I am 38/M living with my SO of 8 years and our daughter(7) and we have her other 3 kids(17/F, 16/m, and 14/m) about half the time. She works first shift and gets home around 4pm and goes to bed about 9pm. We usually both help with dinner and I do my best to keep the kids to a low roar so she can play a few hours of games at night. (Sims, animal crossing, etc.) I would also play a video game or watch YouTube videos most of the time as we have side by side tv setups in living room. I tend to get deeply focused on whatever it is I’m doing and get annoyed easily if I get interrupted. My SO frequently will start talking to me about her day, or a book she is reading while I’m focused on something else and notice I was annoyed by my facial expression and get upset. I didn’t say anything or sigh, or any other outward sign that I was annoyed. Just my face, unintentionally. This would cause a big argument that at times lasted days. After this happened a few times I stopped playing or watching anything engaging while she was still awake to prevent the entire situation. If I’m not engaged in a task, I can’t be interrupted and therefore, won’t be annoyed, right? This has been working well, until tonight. I had put on an 8 minute video after we had spent about an hour talking and making dinner, and she interrupted, told me stories about her work for awhile, then noticed my face looked annoyed, and I was slightly annoyed at her timing but that’s all. We started arguing and I told her about how I haven’t been doing engaging tasks while she’s awake to prevent this exactly and she is now upset to find out this information, but I don’t know why. I feel like I made the most logical choice to prevent an argument and it was working for the most part. Am I the a hole?
INFO: is this routine pretty much the way your life is? Or do the two of you go on regular date nights and/or spend quality time together?
NTA. Sounds like you’re being considerate but accidentally communicating you think talking to her is a chore and you’re sacrificing fun things you’d rather be doing. That could be hurtful.
To add….Good luck, I haven’t solved it, I get annoyed being interrupted and husband finds it annoying I “ignore” him. I should follow your post for constructive tips.
She is able to multitask, she can watch something, or game, or whatever, and also tell you a story simultaneously. She’s upset because you’re telling her that you don’t want any interaction while you watch things, and also that you know she’s always going to interrupt you.
You didn’t say that you were prioritizing time with her, which might have made everything better. Instead you said that you don’t want to do anything for yourself because she will ruin it. Or at least that’s how she has interpreted it.
Talk to her. Properly.
INFO: did you ever directly ask her beforehand to please not interrupt you when you’re focused on something else and tell her why, or did you just change your habits and not tell her why until now? If this is the first time you’ve told her, then it’s kinda on you, because you should have told her about disliking the interruptions rather than assuming she’d put 2 and 2 together. If you did tell her before this most recent incident, then it’s more on her because you had told her this was an issue.
Have you been assessed for neurodivergence? Because the suppressed fury at being interrupted during focus is very ADHD coded, and the very reasonable but very blunt way that you explained yourself is very autistic coded.
(Source: I have ADHD and my husband’s on the spectrum! 😅)
I am a neurotypical married to a neurospicy and out of the 2 of us, I am the one who gets supremely annoyed by interruptions. Not him. He doesn’t see reading or watching tv as “doing something” so he feels like he can interrupt me with whatever random thoughts fly around his adhd brain.
You’re framing this as “I avoid doing things I would like to do while you’re awake because when you interrupt me doing them it’s annoying and not doing anything engrossing is the only way I can keep the peace” and that is why she is upset, you hurt her feelings. The fact that you say your partner of eight years wanting to talk about her day while you’re watching a youtube video is worthy of being met with visible annoyance makes me think this is a bait post because that is almost too emotionally obtuse to be believable… and sure enough, this account is completely empty.
If she’s doing it excessively maybe you guys can talk and come to some sort of an agreement about how to work around this by setting boundaries about interrupting you during certain activities or too frequently without a good reason, but if you’re really irritated by any interruptions to your hobbies at all I question why you want to live with another person. Ultimately you should work on using your words respectfully like an adult instead of being passive agressive.
I’m going out on a limb and saying YTA. You have a human next to you wanting to build a connection, and you’re prioritizing screens over an actual human connection.
We all need our time to decompress. That’s fair. But say your needs out loud to her, like an adult, and work towards a compromise.
Unless you don’t want this relationship to work, then keep doing exactly what you’re doing.
You’ve made a false assumption. OP spends hours each day engaged and building connection. Expecting an 8 minute break is NOT too much to ask.
My mom used to chat all through movies that SHE wanted to watch. I have no memory of the movie, but I do miss her chatting.
NAH, but you guys need to communicate better. Your actions are unintentionally communicating to her that she is just a distraction from what you actually want to be doing, and that the only way to make her happy is not to let yourself have fun when she is around. You need to both sit down and a time when everything is calm and explain that you DO want to hear about her day and spend time with her, but that you also need to set aside some time for doing your own thing. Schedule some date time each week, and figure out what works for you each day. Maybe you each spend half an hour before bed on your own thing, or whatever works for both of you. But also, remember that she’s your wife and she loves you, and you love her, and the fact that she wants to talk to you is a good thing. Reframe it in your mind from “I’m being kept from something I want to do” to “I am doing something ELSE I like to do”.
If you want to do something uninterrupted then go be alone and close the door
To add to my original post. We do go out on regular dates, watch shows and play games together, cook dinner together and take care of our family and each other very well. I am only talking about certain circumstances. If I watch something or play a game that requires a lot of strategy or a high degree of concentration. It’s hard to learn the physics behind turning water into a solid state at room temperature if you aren’t able to pay full attention. Just as an example. I will pause what I’m doing and give her my full attention until she has said what she wants to say. But after several times of having to pause I would get a little frustrated. So I postpone those type of things until after she goes to bed and do it later. I work nights and tend to stay up several hours later that anyone else.