Reader’s Question

My husband and I have been together for eleven years and have a recurring problem with our communication process. We’ll be having a conversation about something. My husband is a bit of a hog of the conversational floor. He ends up giving monologues about things, and at some point I will interject — in the beginning it’s usually to show I agree with him. The minute my words overlap his words, he holds up his hand and says loudly, “Can I finish please?”

Once he has “called out” that he’s been interrupted, it seems the only way to maintain the appearance of harmony is for me to sit quietly and pretend to be listening to him drone on and on, switching from one subject to another until he finally stops. Then he feels like I’ve heard him, but really I’m somewhere else by the time he runs out of steam. I have told him this is what happens if he insists upon hogging the conversational floor and initiating the interruption game: I pretend to listen because he is talking too long. I have told him I am not interested in being lectured. If I refuse to play his stupid game (which is the only thing I do anymore), then we have the “interruption conversation.”

This “interruption conversation” is always the same. Once my husband perceives that he’s been interrupted, he completely abandons the previous conversation and starts to describe the cycle of interruption (lots of “you always…”), as if I’ve never heard it before. This includes angry accusations that I don’t care what he’s saying, I always interrupt him, etc. My husband is ALWAYS the first person to call out being interrupted, although in reality he interrupts me at least the same amount, if not more.

I have heard this about 57 billion times before, and if I do anything except get quiet, then he gets all mad, sometimes sings just to drown out the sound of my voice, and refuses to listen to anything I say — at which point I get up and walk out. He’s 37; I’m 33, and now I am starting to avoid speaking to him at all, lest we engage our horrible conversational dysfunction again.

This problem is more pronounced right now because my car was just vandalized and is not drivable, so I can’t just leave the house anymore. We are both stuck at home most of the time, as we are both on unemployment, and that’s why this is becoming an intolerable situation. We’re both stressed out and seriously depressed because we are feeling trapped and very anxious about the future.

Can you recommend any steps I could take to prevent us from falling into the interruption trap yet again? If there is any way you could respond with something that speaks to him too, that would be wonderful.

Our Clinical Psychologist’s Reply

This is an interesting dynamic that you have presented, with plenty of finger pointing and head shaking! OK, this is an old fashioned scenario that goes back to the earliest days of our ancestors, grouped around a fire, grunting tales of hunting and gathering. This is not a new problem, in other words.

However, we have a tool that our ancestors did not have, and that is a stopwatch. Now, I realize that the idea of having to use a stop watch in normal interaction with your spouse may leave a less than pleasant taste in your mouth. However, it is not forever, and it will serve a purpose for now. It seems that your husband and you are not “really communicating” with one another. Instead, a kind of soap box dynamic has sprung forth in your relating. How and why is not the issue right now. What IS the issue is the fact that both of you have effectively stopped communicating. That is not a healthy thing for a strong, happy marriage.

So here is my solution–du-jour: before you both get going on your respective tangents disguised as conversation, I invite you to let him know that you feel he has been short-changed in receiving the “talking stick” lately, and in an effort to be fair and “compassionate” you feel that he ought to receive an uninterrupted ___ (fill in the time allotted) minutes to be totally heard and (hopefully) appreciated! Now, you will use this for yourself too — when his allotted time is spent. You both can then use your time as you see fit. (This is where the real stopwatch comes into play: you give him five or however many minutes you both agree on.)

If he decides he couldn’t give a hoot about the use of the “talking stick” then, that is grounds to renegotiate the terms of fairplay. The thing is this: with any rules of engagement, you both have to receive some kind of a perk for abiding. In his case, he will be able to talk uninterrupted — until his time is up. Then he has to listen politely to you, too.

If the two of you continue to avoid conversing with each other, things could get out of hand very fast, and that’s when lawyers tend to get involved. For both of your sakes, please give this a shot, if only for a brief period. It just may bring some peace and communication to your home and relationship. Good luck!