First of all, I realize this is probably more of a shortcoming on my part, but nevertheless, I am who I am.
My wife has gotten really into “romance reality” TV in the past year. In recent months, it has reached a fever pitch where she is just walking around with a show playing out loud on her phone almost all the time. Doing chores? Watching love is blind. In between a match while we’re gaming together? Blasting love island. I generally keep earbuds in so I don’t have to listen to it, and because Im sure she doesn’t want to hear my shows just like I don’t want to hear hers.
I make an honest effort to avoid the inane types of people who go on these shows in the real world, so to come home to what used to be a sanctuary and have to jam earbuds in and move all the way across the house to not be subjected to the dumbassery those people exude is exausting and has me at the absolute end of my rope. Its gotten to a point where I might actually go run errands at random times just to get some peace. I know she sees it as an “unwind” which I don’t understand but I can at least accept. I’ve made my position on these types of shows unabashedly clear on many occasions, perhaps being harder on them than I should be.
If she had kept watching her usual dramas it wouldn’t even be an issue for me, it’s just the endless barrage of utter idiocy and manufactured drama out of these people’s mouths that I can’t stand.
How can I go about bringing up that this is a problem for me without sounding like a “stop having fun” type or seeming condescending about her TV choices?
This is interesting… My dad died back in May and I started binging bizarre/paranormal stories on YouTube at work. Like, all fucking day. I wasn’t supposed to be listening to earbuds either. Nobody said anything (likely because I’m a manager) but I chose not to give a shit and just did it anyway at risk of my boss or my team calling me out. Then all at once I realized I was being a giant hypocrite, as I knew that if someone else did the same thing, I’d likely have to ask them not to wear the earbuds. I stopped wearing them entirely after that, apologized to my team, and moved on with my life.
I know it’s not excusable to just give myself permission to break rules, especially in a position of authority… But I think it was a weird coping mechanism that you just put into words. I didn’t even know it was a thing.
Yeah. I know because I’ve dealt with the same type of thing. I think the people telling me that I’m armchair-diagnosing this guy’s wife based on very little maybe-unreliable information and may not know what I’m talking about may well have a point, dependent on how much time she actually spends watching stuff on her phone.
But yeah that nature of the brain and the powerful draw of self-soothing with stimulating things is very real, irregardless of whether that’s actually what’s going on in this particular relationship.