What is this new behaviour all about!?!

[subtleartofnotgivingafuck]

Married 20 years. No major issues and no health issues. Good life, we share chores and tasks equally - happy household normally.

However, I have noticed over the last few months he has developed this insanely annoying habit or not contradicting me, but sort of correcting me. All the damn time. Now the below is going to sound petty because its only one or two – but trust me EVERYTHING I currently say gets a form of correction, adjustment or a clarification added and it getting really old. Some examples

Me: We have four black and white cats Him: Well, three. Cat 4 has a small grey patch.

Me: It rained yesterday Him: Except at 12 o’clock when the sun came out for a bit

Me: The PIL are coming up from Devon on Wednesday? Him: East Devon, midweek

Seems like nothing right? harmless..................... but he is doing all the time! Everything I say he manages to find a small correction, error or problem with and he points it out. This was the one that caused us to have a little bit of barny and he stopped doing for a few days but restarted about a week later.

Me: I filled up the car at lunch
Him: Mmmm it was at 1400, that is a bit later than lunch.
Me: Ok, why did It need the clarification?
Him: What do you mean?
Me: You could have just agreed, left it or said thank you – but instead you chose to point out an error in my timing
Him: It was correct though
Me: Was it necessary or polite?
Him: I don’t see the problem -it was correct
Me: But I am asking do you think it was necessary or polite? Even if it was correct.
Him: You are getting bent out of shape over nothing

argument commences

Anyone come across anything like this before? He has just done it now in a conversation about a bill I'm off to pay and it nearly drove me to scream. Please believe me, its become constant.

Nothing else has changed. He is loving, engaged and still does little things to make me happy. I am so confused. I am also finding its changing how I speak to him to try and avoid the correction I know is coming. Which makes me sound long winded and I still get a correction!

Me: We have four black and white cats, though one has a grey spot.
Him: and a dog

(Yes I am aware of the irony or my username and this little rant - I got the book in a vain attempt to Just ignore this change in behaviour)

That would drive me crazy!!! I'd just raise my eyebrows, roll my eyes and fake a yawn.

Point it out every single time the irritating cunt he does it.

If it’s recently started, it does slightly suggest he feels aggrieved by you for some reason, and so is feeling a need to correct or undermine you. Going so far as to make total shit up in order to do it is another level though.

I think you need to sit him down, tell him how you feel and ask him what the fuck he thinks he’s playing at.

If he genuinely doesn't realise how it feels, and just thinks he's adding clarity, I'd do it back to him so he knows how it feels repeatedly (just 1 or 2 times doesn't really get across how tiring it is... keep on doing it, and resist the urge to prematurely say "see? this is how it feels"). But if it just turns into a toxic cycle then don't do it back to him.

Also people do change as they age, my dad went from easygoing to a nitpicking (like what your husband does) grouch. But personality change is usually global, you say "He is loving, engaged and still does little things to make me happy." which is what is confusing

This would drive me nuts, I’m annoyed just reading your posts. What a prick.

I think its very odd to have come out of nowhere. BIL does this and frankly, DH and I have spoken many times about how on earth my sister puts up with it. He is, overall, a lovely man and we all get on very well but both DH and I find spending more than a few hours with him now and again exhausting. But he's ALWAYS been like that. This is sudden and new and very strange.

I do think you need to ask him why he's suddenly feeling the need to be so pedantic. List the examples above and say you can't understand why you need to be corrected. That everything you said is correct, albeit not necessarily providing all the detail. So I'd say 14:00 is lunch myself, just the end of the lunch time period. 4 black and white cats is true, even if one has a grey spot (unless you're describing them because they're lost when you'd need to add the additional detail). Then see how he responds. Because I'd be thinking a range of possibilities from he's now getting irritated with you (either because he's always been irritated but now it's just reached a tipping point or because he feels differently as a result of an affair or similar), to there's some weird medical condition that is coming out at this point in his life.

Spike his guns.
This is so funny when you do it.

Me: We have four black and white cats
Him: Well, three. Cat 4 has a small grey patch.

You oh yes your right one has grey, so 3 black cats and one with a grey patch.
Conversation ended and he doesn't get to argue back.

Me: It rained yesterday
Him: Except at 12 o’clock when the sun came out for a bit,
You , oh yes, the sun did peep out for a little bit.

Conversation ended and he doesn't get to argue back.

It gets to be your game, refine it and you can correct him as you agree, and he will wonder why your smiling,

It sounds as though he's bored - either with you, the conversations, or in life itself.

Could you turn it into a shared joke, OP without it causing offense? That is often a great way to change a bad dynamic.

Can you not just tell him OP and see what he says?

Every time, tell him "Don't be a cunt mate".

I'd start pulling him up every single time he does it. It's annoying but it's possible that it's subconscious on his part. My OH (also together 20 years) randomly started mansplaining all sorts of obvious things to me a couple of years ago. It was infuriating! I let him know, every single time, that it was unwelcome and annoying. He's stopped doing it now.

Those conversations go both ways from where I am reading. You sound like a right boring pair of pedants

It sounds like he is dissatisfied with his life and taking it out in you. He feels small or useless and by correcting you he's making himself bigger or more important. Look outside your relationship for clues. New energetic young man at work? Next door neighbours getting a full extension or a top-of-range car? Everyone else holidaying in the Bahamas? It could be another woman but I'm thinking more of the starting of midlife crisis .

I have an employee who does this. It actually gives me the burning rage.

To the point I’ve had to bring it up in her appraisal. It hasn’t stopped her. She can’t help herself.

You have my sympathies as I find it exhausting and I only have to work with her three days a week.

The thing is, it's not actually "correcting" in some of these examples - he's not being pedantic (I believe in pedantry, and this isn't really it!).

Saying "East devon" instead of "devon" adds nothing - both are correct in this context - unless I guess you are in South Devon or somewhere?! And "midweek" is less precise than "Wednesday" - unless he was recalling what they had said and making the point that "midweek" might not necessarily be Wednesday? In which case he should just make that point directly?!

To be pedantic, pedantry is obsession with minor details and/or mistakes. Which yes, is OP's DH. So Devon and East Devon are both correct but for someone who is pedantic, the level of specificity and detail required means that East Devon must be added. Similarly, the rain example - both statements are correct but only a pedant would feel that it needs to be specified that it did not rain the entire day.

I suspect pedants also find it very difficult to look at the big picture in other ways. Certainly, some of BIL's stories suggest that he has NO concept of the bigger picture but on plus side, he is in a role where that is fine and he does very well, is very successful and is well regarded and respected. So it works.

'How is that contributing to the conversation dh?'
'Well the cat does have a grey spot'
'You are correct, but I asked again - how is that fact coming tributing to the conversation'

'How does that contribute to the conversation DH'
'Well it is north Devon'
'You are correct dh, but how is that contributing to the conversation?'

You could just tell him he's right 'the cat has a grey spot - correct dh'

@subtleartofnotgivingafuck does he have any type of OCD or other non neurotypical traits? ( I know someone will have a go at me for asking this or how I've phrased it) I recognise what you are describing in my H.

Has this only just started happening OP? If so could something be wrong medically?

I have experience of brain cancer in the family and his behaviour started to change subtly. We only found out when he had a seizure and put it down to other things. He was in his 50s.

Sounds like me and my 6 year old. Really f*cking annoying. Don't blame you!

Sit down with him and show him this thread, or just give him the examples and ask if there’s anything he wants to talk to you about which could be behind this change in character.

I'd be concerned that there was a neurological reason for this change in behaviour but it would still annoy the life out of me!

My mother started doing this (and starting arguments over the same things) when she started getting “forgetful.” I don’t know if that might be relevant to you! I think it was her way of trying to claw back some sense of control. I gave up starting conversations with her at all because it became so exhausting (and unbelievably irritating). I can’t imagine being married to someone who does it.

So annoying when people do this all the time. I had an ex who kept doing this and no matter what I said he had to do this. Hence an ex as it got so tiresome listening to him all the time. There is a name for this if you look it up where someone keeps disagreeing with you even if you said the sky is blue and they go no wait it is bla bla bla. Is he middle aged as seems this is when a lot of men start this crap. Tell him to stop it or you won't talk to him as it is beyond annoying.