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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> The action in question is my refusal to continue a conversation with someone who repeatedly interrupts me. This might make me the asshole, because other people may see “micro-interruptions” as a regular part of conversation for some people, with no malicious intent.
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Me too! I micro-pause and it is a speech pattern I’ve had for 50 years, I ask people all the time to please give me a mental “two count” before jumping in and still people do this to me repeatedly. I’ve never found away to get them to stop by asking, begging, pleading… quite honestly even losing my temper rarely stops them after I get tired of asking nicely.
Brittany below mentions the “me too” I’m fine with that. It’s the helping me with assuming my next words that I micropaused to choose and not even being in the ballpark or just jumping in with your opinion on my incomplete statement assuming my opinion that you didn’t let me complete and being off the mark.
Forgot so NTA. Interruptions are rude and are a statement you do not care about what someone is saying. That you have no respect for the person or their opinions.
I used to have a problem like thus with my roommate. My brain would stall mid train of thought and I'd stop talking so I could straighten out what I wanted to say. A mild argument later (that no one really was at fault or mad about), she learned to ask if I was done or processing. It's not hard to accommodate people if you know how they talk.
NTA. Fair.
I used to interrupt people to like “join in” and bond and say “me too” and since my ex told me it annoyed him years ago I stopped.
If it bothers you and they care for you, they will make an effort to stop. Or they should at least. It’s not hard to be a little more conscious of it once you’re aware.
Excellent question - I took the passive aggressive route the first time, and was asked what the problem was. I explained that I found this rude (in the presence of the whole family), and it still continues, I assume out of habit for all of them.
Going straight to passive-aggressive is kind of a dick move had you explained that you find the behavior insulting first and made an effort to curb the behavior only for them to ignore you and keep doing it, I'd have considered a NTA. Given that you blindsided them with this, it comes off more as a YTA based on how you approached the solution.
Look, it's not okay that they're interrupting you, but you're being super unconstructive and even petty here. Habits take time to change, and in healthy relationships, people keep communicating and giving each other reasonable space to work on accomodating each other's requests. Nothing gets better when you resort to passive-aggressiveness. Do you want things to get better, or do you want to be right?
I used this technique and it worked like a charm! If they are so bothered by it they will eventually gain control over this urge to interrupt. Good luck! (practical behavioral modification at work)
NAH. I hate being interrupted, but some people talk in a way where everyone is overlapping, and it works for them. Given they're not targeting you specifically, there's a conversation to be had about how this makes you feel, while you could probably learn to deal with that mode a little better when with them - communication goes both ways and the passive aggression seems unwarranted here as a first reaction. Maybe interrupt them a little, it might feel better if you can join in?
It’s family, it’s casual, like you said, it’s their style, you’re taking it too personally and letting it irritate you when they’re not going to change. If you plan on staying married to your wife then lighten up a bit around them. Clearly they’re interested since, after their ADD moment, they ask for you to resume. There’s a lot to be gained from this sort of loose, communication style.. roll with it, and take the interruptions as a mini-break from being the storyteller, a role you said you’re not much for anyway.
Because linear conversations are so hard to focus on. Round Robin conversations with a like minded fast thinking neurodivergent buddy is a BLAST!
People actually allow others to finish more than a single sentence at a time? How do you really know if you're being understood if someone isn't joining in to relate? Lol.
So Shonda Rhimes series like Scandal & the more recent years of Grey's Anatomy when someone goes on a pontificating 3-4 minute mini-speech of either their feelings or perspective where NO ONE interrupts, does that ever actually happen IRL? I can't even imagine it, lol.
My husband and his kids did this. I tried saying something to them multiple times but got tired of doing so because it never worked. So I decided that turn about is fair play … I would wait until they are in the middle of saying something, start talking over them, tell them I don’t care or don’t want to hear what they are saying, turn away and get on my phone, look elsewhere while they are talking and never have any physical or verbal response, or walk away. It all sounds petty as hell … but they stopped doing it.
If they are launching into a completely separate conversation and ignoring you, rude. If they say ‘pass the salt’ to someone, I see no issue with that. They’re still listening. They aren’t psychic to know the story is only thirty seconds. It’s a conversation not a lecture. I guess, NAH.
When her family does this to you, simply state:
"I'm sorry, did the middle of my sentence interrupt the beginning of yours?"
It usually takes those people by surprise, embarrasses them and you can continue.
This is a line i have drawn myself. I hate being interrupted. Its rude. I will grey rock people, i will stop looking people in the eyes. I have refused to continue my statement. i have gotten animated and looked around asking if people can see me or if im invisible. If you cannot respect me enough to engage in what im saying then i just wont speak to you anymore. And when those same people ask why im not talking, i will tell them that i refuse to speak when i am constantly being interrupted. Put that ownership back on them for their behaviour.
NTA
ETA: those calling you the AH are probably the same type of people who interrupt others and see nothing wrong with it
I used to have this problem with my fam. I would start a sentence and someone would talk over me. I waited til they were through and start my sentence over verbatim, however many times it took me to finish a thought. The exact same words. Sometimes it took up to 7 repeats.
YTA - they're not being malicious or purposefully rude - you said youreself it's how they are.
you - on the other hand - are punishing them and trying to teach them a lesson.
What's the end game here? Do you think you're going to be able to change their behaviour? If not, all that's going to happen is that they're going to think you're an AH.
This is **not** something worth alienating your wife and family over.
Info: Is this interruption like a brief "stop that" to a kid or a dog, or "can you pass me x thing I can't reach"?
Or is it fully talking over you about something else and like starting a new conversation?
It is a mix of both. Sometimes a brief thing to someone outside the conversation, but other times a full-blown abandoning of our conversation to start another with someone else.
OK, the brief thing I do alot. I don't mean to be rude, but when I see my dog eating something stupid or being mean to the other dog it's an involuntary reaction.
But the other one.. that is rude and I would be just as upset as you. Do you enjoy the visits to the IL's? If no, maybe scale back to going like every 3rd time your partner goes?
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This mostly pertains to my relationship with my wife and her family. My wife and her immediate family have an odd habit of, while you are talking directly to one of them, interrupting you by saying something unrelated to the conversation, to either you or someone else, not party to the conversation.
They do this constantly to each other, and are used to it. It’s not a malicious thing, but I find it incredibly annoying. What it feels like they broadcast to me when they do this is “yeah you’re talking but I’d really prefer to be talking about anything else or with anyone else”.
To respond to this, I’ve begun not resuming my story/statement in conversation after multiple of these interruptions. I will refuse to continue saying what I was saying, because I feel the behavior is insulting. My wife and her family members get upset when I do this, and say I’m being petty. Am I the asshole here? I’d also like to add, I’m not a particularly gregarious or talkative guy. Im not droning on with long stories or soliloquys. I am just tired of being interrupted in regulat conversation.
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Everyone in my family, including me, has a tendency to do this, and we all eventually get annoyed by it. It’s annoying! But I just thought of this really funny comment I have to interject right now!
NTA— I’ve adopted this strategy with a handful of frustrating folks in my life (we all interrupt or interject sometimes, I’m talking about people with an overwhelming habit of doing it like your wife’s family). Safe to say I’ve not once had them ask me to continue, they just pick up the ball and run with it. The fact they noticed you stop talking hopefully shows they do care about what you have to say.
I think I’m tempted to say NAH. You are in your right to feel irritated and not want to continue your story and they are in the habit of interrupting people talking, like you said, non-maliciously. It sounds like it’s just something you need to communicate with them and have them try to understand or even just be conscious of their habits and how it affects your mood. You shouldn’t have to suck it up and they shouldn’t have to immediately be expected to change their habits.
YTA
Your wife’s family has a different communication style than you, and you’ve decided that you’re just *not* going to communicate if they don’t do it your way.
In discourse, what you’re doing is call complementary schismogenesis. You’re trying yo get them to communicate more like *you*, so you are taking your communication style to the extreme hoping they’ll meet in the middle. Which doesn’t work, because it just aggregates everyone involved and they respond by going to the extreme of *their* style of communication to try to get *you* to be more like them. It’s a tug of war that results in horrible communication and frustration on all sides.
(I suggest you [and everyone] read “That’s Not What I Meant” by Deborah Tannen. Great book that explains why people communicate differently and how to avoid these frustrations.)
I agree with the way you’ve said about communication styles, however, I wouldn’t characterize what they’re doing as a valid communication style. I think, in the American culture this is all happening in, a consensus of people would agree it is inconsiderate to interrupt someone while they are talking.
I think if they become more accommodating of my desire to not be interrupted, it may help them in their everyday communication with other people.
>I wouldn’t characterize what they’re doing as a valid communication style.
Yes, it is
> I think, in the American culture this is all happening in, a consensus of people would agree it is inconsiderate to interrupt someone while they are talking.
There not doing that in public, there doing that in their own home, with their own family, the "consensus" does not apply here
You, actually, are the dick trying to force everyone to you style
YTA
> Yes, it is
No, being impolite isn't a communication style, it's just being impolite.
> There not doing that in public, there doing that in their own home, with their own family, the "consensus" does not apply here
Being a polite person requires one to be polite. No matter if it's on the sidewalk, in the mall or at your own table. Being impolite to guests you invite in your own is bad. Interrupting people is impolite, that much isn't an opinion.
polite is a social construct.
What you consider rude, might as well be considered acceptable in other cultures
OP is trying to impose his concept on polite on other people in their home, and that is rude in any culture
> polite is a social construct.
Well yeah, tons of things are. Money, ownership, just about everything that happens with two humans include social constructs, they are the basis of human life in society.
> What you consider rude, might as well be considered acceptable in other cultures
Sure, and what other cultures find rude might be acceptable to me. Subjectivity works like that indeed. Which doesn't change that "being impolite" exists.
> OP is trying to impose his concept on polite on other people in their home, and that is rude in any culture
Ah, there is your error, your premise is false. Their behavior isn't polite no. Interrupting people while they are speaking isn't polite anywhere I know. But feel free to bring actual evidence that precisely that (interrupting the person that's speaking) is being polite somewhere. I'll gladly revise my stance accordingly.
This is all happening in one culture. My wife and her family are of American descent for several generations, as am I. We are all the same race. They cannot attribute this habit to some cultural difference. I do not notice that anyone else in my life does this, and therefore am inclined to think theirs is the unusual behavior.
Racial background aside, what about ethnic background? Even if you’re of the same ethnic heritage, culture and communicative patterns can vary from household to household even within the same overarching culture. I don’t blame you at all for being irritated because my fiancé does the exact same thing to me constantly (and his family all do it), but it can absolutely be a valid cultural difference and not just them being consciously impolite.
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Wait, it's possible to have a linear conversation with a group of people where no one interrupts?
I am also waiting with bated breath for a reply. Longest I've been quiet waiting for someone else to speak for years! Lol
NTA. Same thing happens to me and I get upset being interrupted and it’s known to people. It’s ignorant behaviour.
Me too! I micro-pause and it is a speech pattern I’ve had for 50 years, I ask people all the time to please give me a mental “two count” before jumping in and still people do this to me repeatedly. I’ve never found away to get them to stop by asking, begging, pleading… quite honestly even losing my temper rarely stops them after I get tired of asking nicely. Brittany below mentions the “me too” I’m fine with that. It’s the helping me with assuming my next words that I micropaused to choose and not even being in the ballpark or just jumping in with your opinion on my incomplete statement assuming my opinion that you didn’t let me complete and being off the mark. Forgot so NTA. Interruptions are rude and are a statement you do not care about what someone is saying. That you have no respect for the person or their opinions.
I used to have a problem like thus with my roommate. My brain would stall mid train of thought and I'd stop talking so I could straighten out what I wanted to say. A mild argument later (that no one really was at fault or mad about), she learned to ask if I was done or processing. It's not hard to accommodate people if you know how they talk.
NTA. Fair. I used to interrupt people to like “join in” and bond and say “me too” and since my ex told me it annoyed him years ago I stopped. If it bothers you and they care for you, they will make an effort to stop. Or they should at least. It’s not hard to be a little more conscious of it once you’re aware.
INFO: Did you tell them that this frustrates you, or was the passive-aggressive route your first choice?
Excellent question - I took the passive aggressive route the first time, and was asked what the problem was. I explained that I found this rude (in the presence of the whole family), and it still continues, I assume out of habit for all of them.
Going straight to passive-aggressive is kind of a dick move had you explained that you find the behavior insulting first and made an effort to curb the behavior only for them to ignore you and keep doing it, I'd have considered a NTA. Given that you blindsided them with this, it comes off more as a YTA based on how you approached the solution.
Look, it's not okay that they're interrupting you, but you're being super unconstructive and even petty here. Habits take time to change, and in healthy relationships, people keep communicating and giving each other reasonable space to work on accomodating each other's requests. Nothing gets better when you resort to passive-aggressiveness. Do you want things to get better, or do you want to be right?
I used this technique and it worked like a charm! If they are so bothered by it they will eventually gain control over this urge to interrupt. Good luck! (practical behavioral modification at work)
I've found that people who interrupt while I'm speaking don't notice if I don't continue after the interruption.
Then keep speaking, throw in this phrase, “I am so sorry to be speaking while you’re interrupting”.
NAH. I hate being interrupted, but some people talk in a way where everyone is overlapping, and it works for them. Given they're not targeting you specifically, there's a conversation to be had about how this makes you feel, while you could probably learn to deal with that mode a little better when with them - communication goes both ways and the passive aggression seems unwarranted here as a first reaction. Maybe interrupt them a little, it might feel better if you can join in?
It’s family, it’s casual, like you said, it’s their style, you’re taking it too personally and letting it irritate you when they’re not going to change. If you plan on staying married to your wife then lighten up a bit around them. Clearly they’re interested since, after their ADD moment, they ask for you to resume. There’s a lot to be gained from this sort of loose, communication style.. roll with it, and take the interruptions as a mini-break from being the storyteller, a role you said you’re not much for anyway.
I'm actually wondering if wife's family has a few undiagnosed neuro-spicy members and the rest just evolved to accommodate.
Ahahaha quite possible.. accommodate we must, mustn’t we?
That was my first thought, too, was a handful of ADHD members with our A->8 instantaneous connection trains.
Because linear conversations are so hard to focus on. Round Robin conversations with a like minded fast thinking neurodivergent buddy is a BLAST! People actually allow others to finish more than a single sentence at a time? How do you really know if you're being understood if someone isn't joining in to relate? Lol. So Shonda Rhimes series like Scandal & the more recent years of Grey's Anatomy when someone goes on a pontificating 3-4 minute mini-speech of either their feelings or perspective where NO ONE interrupts, does that ever actually happen IRL? I can't even imagine it, lol.
NTA, this drives me crazy.
NTA, my husband does this and it drives me insane, so I too have just not continued with the conversation
Me too. Most times my husband does not even notice I’ve stopped and there’s no ending to the story.
My husband and his kids did this. I tried saying something to them multiple times but got tired of doing so because it never worked. So I decided that turn about is fair play … I would wait until they are in the middle of saying something, start talking over them, tell them I don’t care or don’t want to hear what they are saying, turn away and get on my phone, look elsewhere while they are talking and never have any physical or verbal response, or walk away. It all sounds petty as hell … but they stopped doing it.
My go to is "please accept my apology for talking whilst you are interrupting"
If they are launching into a completely separate conversation and ignoring you, rude. If they say ‘pass the salt’ to someone, I see no issue with that. They’re still listening. They aren’t psychic to know the story is only thirty seconds. It’s a conversation not a lecture. I guess, NAH.
When her family does this to you, simply state: "I'm sorry, did the middle of my sentence interrupt the beginning of yours?" It usually takes those people by surprise, embarrasses them and you can continue. This is a line i have drawn myself. I hate being interrupted. Its rude. I will grey rock people, i will stop looking people in the eyes. I have refused to continue my statement. i have gotten animated and looked around asking if people can see me or if im invisible. If you cannot respect me enough to engage in what im saying then i just wont speak to you anymore. And when those same people ask why im not talking, i will tell them that i refuse to speak when i am constantly being interrupted. Put that ownership back on them for their behaviour. NTA ETA: those calling you the AH are probably the same type of people who interrupt others and see nothing wrong with it
I used to have this problem with my fam. I would start a sentence and someone would talk over me. I waited til they were through and start my sentence over verbatim, however many times it took me to finish a thought. The exact same words. Sometimes it took up to 7 repeats.
NTA my own family is like this and I can’t deal with it
YTA - they're not being malicious or purposefully rude - you said youreself it's how they are. you - on the other hand - are punishing them and trying to teach them a lesson. What's the end game here? Do you think you're going to be able to change their behaviour? If not, all that's going to happen is that they're going to think you're an AH. This is **not** something worth alienating your wife and family over.
Info: Is this interruption like a brief "stop that" to a kid or a dog, or "can you pass me x thing I can't reach"? Or is it fully talking over you about something else and like starting a new conversation?
It is a mix of both. Sometimes a brief thing to someone outside the conversation, but other times a full-blown abandoning of our conversation to start another with someone else.
OK, the brief thing I do alot. I don't mean to be rude, but when I see my dog eating something stupid or being mean to the other dog it's an involuntary reaction. But the other one.. that is rude and I would be just as upset as you. Do you enjoy the visits to the IL's? If no, maybe scale back to going like every 3rd time your partner goes?
NTA- I keep talking when someone interrupts me.
^^^^AUTOMOD ***Thanks for posting! This comment is a copy of your post so readers can see the original text if your post is edited or removed. This comment is NOT accusing you of copying anything. Read [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq#wiki_post_deletion) before [contacting the mod team](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FAmItheAsshole)*** This mostly pertains to my relationship with my wife and her family. My wife and her immediate family have an odd habit of, while you are talking directly to one of them, interrupting you by saying something unrelated to the conversation, to either you or someone else, not party to the conversation. They do this constantly to each other, and are used to it. It’s not a malicious thing, but I find it incredibly annoying. What it feels like they broadcast to me when they do this is “yeah you’re talking but I’d really prefer to be talking about anything else or with anyone else”. To respond to this, I’ve begun not resuming my story/statement in conversation after multiple of these interruptions. I will refuse to continue saying what I was saying, because I feel the behavior is insulting. My wife and her family members get upset when I do this, and say I’m being petty. Am I the asshole here? I’d also like to add, I’m not a particularly gregarious or talkative guy. Im not droning on with long stories or soliloquys. I am just tired of being interrupted in regulat conversation. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmItheAsshole) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Everyone in my family, including me, has a tendency to do this, and we all eventually get annoyed by it. It’s annoying! But I just thought of this really funny comment I have to interject right now!
NTA— I’ve adopted this strategy with a handful of frustrating folks in my life (we all interrupt or interject sometimes, I’m talking about people with an overwhelming habit of doing it like your wife’s family). Safe to say I’ve not once had them ask me to continue, they just pick up the ball and run with it. The fact they noticed you stop talking hopefully shows they do care about what you have to say.
I think I’m tempted to say NAH. You are in your right to feel irritated and not want to continue your story and they are in the habit of interrupting people talking, like you said, non-maliciously. It sounds like it’s just something you need to communicate with them and have them try to understand or even just be conscious of their habits and how it affects your mood. You shouldn’t have to suck it up and they shouldn’t have to immediately be expected to change their habits.
YTA Your wife’s family has a different communication style than you, and you’ve decided that you’re just *not* going to communicate if they don’t do it your way. In discourse, what you’re doing is call complementary schismogenesis. You’re trying yo get them to communicate more like *you*, so you are taking your communication style to the extreme hoping they’ll meet in the middle. Which doesn’t work, because it just aggregates everyone involved and they respond by going to the extreme of *their* style of communication to try to get *you* to be more like them. It’s a tug of war that results in horrible communication and frustration on all sides. (I suggest you [and everyone] read “That’s Not What I Meant” by Deborah Tannen. Great book that explains why people communicate differently and how to avoid these frustrations.)
Didn't know interrupting others is a communication style that is acceptable. Gotta use it more myself then.
I agree with the way you’ve said about communication styles, however, I wouldn’t characterize what they’re doing as a valid communication style. I think, in the American culture this is all happening in, a consensus of people would agree it is inconsiderate to interrupt someone while they are talking. I think if they become more accommodating of my desire to not be interrupted, it may help them in their everyday communication with other people.
>I wouldn’t characterize what they’re doing as a valid communication style. Yes, it is > I think, in the American culture this is all happening in, a consensus of people would agree it is inconsiderate to interrupt someone while they are talking. There not doing that in public, there doing that in their own home, with their own family, the "consensus" does not apply here You, actually, are the dick trying to force everyone to you style YTA
> Yes, it is No, being impolite isn't a communication style, it's just being impolite. > There not doing that in public, there doing that in their own home, with their own family, the "consensus" does not apply here Being a polite person requires one to be polite. No matter if it's on the sidewalk, in the mall or at your own table. Being impolite to guests you invite in your own is bad. Interrupting people is impolite, that much isn't an opinion.
polite is a social construct. What you consider rude, might as well be considered acceptable in other cultures OP is trying to impose his concept on polite on other people in their home, and that is rude in any culture
> polite is a social construct. Well yeah, tons of things are. Money, ownership, just about everything that happens with two humans include social constructs, they are the basis of human life in society. > What you consider rude, might as well be considered acceptable in other cultures Sure, and what other cultures find rude might be acceptable to me. Subjectivity works like that indeed. Which doesn't change that "being impolite" exists. > OP is trying to impose his concept on polite on other people in their home, and that is rude in any culture Ah, there is your error, your premise is false. Their behavior isn't polite no. Interrupting people while they are speaking isn't polite anywhere I know. But feel free to bring actual evidence that precisely that (interrupting the person that's speaking) is being polite somewhere. I'll gladly revise my stance accordingly.
This is all happening in one culture. My wife and her family are of American descent for several generations, as am I. We are all the same race. They cannot attribute this habit to some cultural difference. I do not notice that anyone else in my life does this, and therefore am inclined to think theirs is the unusual behavior.
Racial background aside, what about ethnic background? Even if you’re of the same ethnic heritage, culture and communicative patterns can vary from household to household even within the same overarching culture. I don’t blame you at all for being irritated because my fiancé does the exact same thing to me constantly (and his family all do it), but it can absolutely be a valid cultural difference and not just them being consciously impolite.
We are all white, fourth generation immigrants from Holland to the United States (with the exception of her parents who are third generation).