Does your partner ever ignore you when you speak?

[Tespondent]

I don't know if IABU and I just talk too much. Or if I'm being perfectly reasonable and my partner is just incredibly rude and disrespectful.

He frequently ignores or doesn't acknowledge me when I speak, and it's so demoralising. I have spoke to him about it on several occasions and he says "well I didn't have anything to say".

Example from today - I'm doing the garden and noticed one of my plants (ornamental orchid) has started to sprout again and it's multiplied. It had 2 shoots last year and this year there is 3.

I'm chatting telling me partner this and he doesn't even look up from his phone.

This happens at least once a day if not more. I might aswell be mute or just speak to myself.

AIBU to want an acknowledgement, even a short "oh very nice" or "mmmm" and a nod would suffice.

Sorry OP, I frequently ignore my partner when he waffles on.

In fact I sometimes tell him to be quiet, he takes no notice anyway.

My ex used to.

If I asked a question and he didn’t know (or care to know) the answer he’d just ignore me.

If I queried him ignoring me he’d splutter indignantly, “I don’t know the answer.”

If I don’t know the answer I say that. It did my head in. It’s one of the reasons he had to go.

If DH ,who never stops talking ,makes a comment about anything he needs a response. I find it strange.

To those of you that have said you don't respond to your DP - do you often speak to yourself or make conversation without expecting someone to respond?

I genuinely find it quite demoralising to be ignored, with work and young children we barely get chance to speak so it's not like we're retired and I'm just rambling on all day.

I cannot abide this. My husband did this at the start of our relationship. Learned behaviour from his mum I later realised. His favourite would be to pick up a newspaper and carry on looking at it as I spoke to him. If he was clearly ignoring me I'd say something like 'Oh, its clear you aren't listening to me, I'll stop speaking then'. He would then prick up his ears and say 'what was that?' and I'd refuse to repeat it. Drove him crazy as he is really nosey.
Alternatively, if it was something he needed to know I'd say something like, 'OK I am telling you this and if you choose not to listen don't you dare say you were not informed later on' - again this would usually be enough to make him tune in. Or he chose not to, when whatever consequence of not listening took place, I'd simply say 'I told you on x day in x room but you chose not to listen - don't blame me.'
Unless it was in my interest to impart the information regardless, I would not continue to speak to him when it was clear he was not listening.

Of course it's demoralising OP. The posters who say they regularly ignore their husbands are in a minority. It's horrible to be ignored. It's basically telling you that you aren't worthy of his acknowledgement or interest. Life doesn't generally consist of earth shattering conversation. It's usually made up of mundane day to day things and momentary observations. Bet he doesn't ignore men when they're talking to him.

YANBU. It's super annoying, my OH and DS x2 all do it to me even though they're the ones that waffle on and on and I politely listen and respond, even if I'm being mansplained to. I'm my own worst enemy. Gonna employ some of the strategies mentioned here from now on.

No OP YANBU, part of the point of being together is the company so when someone is so switched off that they don’t even give a cursory nod or some such yes it is demoralising. It does eventually grind you down as well as maybe some of the others on here don’t need it judging by their responses, but I do like having interaction with my significant other!

I'll be honest, I'm guilty of this when I get a long technical explanation to something I wanted a Yes/No answer on. Or a blow by blow account of something work related I neither understand or care about. I don't scroll or read a newspaper though - I'll empty the dishwasher and try to look like I'm listening.

If he is doing it for the odd thing eg orchids then Im not sure I'd take it that personally, if it's literally everything that comes out of your mouth, you have a problem.
Do you two go out together solo at all? How do you make time so that you are forced into conversation because if you are not doing that, it's really hard to get a rhythm back that you had when you first met.

If he's not interested in anything you have to say, what's the point of being together?

It's really disrespectful not to acknowledge you.

I think if you're at the stage you think your partner waffles on tediously and doesn't deserve a response, it's not a healthy relationship.

I bet these who do this to their partners don't do it to their friends/ colleagues/ other people they meet and spend time with. So why is it acceptable to be down right rude to your wife/ partner ?

Why is "looking at your phone" taking precedence over real people in your company seen as normal behaviour?

Yes OP you are right to be upset. He is a bad mannered man and he obviously wants you to know your place.

Yep, ex LTP would frequently do this. It's one of the reasons he's an ex. Unfortunately we're still living together while the house gets sold and one word answers or just plain not answering are more understandable now that we've officially separated and are just tolerating each other. However, sadly, i realise it was pretty much the same when we were in a partnership. And I'm not particularly chatty. It's hitting home now just what i allowed myself to put up with over the years. Can't wait for the sale to go through.

Yes my H does sometimes ignore me when I speak as I do to him, but as with most things context is key.

H is in the office today, motorway commute, long day, I very much doubt I would get any attention when he gets home about a plant with an extra leaf, I have been in the garden today, I have no intention of relaying specific details. Saying this the younger teen has a bundle of fun news and H, no matter how tired would always listen to that.

If he was in the garden, on his phone, no work, just enjoying a day, then he would listen to me whitter on about additional leaves, compost turning and whatever else that was mundane and irrelevant.

So it depends.

He rarely choses his phone over his family, unless we are being particularly boring and he's just got in, or has had a harrowing day and just needs a bit of decompression time and no one has anything of any groundbreaking importance to say.

In answer yes he does sometimes ignore me when I speak, but he never ignores anything important, he never, never ignores the teens, he never ignores me at leisure and a lot of the time he loves conversing and I am his favourite to talk to to and we can spend many a weekend night laughing, debating over the kitchen table with a wine and good food, music on and never need to pick up a phone or turn on a screen for distraction.

I don't think the ignoring is an issue stand alone. When it is the default, well I guess that feels quite lonely and I couldn't feel like that in a marriage that is not what marriage means to me, or H.

Depends on what he’s doing. If he’s reading or watching something on his phone why should your observation about how many plants you have take priority over that?

My husband does this to me. He’ll see me reading, and just start talking at me, or shove his phone in my face to see a hilarious video, no thought for my autonomy, for my choice to read what I want. No, he must be heard and I must be his audience. I’ve started reading what I’m reading out loud when he tries talking at me now and he usually storms off. His time is not more important than mine. What he wants to show me or tell me is not more important than what I’m already doing.

There’s actually a study (Gottman) about this. How often you can ignore your partner before you damage your relationship. I would add that the study shows that stopping what you’re doing to listen every time is just as damaging as frequently ignoring them and doing what you want all the time. There’s a balance to be had in all things.

My ex husband did this. I'd have a lovely day at work with nice people and then I'd go home and be ignored. When we went into the first lock down, I really struggled. I felt like i was disappearing.

He still does it. So glad we're not married anymore.

I was going to also comment about this study, but I have never heard that second part, that being constantly interrupted by your partners "bids" for attention is just as damaging. That makes a huge difference to the common advice regarding this study!

Is this possibly a symptom of not having much time to talk in general? As in, was he always like this? I know in the past when life stuff robbed us of good amounts of quality time it was harder to click conversationally when there was only a chance to talk for short bursts. For one thing we weren't even trying to be good conversationalists and interest the other person like you do when there's a proper date amount of time to fill. We were just stream of consciousness rambling. The other thing is, you're not as in tune to what's important to each other. If it's the first time the plants have come up, and it's something expected/positive he might think you're just talking aloud and expressing pleasure and he has no opinion to share, but if he was told about the struggle to get the seeds started he can at least say "Oh are those the ones you thought wouldn't make it?" I have been on both sides of this; guilty of barely realising he is actually talking to me, so little is the relevance of the conversational topic and I've also been the one saying "Use your words! Don't just make noises at me!!!" It does seem to help loads if we make time for each other and are clued in to each others little ongoing problems and interests.

I'm sorry, this is disrespectful. I'm a chatterbox but at least my husband pretends to listen and make the right noises. And if he needs quiet time he tells me. I hope you can get through to him, explain how it makes you feel.

There's some really helpful advice and insights in these comments, thank you for taking the time to reply and for those who also experience this then sending solidarity your way.

Lack of time could be a contributing factor, but we've both been off work today and been out with our DC then spent the time in the garden this afternoon. It's been relaxing and enjoyable and he'd actually just knocked the pot over next to the one that the orchids are in, and said oh what's in there is it empty?

I then replied saying no it has X in and the one next to it is blah blah blah. So probably even less reason to ignore me since he asked me a question in the first place.

It's definitely a family trait, as there have been times when I've been chatting to them (rarely see them in person) and I've just had zero response. My partner has walked out of a room when I've been speaking in the past and once I stopped mid sentence to see if he would notice and he didn't bat an eyelid.

I don't think I'm constantly vying for his attention, I try to be really aware of when I speak to hopefully pick a good moment where I won't be ignore. Basically because of how shite it feels and how it impacts our relationship.

The funniest part is that almost every day after work I get a full 30-40 minute run down of his day and all the ins and outs of it, and God help me if we get on a motorway because like clockwork he will start an hour long chat about work and his progress and how great he is haha.

Of course, as his partner I listen and contribute where requested it's just funny I can't get a basic level of emotional recipocrosy.

Tell me if I am talking out of my arse, but I think you're looking for affection/emotional reciprocity when you speak, and he's actually looking for conversation. They are actually two different things and different communication styles. You say you're pleased by something that happens with your plants and you expect him to say he's pleased that you're pleased etc. Which is sweet and lovely, but it's not conversation. He's going into the nitty gritty of work problems because problems make for great back and forth or you can offer advice (see Mumsnet threads for examples of this). Interesting conversation is an emotional need too. It's common for people who have it to assume everyone else does too. If he's trying to converse with you, he'll ignore anything that isn't explicitly a conversation starter. Whereas you may think you could absolutely do without the sagas he's describing in place of some thoughtfulness.

I thought that was just the poster's opinion.

You can probably find the paper on Gottman’s ratio (bids for attention) online if you’re interested. It’s amazingly accurate (in the 90%s) and found that couples who responded to each other’s bids for attention at a ratio between 3:1 & 5:1 would have a sustainable relationship. Too many responses or at the other end too few (a ratio of 13:1 or above) indicated unhealthy communication and that the relationship wouldn’t last.

Yes, dh does this frequently. But to everyone, not just me. It’s rude, but he just doesn’t pay attention to shit. How he manages to do the work he does and actually be successful at it, I honestly don’t know. But friends, family, the children, he’s away with the fairies and not paying any attention. Our eldest is exactly the same and it drives him nuts, because he doesn’t even notice he does it.

OK, so next time he's unloading about his day leave the room. If he doesn't like it ask 'oh, you do it so I thought it was ok'.

Also, for that and the motorway scenario, don't reply or do acknowledging noises anymore. If he gets annoyed you can respond with 'I just didn't have anything to say'.

This is the kind of thing people may say is 'petty' but I think of as showing people how rude they're being by serving it back to them.

Or, OR, it could be that he assumes everything he says is fascinating, and also that what his partner says is trivial and he doesn't have to listen.