My husband\u2019s clicking jaw and loud chewing makes me want to scream. I\u2019m living with a horse. Meal times are impossible. Pre-lockdown I only had to endure dinner at the end of a day. But now it\u2019s three freaking meals and everything in between. In a small apartment I\u2019m going mad. He is someone who does not take on board personal criticism. Self-improvement is not on the cards. I love him but how do I navigate this situation?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eleanor says: There\u2019s something David-and-Goliath-ish about the way that the biggest things can be undone by the smallest. Strong friendships worn down by perpetually tardy texts, a mother\u2019s love tested by the thousandth time the chicken isn\u2019t defrosted, a marriage made difficult by the equine grinding of a jaw.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the last few months I think everyone\u2019s experienced something like this. Every tension in a relationship can kaleidoscopically refract and glint off one particular habit. Yours is not the only house where there have been glowers that could incinerate newspapers from across the room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some things just matter to some people in a way that\u2019s completely unintelligible to others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For me it\u2019s objects. I don\u2019t care if someone takes a piece of clothing from my cupboard without asking. If I lend a book I consider it given away. It took me an embarrassingly long time to realise this is not everyone\u2019s relationship to physical things. I still think my way of relating to objects is better, but that\u2019s not the point. The point is that once you learn what matters to someone who matters to you, repeatedly acting as though it doesn\u2019t is a way of communicating that they don\u2019t matter either. Your husband should care that this drives you crazy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You have to tell him. We all have to tell them. We have to say we hate the half-empty glasses in every room, how heavily they tread, or that you want them to close their mouth when they chew.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You don\u2019t need to make it feel like criticism. Don\u2019t let it become a battle between \u201cyou\u2019re insufferable\u201d and \u201cyou\u2019re too sensitive\u201d. Make it \u201cthis matters to me\u201d. You can even present yourself as though you were making a slightly unreasonable ask.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
People are more inclined to do something when you dress it as a favour, instead of an obligation. \u201cPlease make this change for me out of kindness, even though I know it shouldn\u2019t bother me\u201d is a lot easier to hear than \u201cyou don\u2019t do what I\u2019ve decided you\u2019re supposed to\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And once you\u2019ve said that, train yourself to notice every time he makes the effort, instead of every time he doesn\u2019t. It\u2019s easy to take big problems out on other people\u2019s tiny transgressions. If what\u2019s really bothering you is that you can\u2019t control your home environment any more, that\u2019s the problem, not your husband \u2013 and I fear the clicking might genuinely be beyond his control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He is (or should be) on your side in the battle to keep these times bearable. If you put effort into not seeing these noises as every failing compressed into one, he should put effort into keeping it down at the table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Don\u2019t let him become like the man who got divorced because he left dishes on the counter, whose plaintive recollections are a warning to us all: \u201cShe wanted to be my partner. She wanted me to apply my intelligence and learning capabilities to the logistics of managing our lives and household. I wish I could remember what seemed so unreasonable about that at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
theguardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My husband\u2019s clicking jaw and loud chewing makes me want to scream. I\u2019m living with a horse. Meal times are impossible. Pre-lockdown I only had to endure dinner at the end of a day. But now it\u2019s three freaking meals and everything in between. In a small apartment I\u2019m going mad. He is someone who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1460,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[219,503,1024],"class_list":["post-1459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ukrainian-cultur","tag-chewing-makes","tag-husbands","tag-ukrgate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ukrgate.com\/eng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ukrgate.com\/eng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ukrgate.com\/eng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ukrgate.com\/eng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ukrgate.com\/eng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ukrgate.com\/eng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1459\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ukrgate.com\/eng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ukrgate.com\/eng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ukrgate.com\/eng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ukrgate.com\/eng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}