Is my DH right?

[Hanover31]

Hi all,
We’ve recently moved away to a tiny village, Ive left my friends & 2 years in, they’ve come to visit me 2-3 times in total! I have no family & I WFH. So essentially I have no one to talk to other than DH. This week my DH has had a serious chat with me, he basically said hes my husband, not my girlfriend. He wants me to stop talking about the office gossip/ shopping/ reality tv stuff etc etc. He really wants to hear about how my day was but I need to cut out all that girly nonsense stuff. He said I need to find new friends to fill that void. Is he right? Hes quite a blokey bloke so I get he doesnt want to hear me ponder what shoes to buy but I feel like crap. I just think he should want to hear about anything & everything.. honest answers pls?

your first problem is the stereotyping of "girly" and "blokey" stuff. Nip all that in the bud, it is utter piffle.

Did you move closer to DH family or something? TBH I'd be looking to move back again, because you can't go on like this.

Get some new friends. Go out more. Take weekends off, travel more.

DH is spot on, I too would find it hard to live with someone who could only talk about shopping, shoes and reality TV!

Learn about tanks. My favourite is the T-64 (soviet) with reactiv armour, but the Leopard II is quite fancy.
Really get into it. And talk to him about that. Would that be blokey enough for him?

Do you text/phone your friends ? You say you've accepted that they don't often want to visit you but haven't mentioned whether you visit them . Do you ?

and it's better than encouraging the OP to have a life, not feel so lonely and not being locked up at home all day without seeing anyone because...?

You'd drive me crazy with that kind of conversation, and I'm female.
I'd have thought two or three visits from old friends was quite a lot; you're the ones that moved away. Of course, you need to find new friends - what did you expect? Wild horses wouldn't drag me to live in a village but presumably people don't stare at four walls all day. Surely there are coffee mornings, or walking groups, or WI meetings, or a pub - or something?

You say that you wfh - is this through choice or do you have an option to go into the office ? Just thinking that if there is an option for this it might be better for you in terms of socialising even if it is only occasionally. My son works from home and lives alone he finds it good to go into the office once a week.

i was, of course, being ENTIRELY serious.

He doesn't want "girly" talk. Having 2 children, that is one of the things that i would be addressing: not using shitty sex stereotypes to classify how people do things

Then I'd be looking at how i could arrange things so that i a) have something stimulating to do and b) possibly have something to talk to him about

But mostly i'd be doing c) looking to move back closer to my roots and somewhere where i wouldn't feel so isolated.

(i wouldn't like to hear inane chatter about anything i'm not interested. Lucky me, my DH isn't an arse about how he tells me that I'm dangerously into "eyes glazing over territority" when i discuss the difference between return rollers on the tracks of a T-64 and the V-shaped splash plate on a T-72)

I think your husband has been quite nasty. Perhaps tell him he's boring you next time he talks about something you aren't interested in.
I'm sorry that you feel so isolated.

Me and dp have similar interests like food, films, travel which we talk about. He has his interests like art, architecture, and clothes. I have mine- books, clothes, work, and mumsnet lol. We listen to each other and indulge each other, isn’t that what a relationship is about?

You have my sympathy OP and for what it’s worth I agree with PP’s that it was unkind of your husband to say this to you. I am sure my DH is uninterested in much of what I witter on about. He would never say this to me though. Now to my next point I have lived in a small village for well over ten years. No family or friends nearby. I have explored every possible avenue to make new friends and nothing has worked. In fact it’s one of the main reasons I am on MN! People in the village are perfectly polite and superficially friendly BUT they do not want new friends. They have their own friends and families locally. I suspect the same will prove true for you but I hope I am wrong. My DH knows I am unhappy and we are currently looking to move back to my home town. Plus I am a lot older than you and the lack of amenities or support from family and friends in the village starts to get scary. Good luck OP !

Yes @Lochness1975 exactly this !

Spot on.

Isn’t it also about giving each other some space and having some separate interests so you’re not in each other’s pockets – how can I miss you if you never go away? – and actively trying not to bore your other half to tears?

Fuck that I'd really not be happy with my husband laying down the law about which subjects I'm allowed to talk about.

But then again the description of him as quite de me pull a face so perhaps we just like very different men and the comes with different expectations.

I agree that 'women's' interests are looked down upon. People think somehow tinkering around with metal and kicking a ball is above knitting and crocheting. But would you have the same reaction if it was a woman telling her husband not to discuss 'blokey things' with her?

Whether or not he's being sexist the bigger issue here is that a lot of her topics of conversation don't interest him. The way OP writes it makes me think that it's a lot of the time, not occasionally.

My husband likes computers and video games and would discuss it all day, I also like computers. We like the same movies, TV shows, current events. So we mostly discuss that.

He doesn't really talk about video games with me, nor I pole dance and classical music with him because we don't know enough. Of course I do discuss a new move for for example but I don't go into a deep technical discussion

He does sound rude and dismissive, and no authority on earth gets to assign me a list of approved conversational topics, but is he the only person you talk to regularly? I wouldn’t be keen on being my husband’s sole sounding board and source of emotional support. Marriages work better when both people have friends and satisfying separate lives they can then share the interesting bits of.

Oh so this thread is really about how your husband isn’t as good as your ex?

It's really a big mistake to expect one person to be your entire emotional/social/mental support. It's unfair to them and stunting for oneself.

There are whole facets of my life that my SO has little idea about; he doesn't need to and I don't need him to. It is not a reflection on the depth of our relationship, but we are both reasonably well-rounded people with multiple social outlets and friends/acquaintances of varying longevity.

Can you do any PT work or something to expand your horizons a bit?

My husband doesn't want to discuss "girl" emotional/gossip stuff either.

I also live in a village, but have made friends over the years. You need to get involved in local events - offer to volunteer with stuff, join some clubs.

I now have a nice little circle of friends and we head off to the pub for a gossip once every couple of weeks.

I know a couple of people who got with their DH's early in life, and their DH's 'hung on their every word'. It made them incredibly dull people later in life, as they never got used to adapting their conversation to the listener. They expected everyone to be as easily fascinated as their DH.

I guess I'm saying OP, your DH expressed it badly but it's fair enough that you should not be his sole point of conversational contact, especially if you have the hope that he will just adoringly listen to you, whatever the content.

I moved to a village and knew nobody. DH's home turf so he knew everyone. I joined the PTA and made a couple of really close friends that way. It wasn't easy at first despite me being pretty extrovert to put myself out there but it really paid off. Sure, there were some that snubbed my offer of a coffee but there were a few in the same boat as me, who also wanted to get to know others in their new area. I'm really settled now with a great network of neighbours and friends.

But surely even when talking with friends you are not always that interested in what they are talking about and vice versa?

I am not the slightest bit interested in talking about clothes or shoes but I will listen if one of my friends want to talk about those things I listen.

Also a lot of my friends have children and I don't. I listen to their talk of their children even though I find a lot of it pretty boring. I don't show boredom though and look interested and ask questions. They do the same when I talk about my dogs although I am sure a lot of them are not that interested.

That is what friends do

You're clearly unhappy and lonely in the country, but that's on you. It's not really up to your friends to uproot their entire weekends to come spend time with you. Especially as roads work in both directions. How many times have you been over to them?