DH becoming an old man...

[MerryMarigold]

Slurping hot drinks (this is new)
Shuffling around in slippers (can you not pick your feet up?)
Making moaning, groaning, huffing noises with every movement

He's 51. As am I.

It's driving me insane. I feel really bad when I inevitably say something after trying not to for weeks or days. I feel like I'm picking on him when he's a good father and husband in many ways. (Right now he's sorting out a burst tyre on my car which I had to abandon, and he picked me up last night, out early to sort it out).

So I blurt it out: why are you slurping your drink like that? And then I feel bad. But it's just SO IRRITATING.

Plates(of goodies) is why you need a fitness plan surely??

😂😂😂

Might the irritation be caused by the menopause? In my 50s I would be intensely annoyed by anything rattling in the car (to the extent I'd have to stop and rearrange things), shopping music, people humming, but it got a lot better once I turned 60 and now I'm okay with random noises. Well, shopping music still makes me want to burn the shop down but you can't have everything.

Is he happy with his life?

I can’t imagine living with someone who gets so irritable at minor things like that while I was out doing something helpful for them. He’s in his own home, do you expect him to be on his best behaviour for you and constantly worrying he’s making noises you don’t like? Most of that sounds normal and involuntary. Surely there’s lots about him you love and like that outweigh something so small! Also think how you’d feel if you start all this and he turns around with a list of small things he can’t stand about you, I think you’d be hurt.

Take the heat out of it. "Mate/darling, I fucking love everything you do except the slurpy, shuffly shit. If you promise to try to stop doing it I will promise never to mention it again."

(By making it a waaaay less important issue your brain will stop looking for it.)

If you can't have that style of conversation with your spouse you've got bigger troubles that tea and slippers.

Get him to watch this.

Omg are we married to the same person?!

DH has developed all of those habits over the last couple of years! With the incredibly irritating addition of a huge loud "ugghhhh" sound every time he plonks himself down like that single movement is a colossal effort that exhausts him. Yet he plays tennis, football etc and is fit and well.

I think that's what's so annoying. That the strange old man he has become seems to be reserved for my pleasure alone.

Frankly I would like a bit more excitement in our lives as we are far from elderly, but he's usually underwhelmed by any of my ideas so I end up doing stuff out with friends

Do you think that he finds things irritating about you as you are ageing?

This poor guy! We all age. We all have irritating habits - every single one if us. Maybe this man just needs to be left alone and not criticised.

Sounds quite threatening in a PA sort of way to me. I can see many men getting pretty fucked off about being spoken to like that.

We all age, as others have pointed out. He is outside in the cold sorting out OP's shit while she is on Mumsnet bitching about the fact that a 51 year old man has slippers and slurps his drinks. And we wonder why we all end up married to grumpy old men!

He is outside in the cold sorting out OP's shit while she is on Mumsnet bitching about the fact that a 51 year old man has slippers and slurps his drinks

A. Why is it 'my shit'? I got a flat tyre taking DS2 shopping for school shoes in a horrible pothole which I couldn't swerve due to oncoming traffic. It's 'family shit' not my shit - and DH prefers to deal with the RAC man. I wouldn't have minded doing it at all but he is a bit of a control freak about the car (and other things).

B. My 15yo son has slippers. I'm not bitching about slipper ownership, I'm bitching about old-man-shuffling which my Dad only took up around the age of 80 (I don't mind it on an 81 year old).

C. I actually came on MN because I felt bad about the sniping and I got helped by constructive people. Are you very critical yourself?

A. It is your shit because you were driving at the time. Hiding behind your husband's apparent control freakery does not make it less so.

B. Who cares? You were bitching about him doing something you have decided is old man behaviour which comes across as just intolerant regardless of whether it is slippers, drink slurping or some kind of magical shuffling gait he has adopted.

C. I am very critical of most things.

I have to say that I agree with this.

He sounds like a good man. Plenty of people would barely even notice these behaviours. I wouldn't.

If they really bother you then have a quiet word now and then but don't go overboard. Be very sure first that all of your own behaviours are totally above criticism because they probably aren't.

You are in danger of sounding very shallow indeed. I'd rein it in if I were you.

I'd say that even good men can be incredibly irritating at times. I'd second that he might need to up the exercise regime, if he is (or thinks he is) asthmatic. I have asthma and mine is kept under control by regular exercise (although I realise this isn't the case for everyone).

Does't sound like you like him much. These are all perfectly normal behaviours that, in a partner you actually love, would be mild irritances at the very worst.

FYI doing more exercise could make the moaning and huffing worse. I exercise a lot, I'm pretty fit and I don't consider myself old, but the reality is that at 40 the joints sometimes need a bit of time to warm up in the morning. Especially after strenuous exercise the previous day. So there will be a bit of creaky moaning and shuffling. If DP was as angry about that as you seem to be, I'd have to reconsider whether we should be in a relationship any more.

I'm 100% sure you show signs of aging too.

Hmm, I feel for you, but I wish I knew the answer, as DH is the same!
He's 60, in good health, regularly cycles etc isn't overweight, but I can see him gradually turning into his father (who I had a few issues with at the best of times!).
DH's list of irritating habits (which feel newish, but perhaps I'm just now noticing them more?) include:

• Leaving stuff out everywhere to 'remind him' to do something, so that might include vitamin bottles on the kitchen counter, a paint pot in the utility room, empty toothpaste boxes on the hall table... I've suggested he just set reminders/ lists on his phone instead, but he just says he'll forget to look at it
• Also makes horrible chewing noises and often has coughing fits while eating 'it went down the wrong way'. I've tried to get him to see a GP about this, as it's concerning, but he won't!
• Always bringing clutter home and leaving it lying around - free magazines, tickets, leaflets from the library/ cinema. Never looks at it or clears it out. Grrr

I'm several years post menopause and on HRT so I don't think it's that, although I did read somewhere that being on HRT can sharpen your brain synapses o something which actually means you feel like you hear and process sounds better (which may make then more noticeable/ annoying)?

My DH is getting old

He's 49 but I'm significantly younger than him

I love him, he's a kind and decent man but yes, the Covid period had a serious effect on his personality and I am dying inside

I would leave tomorrow but we have small children

I'm no help, but I understand and hope you can overcome

You've got a good man, it seems.

You're in the phase where the 'like me like me' hormones are dwindling and the 'what the fuck is this' hormones are in the ascendant. It's a difficult phase.

It's also about the first thoughts of mortality. That old age and its vile friends will come.

We're 60s/70s and we notice things about ourselves and each other we wish weren't happening.

It's all frightening.

I would just find a neutral time to say, I don’t want us to become old before our time

I think that sounds reasonable.
I’ve said something similar to my husband in the past - not to criticise his behaviour, he wasn’t shuffling or anything, but just because I’ve seen my own mum and also my MIL slip into that ‘I’m old now’ mindset before their time, and then it just gets worse and worse.

I started noticing all these sort of irritations a few years ago. I've come to the conclusion that he's always done them, but my menopause hormones have caused me to be massively intolerant of them now.

Re the HRT note earlier - yes, I notice I hear and react faster, am more creative, interested, busy and energetic than I was ten years ago, now I have hrt.

I don't agree with blaming your hormones for your feelings about someone's changed behaviour.

Slurping drinks and shuffling around in slippers instead of picking your feet up are annoying.

A lot of people on MN say that things like slurping drinks and eating noisily don't matter. They used to - it was considered bad table manners - but that idea is declining, just as manners and courtesy of all types are dying out.

DH is 52 and like this too. Oohing and aaahing at every movement. Mashing and spreading his food because it's too hot. Fussing and faffing unnecessarily.
Drives me mad.

@MerryMarigold and also
@Sartre
Had this years ago, my XH was an undiagnosed type 2 diebetic, had to nag him for weeks to see a GP. Also the deafness is similar from Sartre's post, he grumped that my voice was not loud enough, when he eventually went to the out patients after a GP's referral, he came home with a hearing aid fitted !
Your DH needs to see a GP as soon as possible, try to encourage him. Hope things improve.