He rang me at work just to slurp at me…

[FeminineRageTheMusical]

This is meant to be light-hearted but also I want to set my own ears on fire.

I have always been sensitive to eating noises, but recently DH has just been taking the absolute biscuit. Chewing his food, about every third chew, he opens his mouth slightly, and this makes the most horrendous noise. I have asked him very nicely to please chew with his mouth closed, and he insists that he is doing, and then gets upset about being self conscious about how he eats in front of everyone. I didn’t think it was humanly possible to slurp nachos, but he managed it at the weekend and I just had to leave the room. He then gets in a huff at me about it, but I could have ripped my own ears out if I stayed there any longer! I had to explain again that the noise of the slurping was just too much for me.

Today though, I’ve had enough. He is WFH and I am at the office. He rings me at lunch time for a chat. That’s nice I think. I was wrong. He had one thing to tell me about from his morning and then he starts slurping. I ask what that noise is. He is eating soup. He then just slurps. No more conversation, just slurping down the phone at me. Like he rang me at work just to slurp loudly directly into my ear. I had to make an excuse and hang up because I just couldn’t deal.

AIBU to leave the country before I gouge my own eardrums out???

(Practical advice and jokes very welcome)

I have misophonia. There are some things even I can’t eat because I can’t stand the sound of them being eaten (pork scratchings) Fortunately my family are mostly sympathetic (those that don’t have the same issues)

But phoning you up at work so you can hear him slurping? Not even funny!

Most people who hate noisy eaters don't mind animals doing it, which is so irrational .I know because,I am one of them. I can't explain it.

The most murderous I have ever felt was a bubblegum popper sitting behind me on a bus and I didn't have my headphones 😭.

Pretty sure he is being passive aggressive.
Call him out every time - let him be offended and have a tantrum about his "hurt feelings" - he should be accountable for acting like an ass!

I totally get what you mean, and your post gave me the ick, even if he was Tom Hardy. Have you mentioned it to him? I get not wanting to hurt his feelings but I'd rather know if I was him. Do you think he could have always done it but you've only just noticed? I never noticed stuff like this until after I had my second baby, and I get how unbearable it is! Sending an abundance of ear plugs and patience 😂

Yep. He's purposefully winding up the OP, then making out that her reaction is unreasonable.
Sod that.

OH regularly calls me, puts me on speaker phone, puts the phone next to her keyboard and talks to me, whilst typing (apparently with sledgehammers)

It drives me insane

I see on here loop earplugs recommended, in the name of sanity, can someone recommend good ones that work, please
Solidarity OP, I feel murderous at times, I'm OK if I'm eating as well, but otherwise...

Current DH has a wide range of eating 'noises', mainly due to speed eating. Long term surveillance and diagnosis (with curly lip and gritted teeth) concludes childhood open plate/food sharing/stealing backstory.

Frisky, giddy tamborining is a pleasing and effective counter strategy. Tra Laa

I’d probably be saying something like this to him: “DH, I need you to sit and listen while i tell you something, you’re going to be tempted to interject and ‘deny or defend’ yourself but i need you to push past that and actually listen to me because I need you to understand the severity of the matter but also not act out while i’m speaking and de-rail the conversation. Can you do that?

you have recently started this gross habit of being excessively loud when you eat, and I can’t work out if you’ve just run out of polite ducks to give and this is going to be just how you are now, and you fully accept that people are going to look at you like you’re some deranged animal
OR,
and I don’t know if this is worse,
but you are purposely doing it TO me because you think it’s funny to make yourself repugnant to me (and in which case you seriously need to consider the consequences of that if you ever want sex again!!) or to wind me up because you get some kind of kick out of pissing me off because either there is some resentment on your end towards me or you are purposefully trying to sabotage our marriage and you want me to go nuclear on you/us, but you can have a get out of jail free card and just tell everyone our marriage ended because I was being unreasonable over “nothing” and make it out like i’m crazy and irrational.

I don’t want a response from you right now because this was hard for me to say and i’m feeling very vulnerable and I worry without some space, all that’s going to happen is we are going to fight, so let’s take some space and please have a think about what i’ve said.
Also, we don’t hate to talk about it again if you don’t want to and think it is something you can alter with minimal disruption for you?

I have misophonia. Finding the babbling brook noise on my phone used together with noise cancelling headphones is a game changer.

Poor DH eats noisily, to me with my over sensitive ears anyway, so we eat in front of the television and the noise drowns it out. The DC are at university so it's not like we are missing on family conversation.

Would you really say all that?

My DP has developed the habit of standing in the doorway of the living room, eating a bowl of crunchy cereal, so he can watch the TV. It means he's crunchy loudly somewhere behind me and drives me nuts. Also means I have to say 'excuse me' and squeeze past him when I want to leave the room to get away from the noise.

^

abso fucking lutely!

she has clearly had enough, hence this post, and she could either accept this is her life now, or address it head on.

if you need to get your point across on a emotive topic with a manchild, sometimes you need to lay the groundrules out first, then address the issue!
by showing him you have really taken to heart the matter has to hit home for him (hopefully!)

@Fromage
What is baby Sharking? 🤔

With a LOT of words, is my point?

yes, and apparently people like you are the reason things need to be explained in great, specific, well worded detail.

Firstly i wrote it - i have no reason to not put the way I would genuinely handle it 🤷🏻‍♀️
(I appreciate some people do love to troll on here but I don’t know what about my response indicated I was anything but serious!)

You then got it in your head, just because it’s (apparently) not how you would handle it, I was somehow lying?!?

Then, instead of just going “meh, not how i would deal with it but swiftly moving on” you decided to challenge me on it.

I then responded confirming that would indeed be how I would handle it.

You are now here doubling down and not believing what you are being told 🫠🫠

Do you think I’m lying or an idiot who doesn’t know my own mind 🙈

Also, why does it effing matter to you THIS much 🤷🏻‍♀️

Bet you love lighting a few gas fires dontcha 🤨

You have misophonia. It’s a genuine thing. My partner is the same, even with his mouth fully closed I can hear him chewing and sucking things. He also slurps soup, and sloshes hot liquid (like tea) around his mouth ‘to cool it down’ before swallowing. It makes me want to punch him in the throat.

Get yourself some earplugs that help take the edge off the sound. Flare and Loop both do brilliant ones.

On the whole though, eating down the phone is just revolting and horrific manners.

My partner (knowing I have misophonia) admitted the other month when we had a ‘make or break emergency summit’ type war council to save our relationship that sometimes if I’ve annoyed him he intentionally follows me around or stands closer to me when he knows he’s eating something noisy. He’s stopped doing it now, because he’s realised how childish and unhelpful it is. And that misophonia is a genuine thing.

One thing you need to be careful of OP is that it might not be entirely that they’re eating noisily. Misophonia makes you extra sensitive to these noises. So even normal, acceptable and unavoidable levels of noise can set you off.

I find Flare or Loop ear plugs are absolute game changers for me misophonia. Flare ones smooth the channel of your ear and make the sound less ‘jarring’.

My partner does it on purpose because he knows I hate it. I eat in a different room now and won't go back in the room until he's finished.

Singing the song Baby Shark at someone.

LTB

Not lighthearted at all OP - this is awful. How old is your DH - 12? Not only is it incredibly immature but it’s a horrible thing to do, knowing that you are sensitive to noises like that. And as a pp said, the phone would amplify it & make it even worse. He clearly holds you in contempt 😢

This isn’t actually light hearted - this was my experience when married for about 10 years, I noticed the strange way my husband ate, the way he twizzled his food laden fork around before plunging fork in mouth, the way he flicked his fork at mashed ptato, patted it with the back of his fork three times then lunged at the forkful, slurping his coffee, sort of sucking it up, shovelled food together with his knife and fork, other things but I am trying not to remember athougn I do remember I stopped making soup,too slurpable.
It was hard with small children, teaching table manners, hoping they would recognise his oddities and not emulate them.
I realised that I could not bear to live withhim any longer, the mealtime rituals being
a part of this realisation, not the whole.
When we had separated, he would phone on Friday after work, whilst slurping a mug of tea. I askedhimto stop phoning. Who wants to listen to slurps. It’s so common.