DH cuts me off and doesn’t actually speak when he thinks he does

[Tirrrrredd]

I’m having this problem where I’ll be speaking, and get to the end of a clause (sometimes not even the end of a sentence) and DH will butt in and respond to it when I wasn’t finished speaking yet. It’s frustrating to me because often the latter half of my thought would either have answered the question he responds with, or was important for context, and I have to stop, explain that he cut me off, and remember what it is I was originally trying to say (which can be difficult because I have ADHD.)

DH tells me that I “pause” like I’m done speaking, but I’m fairly certain I don’t? Other than the normal amount someone would pause after a complete sentence or between clauses (think comma and period length pauses, not like, stopped speaking and looked over at him and otherwise indicating that I’m done speaking and waiting for his response.) I feel like he is just not listening particularly well, and blaming it on me.

He’ll also hear what I say to him, not verbally respond, and when I prompt him to verbally respond, he insists that he did and that I just “didn’t hear it.” This is also a problem when he “reminds” me of something he supposedly told me earlier, and I have zero recollection of it. When I gently suggest to him that maybe he only thought he told me, but didn’t actually verbalize it, he accuses me of gaslighting him. The worst part of it is I’m never sure whether it’s me forgetting what he said completely because of the ADHD (sometimes he can give me specific circumstances that jog my memory) or if he just never said the thing in question in the first place.

What do I do about this? I’m at a loss

Good grief, what absolute guff 🙄

I’ll overhear his phone conversations sometimes, and it seems to happen then, too. The other person will start the next sentence and end up trailing off or talking at the same time as DH. It’s remarkably stressful to listen to. I also think he hangs up quite abruptly, sometimes before or even in the middle of the other person’s goodbye (or in his mother’s case, in the middle of her “I love you.”)

I don’t feel interrupted with other people as much.

Love it

Is it more or less efficient to try to eliminate the most likely misinterpretations ahead of time, do you think? I think that’s what women are often conditioned to do, since we’ll experience things like men thinking we’re flirting when we’re just being nice/polite, for example.

It can be awkward or cumbersome to have to correct someone when they’ve misunderstood you. (Also you have to figure out first if they have actually misunderstood you or if they have properly understood and what they’re responding with is just… their response.)

ICK is shorter

I could have wrote some of this! I have ADHD and I try and get everything that I'm trying to say out before I forget 😂 DH interrups me and when I say to him he apologises and says he had a thought and will forget it if he doesn't say it straight away 😂 he also gets excited 😂 it's bloody annoying though! He also doesn't respond when I've said something to him for example "we have this event on the 12th" he doesn't go "ok" so I say to him how do I know if you've heard when you don't respond? He doesn't think he needs to and I'm like?! How do I know you listened then?! 😂😂

Exactly! I’ve told mine the same things, and he was bewildered as to what he was supposed to say. I was like, “At least grunt, or something!”

Exactly I said that too 😂

Good communication skills can almost always only result from having had good coach/coaches and plenty of practice and self correction. Mistakes and hurt feelings are par for the course.

i think good communication skills are also related to many other skills such as emotional regulation and patience. There is nothing innate about these skills and we are certainly mostly not born with them.

This is also not purely related to gender, I think. So I belieev turning it into a battle of the sexes is not a long term , workable solution. I think mutual respect is a long term workable solution.

Excellent question. I think listening to the podcast I posted earlier up in the thread answers this better than I can in a few words here.

I think you are thinking deeply about this because it truly bothers you and it is worth spending some time hearing what a good coach has to say on this.

The podcast is an hour long and covers a lot of ground. Good luck!

There was a guardian article the other day about a man who realized he interrupted and talked over people. He has written a book “STFU” about teaching himself to stop.

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2025/jun/26/i-was-one-of-those-men-who-couldnt-stop-talking-heres-how-i-learned-to-shut-up-and-listen

“I was one of those men who couldn’t stop talking. Here’s how I learned to shut up and listen”

I've got a friend whose dh has a policy of never talking over a woman. It's a remarkably different experience talking to him, almost feels weird, in a good way. After a while, it's noticably relaxing.

I think if people don't let you finish, it's clear they're not interested in what you have to say and/or don't respect you. Sadly.

I struggle with interrupting people and talking before they’re finished, I don’t mean to do it but I seem to constantly misread when in a conversation the other person has finished and I admit I do find it hard, if I have something relevant to say, to wait to say it as I will forget or lose my train of thought. I always feel really bad when I am called out for it pr sometimes when I notice it myself and do try not to but seem to do it anyway. My family are all the same so I’m not sure if it’s a habit I’ve picked up or if it’s because of my autism or adhd, but I just don’t seem to be able to stop doing it even when I try. I know it’s annoying for people and that some people think I’m very ‘me me me’ which isn’t the case, I feel bad for it, but I also don’t know how I’m supposed to know when it’s my turn to speak, if I try too hard not to interrupt by waiting for the right time to speak in a group I find I end up not saying anything because someone else always says something before I realise I can and then I feel sitting in silence annoys people as much as the interrupting so can’t win!

My husband does this and, after many years, ow accepts it. If I have something important to tell him that I know he is going to react to, I tell him to hear me out before he reacts and I will let him know when I am done. It works and he is good humoured about it.

I was going to suggest this mainly because I’ve asked my son many a question and never got an answer and I always assumed it was me but actually looked him dead in the eye last time I asked him and he swore blind he had answered me. He did, in his head but he certainly never spoke. We laughed. He’s ND.

Going against the grain here, I’m your husband and you are my dh.
He has adhd and when he talks he has all these jittery thoughts in his head, he talks round the houses and often doesn’t get to the point, often huge pauses while he forgets the original point he was trying to make. During these pauses of this long monologue I see it as a chance for me to talk and add my thoughts to one of the things he originally started saying before he went off piste.

He also regularly completely forgets things I have told him. Usually on a daily basis and gets furious when I’ve mention I told him earlier. He’s convinced I didn’t.

How do you cope @Ninkynonkpinkyponksas that sounds torturous?!!

But mine will cut me off during like a 2-3 sentence thought, well before I’ve gotten lost in the weeds. Sometimes on even shorter ones.

Like I said, sometimes he can jog my memory with what he’s said (“do you remember when we were in the kitchen and you were drinking chocolate milk and I said…?”) and then I’m like, “Oh yeah, of course!” But other times it’s just ???? And he can’t give me any details about it. That’s when I get convinced he didn’t actually say anything.

I love talking to my brother. We're both rambling interruptors. If you drew a diagram of our conversations, they'd look a bit like a row of backstitch as each of us interrupts the other and then traces back to what the other person says. Other people have said they don't know how we cope with 'arguing' so much, but it isn't arguing! Also, we are both certain we have ADHD.

However - we both worked in talking professions (sales/consultancy) where effective communication with all kinds of people is key. I've noticed that we simplify the backstitch effect when it's important to keep trains of shared understanding in motion. This looks like waiting for the cue to speak - or, with people who don't do cues, for a clause or concept to break - and feeding something back to them about what they have said. It reassures everyone that you're still understanding each other.

You can keep this very short. One of the oldest tactics is simply to repeat the last bit of their speech. It works, but if you do it often you sound like a parrot 😂 You can usually do a micro-summary, or even just use a filler like "Mmm". It's not a good idea to ask a further question if there's a chance they were going to answer it already, but "Tell me more" is okay.

There is a sex difference here, though. Men are far more likely to have been raised with a belief that their words are valuable and everyone should listen. Workplace research shows that men perceive women as talking too much when they speak 25% as much as the men! One way of handling this is to maximise the "I'm listening" feedback while also forging ahead with the thing you wanted to say.

It's quite a tricky balance to pull off ... and I divorced the guy whose silences were as important (to him) as his words. It wasn't the reason we broke down, but it did make meaningful discussion impossible.

A variety of people do this to me all the time. I've ask many people their opinions of do I speak ina way that is inviting people to cut in over me, and none of them have said I do.

So now if someone cuts in over me, I'll do one of a few things depending on the situation and my mood.
I'll cut over them and say "I wasn't finished". "Let me finish please".
I'll just turn and walk away.
I'll wait untill they are finished then continue on straight from where I stopped, not acknowledging what they have said at all.

My partner had acknowledged he does this to me, but isn't sure why. He is autistic so we think it might simply be that he picks up on any slight gap in a conversation is then his turn to fill. He has learned though that I tend to scrunch my eyebrows a certain way when people cut in over me so when he sees me to that when we are talking he now stops and asks me to continue. He gets it a good 8 or 9 times out of 10 now so I'm much less annoyed when he does it. He doesn't mean too, understands how it effects me and is actively trying to stop it.

My brother has also noticed various family members doing it with me too. He's stopped the conversation more than once with a few of my aunts asked me a question, then cut me off after I've said a few words, never mind a full sentence.

God I had forgotten my ex used to do that thing - not of interrupting me, but of not responding at all when I would say something, then insist that he had replied. I realised he had replied in his own head, and thought he had said it out loud. (He is undiagnosed but recognised by him ASC) It was infuriating, it just felt like being blanked / ignored.

Very glad to hear that those two are being mindful and looking out for you 💙

Here too.

I'm autistic. The kids are autistic. We communicate in imperatives or with minimum words. (Eg: shoes on now. )