or audiobook when I cook, clean and garden, so usually my hands are full or dirty when he interrupts me and I can't quickly pause what I'm listening to without faffing around a bit first. I've asked him many times to please catch my attention before he starts speaking, or better yet just leave me be unless it truly can't wait, because I'll have to drop what I'm doing, clean my hands etc and then find my phone to pause what I'm listening to. We have plenty of time during the day to talk so it's not like he wouldn't have another chance to say whatever it is. However, he has continued to just enter the room and start speaking without seeming to notice my irritation at being interrupted.

Today I was out in the garden sowing some seeds, headphone in, phone clear across the garden and out of reach for quick pausing. He rocked up to me and just started speaking during a climactic scene in my audiobook (The Battle of Helm's Deep in the Lord of the Rings, if you must know) so I sighed and took one earbud out and until he finished and walked off. I carried on gardening feeling miffed that I missed a bit of the book. Suddenly he's shouting up at me from the bottom of the garden, so I had to take my earbuds out again and shouted that I couldn't hear him over the wind and road noise. He kept talking and I still couldn't hear a word, so I had to get up and walk towards him to hear, and it turns out he was just saying something about airing out the shed - nothing I needed to be informed about. He then went back into the house and I was irritated at this point.

It might not seem a big deal, but when it happens every time I try to have some time to myself to listen to my book, the frustration really builds up. I approached him and explained that I felt really frustrated and distressed about being interrupted so often when we've spoken about this in the past. He didn't look up from his phone and gave a perfunctory apology. I tried to get him to discuss it with me, explaining that I find it very distressing, we have talked about it before, so I'm wondering why it keeps happening when he knows it upsets me. He says he thinks he has ADHD and can't be expected to have impulse control and not interrupt me (paraphrasing but that's the gist). I said that's not really fair and he can at least wave to get my attention so I can pause my audio. The conversation went in circles until he got angry with me and now I'm downstairs crying and he's shut up in his office in a mood.

Why ask if you're going to ignore anyone who disagrees with you? 😂

I agree with this - it's rude.

I can understand your perspectives op, I usually use headphones when inside but I would rather prefer to have the volume loud but as there is neighbors, it's better with headphones.

That said id love a house with an underground bunker / office and be able to have the sound up as much as needed.

This is not really the point of the thread, but next time you need/want to replace your headphones, you can look for some that can be controlled from the headphones themselves :) I have some wireless Samsung earbuds that let you stop and start the audio by tapping on the outside of the earbud. I find it very handy if I'm walking with my phone in my bag and need to hear what's going on around me for a moment.

I’m on your side, OP. He come across like he’s entitled to your time, because you’ve raised a concern with him already and he isn’t taking you seriously. A good partner will always take your views into account, even if it’s not a priority for them. He isn’t even approaching you for anything important, it’s just inane chatter out loud. I wouldn’t faff around trying to pause your audio, I’d just say out loud “I cannot hear you, you’ll have to come back in 5 minutes” and rinse and repeat.

My headphones are supposed to have that function, but it usually doesn't work. So I'll be sitting there tapping furiously on an earbud until I give up and go for my phone to pause it. All while he talks at me.

Headphones are antisocial in many ways. That’s very much a positive in some situations, but in an environment where there is some expectation of togetherness and wanting to be responsive to each other I don’t think it’s generally conducive to good relationships.

There are ways to compromise. If you need time when you just aren’t interrupted you need to talk about this with your DH and find a way of working out when that would be most convenient and how to signal it clearly.

A portable speaker might take away some of the issues. However, listening to something without having the pause control nearby is a you issue and should be fairly easily solved by keeping the controls nearby. Living with people who are totally uninterruptible for significant periods of the day, even though they are right there, is normally pretty miserable, especially when that hasn’t been signaled in advance.

This is actually a very straightforward situation - hurrah! Simply ignore your partner when he is talking if you are wearing headphones. Do that thing where you point at your headphones, mouth “sorry can’t hear”, shrug and then go back to what you are doing. Don’t even bother to pause what you’re listening to and, if the situation permits, literally turn your back on him. He will very quickly learn some impulse control when he finds himself repeatedly talking to someone who isn’t listening to him

I’m sure I’ve read this exact same thread before… not that it matters but it’s so familiar!

I think you’re both being a bit unreasonable. You should be able to listen to your book or whatever. But equally it’s actually quite difficult to tell if someone has EarPods in and I would imagine he’s just walking in and starting talking - perhaps his default should be to look for the headphones first but that’s actually quite annoying if you have to live like that all the time.

I also think listening to someone talk about something that they’re interested in but you’re not is part of being in a relationship and you do it because you care about the other person. I have autism and my default setting is actually not to be remotely interested in what other people are saying unless it’s one of my specific things I’m interested in (!) but I understand I have to pretend to be interested socially because it’s kind and polite.

Yep, I hate this... Some women (for the NAWALT brigade) think that what they say is interesting. When my wife starts talking to me about something she's passionate about when I've told her that I really couldn't care less...
(Some) women don't care whether men are interested or not.

It would depend how much you listen to your headphones. If you spend half your day in a bubble, then it would be annoying for your DH
This is the crux of it to me.

If it was a case of not wanting to be disrupted whilst working or when taking an hour to watch something or an hour to sit down with a book, I'd be firmly in camp YANBU.

But if it's not being interrupted when reading, writing, working, or any time there's a podcast on (which seems to involve cooking, household chores, gardening etc) then sounds like OP is expecting not to be interrupted most of the time, even though she says it's max a couple of hours at a weekend. In that case I think YANBU.

Also I wonder if one of you WFH and the other works away. Or one works in a very peoply job and the other not? I WFH in a "non peoply" job so I need a bit of conversation at the end of the day. DH and DS have peoply jobs and are introverted anyway, so by the end of the day they need quiet and their headphones. There is no easy answer to this!

DP is both of you in this scenario, somehow! Always has an earbud in so doesn’t listen to anything or pay attention or fully participate in conversation, but also interrupts and talks from afar and jumps in halfway through what he’s talking about with no context. He does have ADHD though, and thank Christ he’s kind and good-looking because it’s fucking annoying.

This is also my husband and I'm never sure which of us is being unreasonable. OTOH, it's jolly irritating to have to take my headphones out every time he says something (and it's usually "nice robin in the garden" or something equally groundbreaking and urgent). OTOH, I do have a tendency to listen to podcasts a lot and it must be annoying for him to be sharing a home so often with someone whose attention is elsewhere- I know I find it a bit annoying when the kids are permanently plugged in and yet I do the same thing myself. It doesn't seem very conducive to a happy home for everyone to be plugged into their own little worlds 24/7.

What has worked (a bit) is just being v upfront and saying "I'm going to listen to a podcast now" and I think I get then get fewer completely pointless interruptions (although not none), and then at other times when DH is around making an effort NOT always to be listening (because honestly, when he's not here and I'm not working, I listen all the time).

One thing that also became apparent for us is that DH often didn't know I was listening to something as my hair covers by airpods.

You need bone conducting stealth headphones - they can be paused by a swift press to one of the side buttons when hands are muddy, in the sink or when full with necessities; with practice the back of the wrist can be used. This function also answers annoying interrupting calls. Because they do not sit inside your earhole, you can respond with enthusiastic noises to car lectures, political opining and repeat versions of tedious conversational recollections whilst enjoying the soundtrack of choice to your activities.

MapoTofuLettuce
Agree with you.
I enjoy audiobooks and podcasts whilst I'm doing chores, so put them through a speaker rather than having my headphones in.

What works for me is differentiating between listening to something as I'm doing something else, and listening to something because it's a specific interest and I don't want to be disturbed.

He sounds annoying. I'd just ignore him.

I think you need to read OP's posts again. You might be getting a bit confused

It is hard to see when people have their headphones in and they act as a barrier to communication.

I'm torn here, I can see he irritates you but also technology such as earbuds mean many people now wander around in their own little world and are somewhat unreachable to their families. That doesn't sound healthy to me.
By all means I listen to podcasts/ music but not all the time around the house.

I have ADHD. I wear headphones a lot to make otherwise tedious jobs more bearable. Nothing fucks me off more than being interrupted, for the same reasons as you.

If my teenagers (one of which also has ADHD) and my 6YO can grasp that when Mummy has headphones in, do not interrupt her unless you’ve got a limb hanging off, then why a grown ass man (even when who suspects he is ND) can’t, is beyond me.