DH noisy eating makes me want to jump out of a window

[RedandGreenBauble]

DH is a mouth breather. He has sleep apnea and cannot breathe out of his nose. He chomps his food loudly with his mouth open. It is unbearable. Cereal - he slurps the milk loudly then chomps the cereal. I am losing the will to live. He enjoys crunchy vegetables and chewy meat - he chews meat for bloody ages. 😡 His friends have commented how loud his eating is. I remember early into our relationship we were sharing a box of chocolates, I heard the horrific sound of him chewing loudly in my ear and honestly thought that he was messing around to make me laugh. Nope. That was how he actually ate! You may ask why I married the man!

I have to put one finger in my ear without him noticing to block it out. Sometimes I physically recoil backwards without meaning to and he storms off.

He says I’m controlling how he eats or trying to stop him eating.

When we eat out it’s actually not a problem and he has table manners. It’s just at home that he chomps like a cow 🐮

So, dreadful combination - my misophonia and husbands horrific eating habits. My putting my fingers in my ears when he eats is probably not nice for him either.

When we eat out it’s actually not a problem and he has table manners. It’s just at home that he chomps like a cow 🐮

….. so he’s choosing to be revolting.

Ignore his accusations that you are controlling. People trot that out as if they are entitled to behave as badly as they want and anyone voicing any objection is controlling. So they actually get to control what the other person has to tolerate.

People treat misophonia as a joke but eating noises really can drive people insane. I wonder if he's doing on purpose to get attention.

I could her my STBXH eating cereal from across the house through closed doors 🫤

So he can control his bovine grunting and slurping when he is with company/eating out/with other people, just not around you at home? So it’s an active choice?

i have sleep apnea and horrific sinus issues that needed surgery, and will need more surgery. And I love food. But I don’t sound like I’m rooting out truffles in a forest in France.

The 3 apples after a meal seem to indicate this. There's just no need.

Misophonia is horrible. I have it. I have to separate myself from people eating and drinking and if people even pick up a drink the anticipation gives me full on rage.

I've had therapy, I can't control it. It's sensory hell.

I've got loop earplugs but they're a double edged sword as well. 1. You can't always anticipate when you're going to hear a noise that will trigger the response and 2. It's always when you've got them in that someone decides they want to bastard talk to you so they're in out in out shake it all about.

I take the approach that anyone who has capacity to understand misophonia and chooses to not make any adaptations or accomodations is choosing their behaviour intentionally.

I actually had an ex who said that he liked the power he felt he had by making me squirm which just confirmed everything I knew anyway and good riddance to him.

I totally feel you - I have something called misophonia where certain sounds drive me INSANE to the point of where if I don’t escape it, I burst into tears from the stress.

one of my worst ones is loud chewing, slurping etc!
I also can’t stand whistling, sniffing, tapping and many others.

I’m sorry you’re going through this - my husband knows I suffer so he does try and be quiet but he also understands if I have to leave the room.

I tried CBT once for it and the therapist sat down and literally said to me “what is misophonia”? It’s so under-researched that even a therapist didn’t know what it was after I self diagnosed myself and tried to get help!!

tell the cunt to shut his mouth

I have misophonia and he could be a handsome billionaire and I wouldn't have married him.

It’s hard to explain misophonia to someone who doesn’t have it. It makes me feel genuinely disgusted and overwhelmingly anxious to escape it. I’m actually not AS bad with crunching and crisp sounds involving the teeth- although I do hate those too. For me it’s more anything sloppy, sloshy and involving the sound of saliva and wet stuff moving around 🤢. The sound of people chewing gum and any sort of mouth and lip smacking is awful for me. I don’t even like words related to eating sounds- yum yum, nom nom etc……Unbearable.
The observation that his is worse when he isn’t paying attention may actually help you here. Maybe you have a no devices at the table rule when eating, point out to him that he is much more pleasant to eat with when he’s eating mindfully. Otherwise I just wouldn’t be near him when he’s eating in other scenarios.
And yes he sounds like he has a nasal/adenoids/upper respiratory issue that needs looking into.

This 🤣🤣🤣

Table manners are deal breakers in relationships.
Record him and play it back for him.
It is bullying and controlling for him to tell you what you are allowed to be repulsed by.

I couldn't live with that, nor would I want to.

I can absolutely imagine it being relationship ending.

I also have misophonia and eating noises make me so anxious to escape! My exdh is the worst, I'm sure he did it to torture me! And I hate breathing noises too. Dm always jokes I want her to stop breathing as I can't bear to sleep in the same room as her.
I mostly just bite my tongue but I can feel myself digging my nails into my palm and the stress building up inside. Sometimes I just have to pretend to need the toilet to escape.
I'm almost 60 and as a child it was the noisy breathing and snoring that stressed me out as my df was very particular about good eating habits, not slurping and eating with your mouth closed etc. Perhaps he has it too but it wasn't recognised then. Exdh was obviously raised to be a pig!

According to exdh table manners are used by the upper class to suppress the lower classes!! I can't remember his exact reasoning but obviously he has none! Being brought up by df who drilled good table manners into us it was always a bone of contention. Thankfully our 4dc have excellent table manners despite seeing exdh talk with his mouth full, eat like a pig, elbows on table, taking food from other people's plates, not using his knife etc. They are suppressed according to him.

Listen to music through earphones or put on noise cancelling headphones.

When we eat out it’s actually not a problem and he has table manners. It’s just at home that he chomps like a cow.

So he can eat properly when out, out of consideration for other diners but chooses not to at home. That's pretty shitty of him and nothing to do with you being controlling. I'd have to eat separately from him, sleep separately too, at which point why not live separately and be done with it.

Yikes, much sympathy.

I think all you can do is reiterate you have misophonia and his inability to take that into account will inevitably damage your relationship.

My STBEX either didn't believe in or didn't care about mine. He always always slurped his hot drinks, despite me very clearly explaining the effect it had on me, and me often having to leave the room. He got narky when I recomplained but ultimately he didn't care enough to bother to stop.

Every slurp killed a bit of love. I could even feel it happening. In the end, he went off with someone else but I think a big part of that, apart from his selfishness, was that I'd emotionally and physically withdrawn from someone who every single day on multiple occasions chose to do something that clearly distressed me.

It's a control/dominance thing, so that all the attention is on him. Even negative attention. My ex husband had 2 settings. One , where he'd deliberately eat like a pig. Two, where he still ate like a pig but was distracted by tv, so mindlessly eating like a pig.
Reason 101 why he's my ex husband.

I have misophonia as well. I play music during dinner so I can't hear it

I am with you all. Mine can eat nicely when out. At home? No. I really don’t want to see contents of his mouth, hear all the associated noises and see as much food shovelled into his mouth at every occasion so that his cheeks balloon. He puts one thing in his mouth then tops it up 3 times before swallowing.

Oh I hear you OP! My H drives me insane with his eating! He leans over his plate and practically inhales the contents on it. He doesn't even swallow a mouthful before the next shovel goes in. All the grunting and breathing ..... gives me the rage!!!