Does she 'insist' on it or not realize she's doing it?

mrsconn23

Dear Prudence,

At social gatherings, my wife insists on dominating all conversation. She filibusters, goes off on random tangents, and interrupts anyone who tries to talk. I have told her this is not the way you talk to people, and that friends are offended by it. I am extremely embarrassed by this in a marriage which is otherwise fine. But she seems hard-wired to do this. How do I handle this?

—Throwing Up Hands

banana468

mrsconn23 said:

Dear Prudence,

At social gatherings, my wife insists on dominating all conversation. She filibusters, goes off on random tangents, and interrupts anyone who tries to talk. I have told her this is not the way you talk to people, and that friends are offended by it. I am extremely embarrassed by this in a marriage which is otherwise fine. But she seems hard-wired to do this. How do I handle this?

—Throwing Up Hands

Tell her you'll start to tell her when she's doing it in the middle of when she's doing it.  

VarunaTT

You know...this is the 2nd letter that seems to be a cis-man talking about his percception of a woman "dominating" the conversation.

Is she?  Or is she just speaking normally and you're not able to handle a woman, IDK, speaking?  Is she stopping people from interrupting her?  Is she holding a boundary of "I will not be a silent image for you to superimpose whatever you think about on?"

B/c honestly, I am always told things like this and it's usually from men who I can tell are not listening to me or will just start talking over me and I call them out on it every.single.time.  It's getting worse as I'm aging as well, b/c now I'm not a possible sex partner, so any sort of "attention" is not there or it's just absolute misogyny.  and I don't give AF about how they feel about it, it's rude, they're rude, and if they don't like it, they're welcome to just NOT speak to me or the people around me who choose to respect my presence.

banana468

VarunaTT said:

You know...this is the 2nd letter that seems to be a cis-man talking about his percception of a woman "dominating" the conversation.

Is she?  Or is she just speaking normally and you're not able to handle a woman, IDK, speaking?  Is she stopping people from interrupting her?  Is she holding a boundary of "I will not be a silent image for you to superimpose whatever you think about on?"

B/c honestly, I am always told things like this and it's usually from men who I can tell are not listening to me or will just start talking over me and I call them out on it every.single.time.  It's getting worse as I'm aging as well, b/c now I'm not a possible sex partner, so any sort of "attention" is not there or it's just absolute misogyny.  and I don't give AF about how they feel about it, it's rude, they're rude, and if they don't like it, they're welcome to just NOT speak to me or the people around me who choose to respect my presence.

As a daughter in law of a MIL (and FIL) who do this conversations with them can be mentally exhausting.